St+Mary's+Catholic+School

Welcome - have a look at what has been happening at St Mary's Catholic School.


 * Term 4 2012**

Our Year 5 students are at camp - and the extra cameras we have are coming in handy. On Thursday we hosted the Principal of Waikite Valley School and the Lead Teacher from Kaharoa - who came to see how we set up our Ipads and what we are doing with them.
 * Week 6 Term 4**

The Curriculum Team in charge of ICT and Thinking met on Thursday and looked at the results a self review using the "Developing an eProfile" document. Then we used the Elearning Planning Framework to come to an agreement of where we currently think the school is at - and this then clearly indicates our next steps. We also looked at our strategic plan and started to look at what we might focus on re elearning at our school in 2013.

The School Production - the Elves and the Shoemaker is on this week and we are selling CD's of photos taken at the show and DVD's of a video of the show. We hired lighting and sound gear for the show - what a difference this makes - was well worthwhile. See our lovely photos on our school website [|www.stmarysrotorua.school.nz]
 * Week 5 Term 4**

Our ELL students have been busy using the Ipad to share their learning. This is an example of what they have been doing [|My story] National Goal 1
 * Week 4 Term 4**

On Thursday evening a group of 26 parents. students and teachers travelled across to Tauranga for the Made Awards. It was a fabulous evening with some awesome student work on show. We were very excited to come runner up in the Year 1-3 Music Video category. Congratulations to Kaharoa for their runner up award in the Static Image and for also winning the best male actor award - the guy from their documentary was fantastic. One of our parents who came is also a teacher and I am sure we will see some work from his class in next year's competition.
 * Week 3 Term 4**

On Tuesday afternoon our Principal and AP travelled to Apanui School in Whakatane, having been asked to meet with their ICT Lead Teachers then run a staff meeting about what we have done to ensure Ipads are being used effectively to promote learning in our school. National Goal 5

On Tuesday afternoon the parents of all Middle School students were invited into the classes to see the student's learning. There was an emphasis on the students being able to show their parents their online portfolios. There was a fair turnout from parents and even a few parents who had not been onto their child's online portfolio. This was just another attempt to help parents be more involved in their child's learning. National Goal 4

We are taking a break from our Ipad Users group meetings for a few weeks - due to school production and camps.

Some students have developed a short explanation to go with the new Rabbits at our school. They used little bird tales which a classmate had taught them after returning from a Tech Angels day. media type="youtube" key="3X6f7fGKVmc?rel=0" height="315" width="420" National Goal 1

Many classes are working on improving their home school partnership. Some teachers email weekly newsletters from the teacher to the parents to let them know what is planned for the week ahead. Quite a number of teachers are new to blogging this year and are using the class blogs to keep parents informed. An [|example]from Room 5. National Goal 4
 * Week 2 Term 4**

On Tuesday our Principal went to Wellington to meet with other Catholic Principals, the Catholic Education Office and Microsoft. They were looking at the possibility of using Microsoft 365 as a space for Catholic Schools to share resources and communicate. National Goal 5

On Friday we hosted the Catholic Principals cluster meeting at our school. They asked us to share our journey with setting up Ipads in our school - what we did, how we did it, things we would do differently and tips and tricks. They they visited classrooms to examples of the student work being done on Ipads.

Our Facilitator was at school for a day, working with students and teachers. After school she helped staff complete the end of cluster survey online. teachers used their laptops to complete the survey in the staffroom.
 * Week 1 Term 4**

We have been busy processing new Ipads, setting them up for classroom use. It has been quite a big project but we are thrilled to have more available for student use. Great news to hear that three of our entries into the MADE Awards are [|finalists] ( one of the top 6 in their category) The Year 1 -3 finalist for the Music Video category entry can be viewed at Unwritten Music Video and the photos that made the finals are: Congratulations to Maisie Russell Year 4 - Canned Nature - Manipulated Images Year 4-5 Category finalist Alex Cameron Year 3 - Sunset - Static images Year 1-3 Category finalist We will have a group of 30 parents and students going across to the MADE Awards evening on Thursday 8 November in Tauranga.

During the holidays the school's two lead teachers attended the Ulearn conference in Auckland. They also attended the Google apps pre-conference day which was really worthwhile. It was also interesting to have this day hosted at Albany Senior College - over 300 teachers participating. Albany Senior College is a modern learning environment and it is certainly a school that Bevan and I felt we would like to have worked in as a student. National Goal 5


 * Term 3 2012**

A number of student leaders have been preparing presentations for the Leaders Assembly on Friday. Great use is being made of digital technology for this. National Goal 1 We will take a group of parents and students to the MADE awards in Tauranga in November - finding out who wants to go so we are all prepared with numbers when tickets go on sale. New projectors are up in the new classrooms. Now know that different projectors should be set at different distances from the Interactive Board - luckily we found out before they went up!
 * Week 11 Term 3**

Senior Team classes have held events to share their learning with parents/whanau. An example of how Room 5 have been using SOLO follows: Whanau Evening - SOLO example National Goal 4

The MADE Award entries have been sent ( see www.madeawards.com for more details about this National Media and Digital Excellence Competition). St Mary's entered in four categories: 15 entries in the Year 1-3 and Year 4-6 categories for Static and Manipulated Images I entry in the Year 1-3 Music Video category ( we were thrilled to gain copyright permission to use Natasha Bedingfield's song Unwritten - didn't come through until the last minute though!) 4 entries in the Year 4-6 Commercial Category. National Goal 1
 * Week 10 Term 3**

Dave has been at the Principal's conference in Melbourne.

Ipad users group looked at how they can make use of QR codes this week. Paula worked with our Junior School team on Thursday - more ideas to help with using Ipads in the classroom.

Meeting with some providers of ultrafast broadband - still trying to work out the best way of doing this in our school given that we already are locked into a phone contract. There seems to be some room to negotiate good packages and we have been looking at a 100mps down and 100mps up package.
 * Week 9 Term 3**

The Ipad user group met at McDonalds for their weekly meeting. Paula our cluster facilitaror joined the group and contributed to the discussion around what learning the group had done over the past weeks and any new apps which were shared.

The Geekforce group worked with a teacher on Friday to produce some commercials for the MADE awards. The students were really enthusiastic and the teacher learned about managing groups of students working on projects where they all had quite different needs. Here is a link to to the Geekforce website.

Great news on Friday - more funding gained to purchase some more Ipads. Thank you to The Southern Trust for your support.
 * Week 8 Term 3**

We also moved into our new office block after nearly two terms of building work. Have purchased some TV's for the meeting rooms and school foyer -watch this space.

The Board of Trustees meeting is next week. For the first time, our BOT Secretary uploaded all the meeting documentation on to KnowledgeNET. This is the second BOT meeting that BOT documents have been uploaded onto our LMS. Board Members have access to their own BOT area on our LMS. Interesting that at the last meeting some of our Board Members came armed with their Ipads. It is a period of transition - the data projector was used at the last BOT meeting to project the documentation under discussion but some still feel the need for a few paper copies to be available on the night. National Goal 4

Have organised our presenters for the next clustershare. After this event all our fulltime teachers will have presented at either one of our ICT Clustershares or Cluster Conferences. Well done team! Great support provided to those who are less confident to present an ICT session in front of other teachers too.

