Tania Bellamy and the Robots group presented four workshops at the Kidz@Conference ICT conference today.  Mark Beaton also helped out with the sessions and the feedback the group had was very good.  Well done to all 6 children involved.

We also had 4 Y5/6 children who were delegates at the conference and went to a number of different workshops and found out about using all sorts of different software and technology.  Janferie Tansley and Kerry MacKenzie also attended a day of the conference each to learn about the kinds of things that the children were learning about as well.  They will then be able to share the ideas with other teachers back at school.

Channel 9 news also had an item that included interviews and shots of our children.

A big thanks to the team that put the conference together and well done to all the people from Outram School who attended over the two days.

Yesterday we took delivery of the new LCD screens that we have purchased for the classrooms.  They are 42″ and connect directly to the teachers laptops.  Room 6 were the very first to use one this afternoon to share the videos from YouTube they were watching looking at our Challenge at the moment of “Curiosity and Wonderment”  The children watched a video from John Glenn who was one of the first men to walk on the moon 40 years ago this week.

The children in this picture are discussing how they can show that they are exhibiting that Challenge.  You can see the screen with the movie they have just watched.  The TV’s are SOO much better than a projector as they are bright, clear and can be used in a well lit room.

We also had a visit today from Disa McLean our ICT PD Cluster facilitator.  Many of the teachers were released to work with her looking at ways we can incorporate just this sort of technology into our classroom programmes.  If you look at the sidebar of this site you will see links to all the different online places classes are using to support their programmes.

We were in the finals of the Full Primary 10-a-side rugby tournament yesterday.  We came second in the competition overall and the team played really well in all the games.

On Tuesday we had a great day with Tony Ryan the australian educator.  I have worked with Tony a number of times in the past and have a huge amount of respect for his ability to gently challenge and push along people in their thinking about learning and teaching.  He is the develoer of the Thinkers Keys that we use  in many parts of our programmes.

There was been a lot of discussion on the day (and since) about the things we can incorporate and include in programmes as a direct outcome of the day.  A number of things happened on Wednesday – a real testament to the quality of the day I believe.

We looked at the Key Competencies from the new Curriculum, thinking programmes and ideas, and how we can be even more effective in promoting learning in our classsrooms.

Teachers Only Days are powerful learning opportunities and the day with Tony Ryan was a great success for us.

I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week at the Learning@School conference in Rotorua.  We had a range of great keynote speakers and I went to some really interesting workshops as well.  A real highlight for me was the Keynote presentation from Pam Hook who is a consultant in the North Island.  Often we have overseas presenters at these conferences, but it was great to hear from a New Zealander.  The work she was describing was as good (and I believe better!) than most of what we hear from the so-called overseas experts.

On my blog I have put the things that I found the most interesting and the learning for me as the conference evolved.  I have been to quite a few conference for ICT PD and as a principal over the years.  This was one of the most worthwhile!

We have wonderful things happening in ICT in NZ, and Outram School is part of this.  Few schools have  wonderful blogs like we have and classes this year will be using wikis (websites the teachers and children will edit and manage) to support their programmes as well.  If you look in the column on the right you will find links to class and school web presences.