Had our Health Promoting Schools team meeting. Online survey being prepared using Survey Monkey and portfolio for accreditation is going to be done on a google site - we're being innovative and have had to wait for the go-ahead for this one... but it has happened. Showed our HPS Co-ordinator from the District Health Board what google sites could allow us to do and they are very supportive of us being innovative. National Goal 4

The ICT Lead Teacher from Westbrook School visited Anne to discuss how we have managed to implement ICT's effectively into all our classrooms.

Paula spent a day at our school. Our librarian was thrilled to have one and a half hour's of Paula's time to assist her with the library blog and ideas for making greater use of ICT technologies in our library. This is what our librarian has shared: "//I was thrilled to be allocated an hour and a half with Paula and had a very productive session, during which I learnt a couple of key things// //to enhance my library blog. Firstly, Paula showed me how to develop additional pages which I could use to promote things like library// //competitions, or research and reading websites. I am now working through further additional pages I could develop, which will be useful// //and fun for the children, and really build on our school’s reading culture. Paula then showed me how to create a slideshow, using Photo// //Peach, of photos which children have sent in as part of an extreme reading photo competition. I then embedded it, with Paula’s guidance,// //into my blog, and it has since generated some great comments, both online and face-to-face!//"

Today a teacher was out of the class for CRT and usually that means the class use of ICT is less than normal. However now the students can carry on using ICT as a tool for learning as these students did by using an ipad and adapter to connect to the iwb. It looks like the relief teacher is happy to be able to use the ICT with the children driving it. National Goal 1
 * Week 7 Term 3**

Anne worked with some John Paul College staff members on Tuesday before school - sharing a photographic presentation to give a snapshot of what is happening at our school re SOLO. Great to see that there is a group of JPC staff keen to find out more about how SOLO could be useful to them, particularly since most of our students move on to JPC. National Goal 5

We hosted the Principal and Deputy Principal from the Catholic Primary School in Te Aroha on Wednesday. They were keen to find out more about SOLO and the Concept Curriculum.

The Ell teachers have taken charge of their ipads and have been learning how to use them. Thye have set up an itunes account to sync and they have also set up email and webdav for sharing work. The students have been using the ipads to show their learning. Here is an example of the learning from a teacher. During a discussion about the ipads one teacher recounted a story about a reluctant writer who had produced more than ever before simply by using book creator on the ipad. The motivation had gone through the roof.
 * Week 6 Term 3**

The ipad user group met on Friday morning with a guest from the Museum also joining the group.

The junior team had an online training session with a trainer form elsewhere via Skype. This was significant because it was the first time some of the teachers had used skype at school. Feedback was that the training on ziptales was great and that skype was "So easy to use."

The Librarian and Assistant Principal have launched photographic competitions for students to enter. Here is a link to the school library blog - we are very proud of this. The winners will then be able to go on to the MADE awards later in the year.


 * Week 5 Term 3**

This week the Senior team share some of the things they have been doing. National Goal 4 Our class has been using the camera on the i pad to photograph events around school so we can then use them in class. National Goal 1
 * 1)  Room 5 have a new virtual class member who is giving instructions, and being part of the class. Great response from the students!
 * 2)  All class blogs are proving really popular and a great Home/school partnership [|Room 3] [|Room 5] [|Room 1] [] []
 * 3)  Room 1 revitalised their only2clicks site - now is working really well and providing a great start point as we focus on summary/research skills as part of reading
 * 4)  Room 3 are enjoying the opportunity to share thoughts, ideas and opinions through the forums on Knowledgenet
 * 5)  Room 2 Maths class have been using some great maths games that have the student so motivated they are wanting to use in their own classes
 * 6)  MathsBuddy continues to be a very useful support tool in the target maths classes. Students often relate what is happening in group teaching sessions to tasks they have completed on mathsbuddy
 * 7)  Room 1 continues to get very positive parent feedback from the weekly email/newsletter sent home ( see sample above)
 * Week 4 Term 3**
 * From a Yr3/4 teacher**

the children are required to read a story and then do at least one of the activities related to that story, I also use it often at the end of the lesson as a shared story. Room 10 have been using the basic facts on Tutpup or toytheatre as an extra activity when they have finished their learning activity in the class." National Goal 1
 * From a year 2/3 teacher**: "Room 10 have been using the ziptales website at least two times each week, as part of our reading lessons -

Year 4 Lead teacher : "I have pretty much handed over ownership of the class blog to the students. I initially taught one of our more able students to blog via the ipad and now she is going through a class list teaching all the other student. This has altered the shape of our class blog to be more a diary than previously but that is fine - it goes wherever it is best for the student's learning." www.room9learningzone.blogspot.com __**Friday:**__ The ipad user group met before school. The agenda was left quite open so staff were encouraged to share via the sharing circles. Staff were able to discuss tips and tricks they have learned. The group are using Google sites as a tool to share reflections, readings and other resources.

Paula ( ICT Facilittor) presented a workshop on Ipads. Prayer - Teresa shared a PowerPoint and wished staff well for Mary Mackillop day on Wednesday. Paula made a presentation to staff around different iPad apps. Paula showed staff her scoopIt, only 2clicks and other online spaces/resources. Some useful Apps: Tippy Memories -For writing prompts or any question, even solo type questions that the teacher wants to use. Multi layered, audio, visual, text and it can be emailed when finished. My Popplet - brainstorming app. Toontastic - story creator. Discussion about restrictions and synching ipads developed with Bevan, Anne and Paula answering a range of questions and demonstrating - including: The facilitator met with a range of staff to discuss blogging from ipads and other uses for mobile learning devices (ipads)
 * How to create folders
 * How to turn on and off installing of apps
 * Use of the buttons
 * Plans for future synching (class accounts at the beginning of 2013, once volume licensing in implemented)

Staff meeting on Monday - Lead teachers spoke about two items: 1. This Wiki and how as a school we should ensure everyone has an opportunity to contribute. This will help show a more balanced picture of ICT at St Mary's. Staff decided that each team should have a focus week, with ELL also being invited to contribute. 2. An outline of the I-pad user group was shared with the whole staff so everyone is aware of the process and has the opportunity to opt in at this early stage.
 * Week 3 Term 3**

After outlining his plans for the new Modern classrooms to the staff the Principal then asked for suggestions of how he could share web based resources with the staff. One of the Lead teachers suggested Scoop It After school on Wednesday the Leads and the Principal met in the staffroom to set up Scoop It accounts. As a result both Lead teachers and the Principal have Scoop It accounts to gather and share web based resources. The intended audience is the staff and BOT but it also serves as a place to store readings for later. The idea of Scoop It was first mentioned by Paula our facilitator. Principal,s Scoop It - Modern learning environment based Lead Teacher's Scoop It - 21st century learning Assistant Principal/Lead Teacher's ScoopIt

The Principal's Scoop It is I-pad based as he has taken to mobile technology and this is what he uses to access the web most often. More I-Pads have been rolled out to classes, we are just awaiting some more cases then all Ipads will be in classes.

The Middle Team have used a Learning story on KnowledgeNet to assess student's poetry recitals. This was part of the team's action plan for ICT this term. The benefits of doing this are - one staff member can make the template and roll it out to all classes; can be updated realtime; is available to students to view straight away; Is online for reflection; Parents/caregivers can see as soon as the teachers want them to; Less paper to shuffle/lose; models use of ICT by the teacher. National Goal 4

This week we asked our Junior Team to share some examples of how they are: 1) Increasing the capability of students Room 12 students using technology in their classroom
 * Week 2 Term 3**



2) Teachers sharing reflections and ideas Integrating SOLO - an example of how some teachers are incorporating SOLO in their learning activities



3) Teachers integrating elearning effectively across the curriculum What is happening in a classroom with everyday access to technology



4) Providing increased opportunities for improving Home School partnership National Goal 4 Using ICT tools to try and foster home - school partnerships through class blogs - keeping parents informed re what is happening at school Room 15 Class Blog Room 17 Class Blog Room 11 Class Blog

A great way start to the term - SOLO Professional Development with Pam Hook. Introduced to the Learning Intention creator tool and shown a number of new resources. Two of our new classrooms are finished and teachers moved in over the weekend - these classrooms have been designed to allow a modern learning environment. Some call them the orange classroom and the purple classroom! You'll have to come and see them. A request was put out on a class blog that the classroom was ready and the move was on Saturday - quite a number of wonderful parent helpers turned up to assist. Another plus of communicating via a class blog - and evidence that parents do read them.
 * Week 1 Term 3**

The new admin block will be finished in a few weeks so we have been planning what technology to have in the meeting room, school foyer and Principal's office and trying to future proof a little - hope we get it right. Quite exciting times really.

The students arrived on Tuesday and at 8.30 we had an Ignition event to start our new concept of Cycles. Before school students had the opportunity to visit many different stations and add what they knew about various cycles to banners - these are now displayed on banners in our hall. Some teachers have been in contact with their students over the holidays via class blogs.

Staff were invited to attend an introductory session on Friday before school to find out if they were prepared to commit to becoming part of an Ipad Users Professional Learning Community. We were thrilled with the turn out and the number of staff who have committed to attending at least 8 of the 10 remaining before school sessions this term. We have set up a google site for the Ipad users group and will keep an online record of our sessions. shared resources and reflections which all those involved can access. Our goal is to ensure we provide support and PD to make really effective use of the Ipads at school to improve students learning outcomes.

Over the holiday Ipads were purchased.
 * Term 2 2012**

We received notification this week that First Sovereign Trust Ltd are funding the purchase quite a number of Ipads and cases for our school. Great new! We are also buying some more for our ELL students. A Lead Teacher accompanied four students from our Geekforce team to a cluster Tech Angels day at Aorangi School. the students got to work with and compete against students from the other cluster schooles (except Otonga). the students were excited about the day and shared with other students what they had done throughout the day. Our team cam e 2nd in a online photographic competition. Here is a link to what happened on the day.
 * Week 10 Term 2**

The ipads are becoming more of an everyday item at school. Teachers and students are beginning to just use them for all sorts of things. Apps for Maths, Reading, Writing, spelling... Children are bloging and emailing work to their teachers. It's not natural yet but we are on our way. Here's an example of how students have begun to take control of the class blog from the teacher - yay! One more independent learning opportunity.

Here's a snapshot of how ICT has grown at our school. 

Pic is from a blogger dashboard.

13 of our staff have been babysitting an ipad while we await our covers so they can go into classes. There have been some great discussions around how usefule they are, how they are constatnly in someone's hands or "I need to get one." The thinking curriculum team have discussed that maybe those teachers who are interested in utilising these in their classes will be invited to take part in regular short discussion groups beginning next term. the BOT and ICT Lead teachers are to form a working party to plan for the implementation of more devices at our school. media type="custom" key="19394406" The Geekforce (Tech Angles group have been running lunchtime competitions for the Flight Controller App). There has been significant excitement amongst a group of students as to who can get the highest score. The students helped plan, advertise (posters and assembly) the competition. National Goal 1
 * Week 9Term 2**

Five of our staff are sharing at our Clustershare session at Kawaha Point School on Wednesday. One session is on how we are finding Twitter very useful for both communication with parents ( see the Twitter roll on our website on [|www.stmarysrotorua.school.nz]) and here is a of some of the ideas that will be shared
 * Week 8 Term 2**

The internet went down for a day when a workman on the building site damaged the connection**.** Made us realise how much we use the internet and how dependent we have become on having a reliable internet. This had an impact on most teachers programmes for the day - quite good to realise just how many of the teachers are integrating elearning right throughout the day in their classroom programmes. Check out the comment on [|Room 9's class] [|blog] re a day without the internet ( spelling not a strong point in the posting but look past that!).
 * Week 7 Term 2**

Technology is being used extensively in our RE programme and teachers are also finding it really useful accessing some of the songs and hymns we use at Mass via ITunes and You Tube. We noticed at our Mass at the end of last week how good the singing was - think we can give a great deal of credit to everyone making good use of the links sent to us by our Director of Religious Studies. Have also had technology being integrated more often into the morning prayer session for staff which are led by staff.

Busy week hosting two events at our school. The Making IT Happen conference for the two clusters of 12 schools took place on 1 June. We co-hosted the event with Glenholme School, having about 15 breakout sessions at our school. Our wireless coped very well with the influx of visitors and we made things easy for participants by removing proxies and firewalls for the day. Bevan, David B and Moira presented and Anne and Bevan supported visiting presenters with any technical issues.
 * Week 6 Term 2**

Seven of our staff opened their classrooms on the evening of 31 May for teachers on the Bay of Plenty Reading Association Magic Bus Tour to visit. Some very complimentary feedback received about our classrooms and the learning on display.

Five of our staff travelled on the bus and over a period of nearly four hours visited about 30 classrooms at Westbrook, Glenholme. St Mary's, Rotorua Intermediate and Otonga. Was a great evening of sharing ideas and work. National Goal 5



Anne helped Moira with preparing the presentation of her inquiry for the Accelerated Learning in Mathematics project. Creating a webpage on Google Sites worked very effectively for this purpose.

After purchasing a batch of new Ipad 2 devices they have been configured ready for student use. We are just awaiting protective cases so they can be deployed into classrooms. In the meantime this has provided a good opportunity for a group of teachers to take an Ipad home to have a play with. The goal here is for teachers to teach themselves and then reflect on how these are going to add to their teaching and the student's learning. The hard bit might be getting them back off the teachers once the protective cases arrive! We plan to develop a working party to meet regularly so they can teach and inform each other. National Goal 2
 * Week 5 Term 2**

On Wednesday evening we hosted an Activstaff training session attended by primary and kindergarten teachers from the Rotorua and Murapara areas. The session looked at making effective use of Activboards in the Arts Curriculum areas and some great ideas were shared. Check out the Partner section in Resources on Promethean Planet - it has some fabulous resources that we haven't used before. National Goal 5

The Senior Management team and Lead Teacher attended the Interface Expo at Taupo on 21 May, along with a number of other members of our cluster. Well worthwhile attending, especially for latest updates on wireless technology and office**365**.**microsoft**.com/ National Goal 5

Principal's thoughts on how the Principal is working towards National Goal 2. Besides participating in the ICT Cluster organised PD for Principals I have been involved in some personal PD and with the Catholic Principals from the Plateau Cluster of Catholic Schools. The Catholic Schools PD has revolved around the use of the digital resources and digital competencies and practices. I also attended a full day PD with staff from St Michael's School looking at utilising the RE Digital resources effectively. Personally, I have taken a particular interest in the use of Ipads to support learning for students and the use of the Ipad for my own administrational and leadership use. I have reviewed research on Ipad use in schools in Victoria and we have purchased 20 more Ipads for school. At school I have ensured all staff are aware of our ICT strategic plan and annual plan and ensured the Senior and Middle team have action plans for the implementation of elearning portfolios. We will shortly start using Successmaker and Lexia to assist students with their learning and At- Risk students in Year 5 and 6 Maths classes have access to Maths Buddy. The Junior and Middle School are using Reading Eggs and the Middle and Senior school have access to Ziptales - all online programmes to support learning. I encourage a team of people to attend events we think will help us successfully use iCT Technologies in our school - this is a deliberate move and means we can discuss what we have seen, what we think and the implications for our school as we travel home from such events. I feel this is a key tactic in enabling us to keep up to date and to also effect change quickly as we move to realise our shared vision.

Our Principal, Assistant Principal and ICT Lead Bevan were joined by cluster facilitator Paula and attended the Bring Your Own Device Conference at Orewa College, where all Year 9 students had to bring their own device this year, with the preferred option being an Ipad. Great sessions centred around the preparation for this move, the technical considerations, the pastoral considerations and management of the devices. On 15 May we visited Kaipara Flats School about 40 minutes north of Orewa where Cameron Lochie is Principal. He had just returned from a study tour to the USA looking at mobile devices and he has a 1:2 device ratio at present - planning on 1:1 by the end of the year. On the way home we visited Rachel Boyd at Waiuku to look at their new learning spaces and use of ICT. Great to meet Rachel as we have often used resources she has posted online. National Goal 5
 * Week 4 Term 2**


 * https://paulaspages.wikispaces.com/School+Visits**

On Thursday one of our ICT Lead teachers presented a writing workshop after school on Thursday for other teachers from our cluster. National Goal 5 Here's the outline of the session.
 * Writing workshop content**

media type="custom" key="18584610"


 * Week 3 Term 2**

On Wednesday evening there was a home-school partnership evening. Parents of Middle and Senior School children who need support with LIteracy and Numeracy were invited to meet with teachers to see some ways they can support their students with their learning. A number of useful online tools and how to use them, were shared with parents as part of this evening of drop in workshops. Maths Buddy was demonstrated and parents were encouraged to use KnowledgeNET to see what is happening in class and to add comments to support their child. Some parents were helped with accessing KnowledgeNET and their child's work. National Goal 4

At the Tuesday evening Board of Trustee Meeting the Board were shown how they could have their own area on our Learning Management System - KnowledgeNET. A Board group was set up and a demo provided on how they could use this are to display Board Policies, Board reports and agendas and articles that the Board might find interesting. Board members were also shown how they could use forums to seek ideas and opinions on a set topic. National Goal 4



At the Monday staff members our 2012-13 appraisal process was outlined along with the expectations for all staff to again have an ICT goal they work towards as part of that process. National Goal 3

Our Principal traveled with other Principals from the cluster for a day and a half PD in Auckland. By all accounts received so far it was a great PD opportunity. National Goal 2

Paula spent a day in our school on Wednesday and worked with our Librarian who has set up a blog for use by students - they could use it for book reviews and updates re latest purchases for the school library. Paula spent time with all staff that she has helped set up class blogs this year to review progress and reset new goals. National Goal 3
 * Week 2 Term 2**

The ICT Lead Teacher Day on Thursday saw Lead Teachers reviewing the progress towards cluster goals this year and sharing what is happening in their schools. National Goal 5

The Whanau Hui meeting on Tuesday night shared some great ideas - and they now have their own Facebook group as a result. The plan is to get families as members of this group and communicate notices through this. Had some discussion about how to best set this up so that it could be administered by whoever the Whanau appointed to this role - and be sustainable if personnel changed. The Facebook group is called "Te Kura o Hata Maria ki Rotorua Whanau" and can be found by searching Hata Maria. National Goal 4

The building project at school is well underway and we have "official student photographers" keeping a daily record of progress. We plan to make a photobook for the library with the best of the photos taken over the next two terms - as we get 4 new classrooms and a new admin block. National Goal 1

Room 1 is hosting a traveling mascot from a class they have contact with in New York. Students have been hosting the Mascot at home - so far it has been to the Magic Netball Game, to a farm and to some famous Rotorua tourist spots. You can read about it's adventures, as told by Room 1 students, on [] National Goal 5

Seven staff attended the PACT training session at Otonga School on Thursday after school. National Goal 3

We applied the idea gained from Mike Anderson, a keynote speaker at our Cluster Conference last year and organised an Ignition Day to launch our concept for the term "Structures".
 * Week 1 Term 2**
 * Ignition day - Day 1 of Term**

Students arrived on the first day of school to something very different from what they were expecting. From 8.30am - 9am every teacher, assisted by the school student leaders, ran a station which had a "hands -on" activity related to "Structures". A school assembly followed - what a great start to the term. National Goal 3 Created by Year 3/4 students using Pizap National Goal 1

Staff who have class blogs shared what they are doing with them during a staff meeting. The focus was on being able to improve home/school partnerships. National Goal 3 and 4

Judith in the senior school has used her blog to get students and parents primed for the term ahead by making a short video. National Goal 3 media type="youtube" key="CEjvPGSiY-Q?rel=0" height="251" width="448" National Goals 3 and 4
 * Many of the staff have started class blogs after meetings with the cluster facilitator this year.**


 * Term 1 2012**

ON Tueday four members of our Geekforce team accompanied the Principal to McDonalds to meet the other ICT monitors from the cluster schools. National Goal 1 Here they were given a memory stick to put anything related to ICT so they can then share with the other children later in the year. The children returned to school very enthusiastic. We will begin planning some schoolwide events around ICT early next term. Concept- structures. Students used an iPad to record their schools, names and ideas.
 * Week 10**



The staff linked up online with a presenter from Melbourne to be shown the online resources in [|Ziptales] as part of the staff meeting on Monday 26 March. The four staff members who presented at the Clustershare last week shared their presentations with our staff at the staff meeting too. National Goals 3 and 5
 * Week 9**

On 27 March the student leaders met before school with staff to brainstorm and share ideas for a special event next term. National Goals 1 and 3
 * [[image:DSCF0484.jpg width="256" height="192"]] ||
 * [[image:DSCF0483.jpg width="256" height="192"]] ||
 * [[image:DSCF0481.jpg width="256" height="192"]] ||

Over the last few weeks every Senior School student has been making a podcast. Instead of the normal speech competition this year the students have been preparing a podcast to share their learning about life in Roman Times. They have been very excited and motivated and all sorts of fancy Roman costumes and props have found their way to school. National Goals 1 and 3


 * Week 8**

On Thursday 22 March the Junior Team teachers ran a parents evening to provide parents with information on the Reading Programme and ideas for how they can support their children at home. National Goal 4 The invitation read:

// Dear Parents // // Would you like some tips and ideas for how to support your child in reading at home? // // If so, then the junior team teachers would like to invite you to join us for an evening // // workshop in Room 12 on Thursday 22 March from 5:15 -6:00pm. We will be // // sharing some ideas on how to make reading with your child educational and fun. // // This is also a great opportunity for you to ask questions and share your experiences. //

// An alternative workshop for parents/caregivers of ELL (English Language Learners) // // will be run at the same time in Room 15. This workshop will cover the same information // // with the different learning needs of English language learners in mind. //

// If you would like to join us please email us or contact the school office ASAP so we can // // prepare your goodie bag (be sure to say which workshop you’d like to join). //

// Looking forward to meeting you, // // The Junior Team // // mpinfold@stmarys.rotorua.school.nz OR karenb@stmays.rotorua.school.nz //

The teachers used Flipcharts on the Activboard for their presentation with both groups. Activ-votes were used with one group of parents - who thought they were great. Each parent was provided with a pack to take home - this included ideas and games to use. Parents were shown that they might find useful. This was a very successful evening with a large number of parents attending. The teachers were so busy running their workshops that no-one took any photos. These has been very positive feedback from parents who attended.

Received this thanking us for last week National Goal 5 All our staff attended the after school Clustershare event at Otonga School on 21 March. Four of our staff presented at this event.

Have received notification that Transfield are ready to start putting in the fibre link to the gate as soon as all the documentation is signed off.

Our Principal visited Nelson schools with all the other Principals from our cluster. The visit was looking at how to sustain the cluster once our ICT PD Contract finishes. National Goal 2

[] National Goal 2 [] media type="youtube" key="1a5QBKMoMqk?version=3" height="315" width="420"
 * Principals PD Trip to Nelson (Sustainability Focus) Week 8, Term 1**
 * Nelson Timeline**

Bevan, who is also an Activboard National Trainer ran a full day course at the Kura in Koutu on 23 March. National Goal 5

This week there has been considerable time devoted to supporting and coaching students and teachers in how to set up for peer feedback and how to provide effective peer feedback on KnowledgeNET. National Goal 4

On 15 March our two ICT Lead Teachers attended a workshop run by Tessa Gray on the Elearning Framework. We also hosted Dr Garry Falloon from Waikato University and Professor Lynne Schrum from George Mason University in the USA at this workshop and then at school. National Goal 5 They visited a number of classrooms to see how we were integrating ICT technologies in our classroom programmes. National Goal 3
 * Week 7**
 * [[image:DSCF1535.jpg width="192" height="144"]] || [[image:DSCF1536.jpg width="192" height="144"]] ||
 * [[image:DSCF1538.jpg width="191" height="143"]] || [[image:DSCF1541.jpg width="192" height="144"]] ||

On 13 March Tessa Gray (Core Education), National Facilitator for the ICT PD programme shared a provocative presentation on what Digital citizenship means and the realistic issues associated with allowing children and young people to access the Internet and mobile devices. Tessa ran a staff meeting then in the evening a meeting for parents which was attended by 43 parents. The focus of the parents meeting was on what parents need to be aware of (protecting one's reputation, social networking, sexting, online bullying, cybersafety), and the roles and responsibilities to support children to become successful, moral, ethical citizens online. Tessa also shared resources to help parents mentor their children with practical cyber-safety tips/tricks when using the Internet and mobile technologies. See []

National Goal 4



media type="custom" key="13287270" align="left" width="120" height="120"



See []. We have been given an e-Leader of the week award on the Enabling e-Learning site. //"This week it's ...// //[|St Mary's School in Rotorua] . St Mary's caters for new entrants to Year 6 and has//  //a maximum roll of 400 students spread across 17 classrooms.//  //[|They have recently posted in the Teaching group.] //  //Each week, we like to say ** thank you by ** nominating a community member for active//  //participation in the Enabling e-Learning / VLN Groups"//

National Goals 3 and 5

An update on Quadblogging from Judith - teacher of a Year 5/6 class. This term Room One has had an added incentive to have our class blog current and interesting, we have been part of a worldwide project called Quadblogging. Four classes from around the world are in a Quad. In ours there is us, two UK classes and a Canadian class. One of the teachers is the coordinator who sets the timetable. Then, each class has a turn being the Focus class for a week or two. During this time the other classes in the Quad endeavour to look at and comment on the Focus classes blog as much as possible. One of the advantages of participating in this project is that suddenly your blog audience is expanded, and that there are interesting questions and comments for the students here to read. I have really enjoyed connecting with other classes and seeing what they are doing. My class like the idea of students from the other side of the world reading their posts. We have just started our second rotation, during this one we will start on online Book Club as part of the blog. @http://www.rm1landoflearning.blogspot.co.nz and @http://www.charlestheadventurer.blogspot.co.nz National Goals 1, 3 and 5


 * Week 6**

Junior school teachers are becoming more aware of the need for students to be able **access resources** National Goal 1
 * easily. To aid this a number of classes have started using a only2clicks home page where teachers**
 * can easily add or delete websites and they appear in a visual form so students can access easily.**
 * @http://only2clicks.com/pages/stmarysjuniorschool**

Final arrangements were made for some visitors from Waikato University and George Mason University in the USA who are coming to our school on 15 March. They will observe the ICT clusters Lead Teachers session on the eLearning Framework and then visit classrooms at St Mary's National Goal 5 .

On 8 March all our Middle and Senior Team teachers attended the cluster workshops on SOLO. National Goal 3 This is what the Middle Team said on their return: //On the whole, the middle school teachers at the Clustershare seemed to be very // // comfortable with SOLO. We were able to share many excellent examples with // //other schools and it was evident that the schools that had worked with Pam, // // had a clear understanding of SOLO. We all agreed that we don't need rubics // //for everything. Surprisingly, many teachers stuggled with writing rubrics and // // in the group discussions that followed, it became evident that many // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;"> teachers were trying to cover a whole genre at once // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">i ////<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">n a rubric or even the 7 dimensions in the asTTle marking rubric. // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">We noticed that there were different expectations about the use of // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;"> SOLO between schools. Paula encouraged us to share resources that // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">we have made but that we should name what we do. As a groups, // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">we agreed that we all need more work around the higher order thinking maps, // //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">in particular, how to construct the maps for younger students. //

The Senior Team Leader shared the following: //As part of the Town and Country cluster, last Thursday groups of teachers met// //together to explore some of the ways we have been using Solo in the classroom.// //At the senior school meeting we shared information and ideas around the// //implementation of Solo in a senior classroom.// //Solo is a very useful and adaptable learning tool, it helps scaffold learning in a// //classroom to a higher level - regularly. It is possible to use Solo rubrics and language// //in all curriculum areas, although not everyone was doing this.// //One of the ways we at St Marys have been using Solo this year, is as part of our work on// //Reflection in learning - what am I learning? how do I know how I am going with that?// //and what's next?. The students have then been encouraged to record this thinking// //in their Knowledgenet learning journals.// //We also use a range of the Solo Hot maps when gathering and processing// //information and write our own rubrics to support student self assessment// //and teacher assessment.// //The language of Solo is perhaps one of the most useful aspects, as it allows// //a learner to quickly see where their thinking is.// //Another strength is that the mystery of learning is demystified! Very quickly,// //students are able to learn what they need to include in a piece of work,// //to ensure it is completed at a higher level- than perhaps comes naturally.// //I find Solo a very easy way to scaffold work, to assist with self assessment,// //to show students their Next steps and ensure as a teacher I have a challenging program in my classroom//

We spent an extended staff meeting on Monday preparing for our Term 2 Concept "Structures". National Goal 3 Rosemary Cathcart ran an hour workshop where we had interesting discussions about if chaos is the opposite of structure then what does random imply? Does structure arise out of chaos? We had to think - but what an interesting discussion! Teams then spent time talking about what they were going to do for the concept of structure next term and we continue to use the HOT DCM Planning tool. Next term for the first time, each team will have the same key questions - different contexts, different curriculum levels but the same questions. We have always had the same key understanding so think this is a logical move for us.

After our Principal visited a number of Middle and Senior School classrooms he reported back that he was thrilled to see KnowledgeNET being used by students in every single classroom he visited. National Goal 2

The four staff presenting at the Clustershare in week 8 have all added an outline of what their session will cover to the google docs document.

We ordered our 2012 Learnz Online Fieldtrip Handbook - which is sponsored by Solid Energy for schools in our area. National Goal 3 One of our teachers helped out another school who have just got Interactive Whiteboards National Goal 5

A newsletter we prepared has been emailed out to all schools in the Town and Country Rotorua and Rotorua Central ICT Cluster schools. National Goal 5
 * Week 5**

The Thinking Curriculum team ( responsible for ICT and Thinking with representatives from all teams) met and spent time going over the published version of the 2012 ICT and Thinking Action Plan. Team members all take on a leadership role within their teaching team to ensure we are striving to meet our goals. We will report back on progress to date at our next meeting. National Goal 3

All Middle and Senior team classes have been using our Learning Management System to share their learning. It is wonderful to see some parents have already started to comment on the student work in their child's eportfolio. National Goal 4

Some classes have been involved in Quadblogging this year - sharing their class blogsite and commenting on the blogsites of 3 other schools around the world. "//This term, Room 3 have taken part in Quadblogging.// //We are in a Quad with 3 classes from the UK. When we registered,// //we were grouped with classes from the same age or year group.// //Each class has a week where their blog is the focus for the group.// //We are now beginning the second rotation. Some classes have had more input than others,// //but overall the experience is proving to be a good one.// //We have had wonderful peer feedback to our entries, and the Room 3 students have// //had to think of good feedback to the give to the students on the UK blogs.// //It is a good way to promote positive feedback to others,// //it allows the students to put themselves in the shoes of someone else,// //and above all, is a lot of fun. It also really emphasises what works well on a blog and what does no//t"

If you check these blogsites you can see the schools we are quadblogging with. http://www.rm1landoflearning.blogspot.co.nz/ http://room32012.blogspot.co.nz/ National Goals 1, 3 and 5

Applications for ICT helper positions have been advertised on the school daily notices. Applicants have been emailing a Lead teacher. National Goal 1
 * Week 4**

ICT Lead Teachers from five of our cluster schools attended a 7.30am Lead Teacher breakfast on Friday morning. We managed to have a very productive meeting working out how to develop a Tech Angels programme across the cluster and sustain it next year. National Goal 5

Paula worked with Brigit, Michelle, Karen and Tai on the development of their class blogsites. They have all just started blogsites this year. http://www.stmaryroom17.blogspot.co.nz/ http://stmarysroom15.blogspot.co.nz/ http://stmarysrotoruaroom11.blogspot.co.nz/ http://stmarysrotoruaroom7.blogspot.co.nz/ National Goals 3 and 4

RE staff meeting - The DRS presented a flipchart developed to help staff with teaching the Religious Education curriculum. This included embedded songs and links to websites. This resource has been distributed to staff for use in their classroom. National Goal 3

Four staff have been invited to share at the cluster share coming up and all staff advised that they are expected to do one 10 minute presentation this year on something that they have found interesting/worthwhile/useful in ICT.

Bevan took ActivInspire training at Koutu Kura for local teachers. National Goal 5

All Middle and Senior school parents have been given their logins to the Parent portal component of KnowledgeNet. Teachers held parent information evenings on Wednesday night and provided a handout on how parents can use the parent portal of our LMS to view their child's latest STAR and PAT assessment data, view atttendance data and provide feedback on some of their child's ongoing classwork. National Goal 4
 * Week 3**

Managed to get all student data uploaded from SMS to NZCER Marking. This year it was SO much easier due to some changes on the NZCER site. If you are not using this resource for PAT and STAR data analysis it might be worthwhile having a look at it. We find it very useful. National Goal 3
 * Week 2 Term 1 2012**

Had some preventative maintenance done on our computers throughout the school. The desktops were all checked and you wouldn't believe how much dust was sucked out of those machines by the technician using his special compressor thing. Also reimaged all our Macbooks and have set it up this year so we don't end up with loads of files saved to individual Macbooks rather than the server. Why are we doing all this? To ensure our equipment is kept in good condition and works as efficiently as possible.

Pam Hook worked with our staff all day on 7 February ( Teacher Only Day) on SOLO. Feedback from staff very positive. Have you checked out Pam's new website http://pamhook.com National Goal 3

Four teachers and a teacher aide were released to work individually with our ICT Facilitator. Action plans were prepared and issued to each teacher and follow up in a couple of weeks will check how they are progressing with achieving their goals. National Goal 3

With a focus on giving students a voice to global communities more classes at St Mary's now have blogs. Room 1 Charles the Explorer Room 3 Room 7 Room 8 Room 9 [|Room 17] This year Senior and mIddle school students will have online portfolios and the Junior team will begin exploring ways this can be used from next year. All staff have had training sessions taken by our Lead teachers to familiarise themselves with KnowledgeNet. All staff had a session reminding them of the basic ICT expectations and routines at St Mary's. National Goals 3 and 4
 * Week 1 Term 1 2012**

Our new server (Smartnet) is up and running and the SNUP has been completed. After a minor outage of internet due to some faulty cabling under the Admin block the school is now reliable connected to the intranet and internet. Our N-Computing systems have been cleaned and the software has been updated during the holidays.

We had a busload of Korean Primary School teachers arrive at our school on Thursday afternoon - this was completely out of the blue! A bit daunting as the tour leader asks could they have a look around while about 30 of them are standing just outside the gate peering in. We coped and they were certainly very impressed with the amount of technology in classrooms and that this was being used by teachers and students as we walked around the school. National Goal 5

We had three Teacher Only days at the end of January - focusing on: 1) Making greater use of our Learning Management System and linking the feedback PD to this too 2) Looking at our school targets and ensuring we have action plans in place to try and achieve these 3) Formative assessment - especially around feedback and next steps. National Goals 3 and 4

Time was spent in the holidays dealing with a number of websync issues with SMS and LMS. It's difficult to resolve when there are at least three companies involved. Not impossible though and we were successful despite some frustrating times along the way. These companies always seem to respond very well to a thank you note sent once everything is working as it should.

Some of the SNUP upgrade cabling was discovered to be faulty so had to unexpectedly be replaced. Then the internet became super slow - less than dial up speed we were told. Not a great way to start the school year but it is all sorted now. Also had a new server installed in the holidays which seems to be great. Really appreciated the assistance we had from a number of people with this instal and the SNUP upgrade which is now finished. It's not only in the classroom that good relationships make a difference and we have really reaped the rewards of establishing good relationships with these people - some who have gone way beyond the call of duty to assist us.

In preparation for next year some classes have signed up to participate in Quadblogging. This will be an opportunity for students to engage in learning experiences with others from all over the world.
 * 2011**
 * Week 7 Term 4**

Rosemary Cathcart worked with the staff on Citizenship - our concept for Term 1 2012. Teams then had time to begin planning, using the Hooked on Thinking DCM planning template.
 * Week 6 Term 4**

Our Principal has begun to tweet - after one of the Lead Teachers demonstrated for a week. He has taken the plunge and is tweeting school information and notices for the community.

Room 1 have received some comments on their class blog from a class in New York - very exciting! See Rm1landoflearning.blogspot.com



A senior school teacher has begun exploring the use of QR codes.

Week 5 Term 4 Our website now has a twitter roll so the Principal can tweet up to date information for our community. Originally a Lead Teacher set up the account and has been tweeting on behalf of the Principal - to show him that this can be a stress free, effective way to communicate to the community. Our school website.

The Geekforce group (student ICT helpers) have launched a schoolwide digital image competition. There are two main goals for this competition:
 * 1) For students to enjoy learning new skills when using a digital camera.
 * 2) For students and teachers to further develop their ability to upload
 * 3) images and information to our LMS (Knowledgenet)

Some great and imaginative artwork has been produced by a class trying out new ICT tools while they work with photographs. Will try and get some samples to upload.

Week 4 Term 4 A middle school class has taken ownership of a set of ipods. The teacher is endavouring to learn how they can be incorported into her class' learning. The class who gave up the ipods have had withdrawal symptoms but they have also realised that it is only fair to let other students into the secret that learning with mobile technologies can be fun. media type="custom" key="11520762" Week 3 Term 4

The MADE Awards evening was held in Tauranga. Thirteen students and ten parents/teachers attended from St Mary's, along with our ICT Facilitator and a teacher and students from Kaharoa. What fabulous work we saw with the 6 best entries from each category being shown! Great evening and topped off by an Enrichment Class student, Luisa Egger, winning 2nd place in the Year 4-6 Static Images Category. The Senior Management Team spoke to the Board of Trustees about what they had learned at the "Leading a Digital School" conference they attended recently. What was learned from the conference and the implications for our school were discussed. This led to some brainstorming to help review our strategic plan. National Goals 1, 2 and 3 and 5

Alastair Cron from Bromley School in Christchurch visited our school to see how we utilise ICT tools to promote learning. National Goals 3 and 5

It has been interesting following some of the postings in the November challenge on the VLN. Suzie Vesper sums up some of the contributions to date with //"Something that seems to be coming through strongly from those that have contributed so far is// //that teachers applying// //for jobs would be in a stronger position if they could show evidence in a// //digital form of their own critical reflection on their teaching// //practice".// This is an idea we need to develop with staff next year and we need to delve further into how online resources such as the following can help us with this. http://registeredteachercriteria.wikispaces.com/ National Goal 5

Week 2 Term 4

Room 1's traveling mascot arrived in New York to visit the school that the class skyped earlier this year. Read all about his travels on [] National Goals 1 and 3

The School Network Upgrade work in our school continued this week with better than expected progress being made - 8 classrooms are now finished and the work continues next week.

The Senior Management team met on Thursday to prepare for a presentation to the next Board of Trustees meeting on the Leading a Digital Conference attended in Melbourne. Emerging trends and technologies were high on the agenda along with the implications for our school and the updating of our School Charter and strategic plan. National Goals 1, 2 and 3

Lead Teachers met on Wednesday and spent time discussing what they would like to see happening in the cluster next year. By Thursday we already had one of the ideas actioned - a cluster newsletter, prepared this time by our facilitator, but in future by our schools, to give an update on happenings and online resources that staff might find useful. Following this meeting three staff from Kawaha Point and one from Kaharoa visited our school - they were particularly interested in seeing some of the work in the Senior School team using SOLO. National Goal 3 & 5

Teacher Aides have been having their appraisal interviews this week and every one of them has had a goal that involved them developing their ability to make greater use of ICT Technologies with their special needs students. National Goal 3

Week 1 Term 4. Heard that we have an Enrichment Class student who has made the finalists in the Year 4-6 Static Images category of the MADE Awards - national digital media competition. Great to hear that Kaharoa have 5 finalists in the Year 1-3, Year 4-6 and Year 7-8 categories of Static Images in the same competition. There are only 6 finalists nationally in each category so well done Town and Country Cluster. We have a group of 24 parents and students who will travel to Tauranga for the MADE awards evening on 10 November. National Goal 1, 4 and 5

Four of our 9-11 year old students joined 10000 students around the world as they participated in the ITU World 11 international conference being held in Geneva. Ewan McIntosh and Tom Barrett co-ordinated the event. See http://world2011.itu.int/f21 for the session we were involved in. Due to the time difference between Geneva and NZ we were invited to contribute our ideas on disruptive technologies via Twitter. National Goal 1

October 25 - What a great and well organised cluster conference. Mike Anderson provided an honest and provocative keynote that challenged everyone to think critically about some of the things that happen in schools. Allanah King provided an entertaining final keynote that inspired us all to be prepared to take a risk. Staff also attended two workshops and feedback from staff about the day has been very positive. A huge thank you to Paula for all her preparation to make this day successful. Four of our staff were brave enough to present to their peers - we are proud of them. Thought you might be interested in this comment from one of them, which was spotted on Twitter " Very proud of the leap Karen & I took today presenting! May have to do that again next year!It was fun. But I was still freaking out. "Next time" will still be a big leap - and the time after..." National Goal 3 & 5
 * [[image:bevan.jpg width="320" height="286"]] ||
 * [[image:judith.jpg width="320" height="240"]] ||
 * [[image:karen_and_michelle.jpg width="320" height="240"]] ||

Staff ideas for using digital images Three staff are attending Ulearn conference in Rotorua. National Goal 3 & 5 Four staff are preparing to present at the Cluster conference during week 1 of Term 4. National Goal 3 & 5
 * Getting ready for Term 4, 2011**
 * Term 4**

In week 10 a class of Year 5 and 6 students held an evening book launch of the picture books they created this term. This was a very well attended function and parents and extended family were very complimentary about the high standard of student work. Having the book covers printed professionally by Mr Larkin from Super Dooper Print and bound professionally made the picture books look like commercially produced ones. Every student in the class will be issued with a copy of the book their small group produced.
 * Term 3, 2011**
 * Week 10**

Producing picture books about the Silk Road has been a big project for this class and is links the learning with the Concept Curriculum for this term - developing the students understanding of Globalisation. Earlier in the term the Childrens librarian from Rotorua Public Library came and showed the class some examples of techniques that authors and illustrators use to try to produce effective picture books. In small groups the students then produced illustrations and a story to demonstrate their understanding about Life on the Silk Road trading route. Once some groups finished producing their own picture books they decided to enter them into the MADE Awards - so needed to photograph each page and digitise the story. National Goal 1 & 4





In week 10 the Year 4 enrichment class visited Super Dooper Printing Company and produced their own journal book. Prior to their visit they used [|www.bighugelabs] to produce a cover of their choice and this jpg file was then used at Super Dooper Print on a desktop publishing programme. It was a very interesting trip – the students saw how huge posters are printed, how different machines work, how all colours can be made out of balls of ink (only four colours) which are melted and mixed together. They saw how the computer can ensure that exactly the right shade of a colour is used and looked through a microscope to see the little dots of various colours that make up the colour that we see. It was great having the chance to use all the equipment and develop a better understanding of the processes involved in commercially producing their own sample book. Some parents and two staff accompanied the students on this trip and were very interested in seeing how things are done in the digital printing business. National Goal 1

Anne attended the CORE education meeting for cluster facilitators at Tauranga Intermediate. The demonstration Science elearning lesson about the picture book “The Man Who Walked Between the Twin Towers” was very interesting and clearly showed how elearning can be incorporated across the curriculum to make learning opportunities effective. National Goal 2 & 3

Three enrichment classes of Yr. 4-6 students (involving students from 9 different classes at school) have all entered the MADE Awards national Digital Medial Competition. Most of the entries have been in the static images and manipulated images categories and some have been entered inthe Documentary category. The school has covered the cost of one entry per student and some students have funded further entries themselves. Some parents, students and staff plan to travel to the MADE awards on Thursday, 10th November at Baycourt, Tauranga so students can see the finalists entries in this National competition. National Goal 1, 3 ,4 & 5 Most of the students had limited use of a camera or had not been exposed to photography techniques such as the rule of thirds prior to this term. The teacher used the Tell us a story online resource which was introduced at a Lead Teachers day to help plan. The lesson content and resources were posted on KnowledgeNET for students to access. Students shared their learning on their Learning Journals on KnowledgeNET. The students received feedback online from parents and also from an expert who had visited the class. The ICT facilitator posted some of the student's images on her Photo blog ( see postings 266/365 to 274/365). It was great for students to receive feedback from parents as well as a professional photographer who is a parent. By having these posted online it created a lot of interest throughout the school with classes monitoring the site daily to see who would have their work posted next.[|Photo 365 blog] National Goal 4 During an ICT focused staff meeting staff identified their strengths and weaknesses in an attempt to promote sustainability with in our school in regards to ICT. The staff filled in a comprehensive survey where they needed to rate their understanding and skills set when using a wide range of applications and equipment available at school. This data will be collated and used to plan future staff training as well as identifying experts within our school. This will promote sustainability rather than having the Lead teachers as the keepers of information and skills. National Goal 3
 * Week 9**

Staff also discussed using digital images as a focus for term 4. This fits well with the school concept of Symbolism. Staff identified that using digital images will be a good way to develop student enthusiasm and ultimately learning outcomes will be further improved. Staff used iethepad.com to develop a range of uses for digital images,which could be used in term 4. [] National Goal 1 & 3

The Deputy Principlal discussed the move from Remote Desktop student management system that Musac currently offer to the Cloud computing application that musac will be moving to. He offered staff the path to install the required software and some staff successfully did this while others decided to do it at a later date. Subsequently all staff are ready to use the Cloud computing Musac option as soon as it is available. National Goal 2 & 3

Senior staff reported back to staff and to the Board of Trustees about their recent trip to Melbourne. National Goal 1,2, 3, 4 & 5 Staff were introduced to the EPIC resource and alerted to ways this could be used in teaching and learning experiences. National Goal 3 The teaching teams had time to work on their concept planning for next term, using the Hooked on Thinking DCM planner which demonstrates the deliberate integration of Solo and ICT. National Goal 1 & 3 Staff have begun reflecting on the ways their classes have collaborated throughout this term. National Goal 5 media type="custom" key="10527736" Middle school classes are continuing to use the Knowledgenet learning journals as a tool for learning. Teachers are beginning to use these in their reading, writing and maths lessons and are becoming more comfortable at giving up some of the precious time to allow for students to post learning, reflections and to respond to feedback. National Goal 4 Junior teachers have visited Kawaha Point Primary School to discuss their implementation of SOLO and other general teaching ideas. National Goal 5
 * Week 8**
 * Week 7**

The Thinking curriculum team staff, representing all levels of the school have begun a challenge to use twitter for professional development. At least three staff have actively posted on twitter, and are finding it interesting and insightful to follow members of this online community as a tool for learning. This curriculum team are investigating this tool as a possibility for whole staff professional development in the future.
 * Week 6**

Our Senior Management team and ICT Cluster facilitator spent the week in Melbourne, visiting four schools and attending the "Leading a Digital School" conference. Visited the following schools: Perkins and Harvard University)
 * Week 5**
 * Wooranna Park Primary School ( amazing learning spaces -
 * have never seen any classrooms that even come close to looking
 * like these ones)
 * Bialik College ( a K-12 school which is known thoughout the
 * world for being a Cultures of Thinking School - working with David
 * Silverton Park School which has won many awards for both Curriculum Innovation and Leadership.
 * Lynbrook School which has a huge emphasis on integrating ICT into their learning programmes.

You can read more about the thought provoking, challenging conference on __@http://learningwiki.net/groups/digital__ There was a big emphasis on the use of IPads for learning and all participants had the use of an Ipad for the duration of the conference. Interesting to see how much money the Australian Government are providing for ICT equipment in schools. Makes us realise though that we think our Government has the right idea putting money first into the infrastructure and PD for teachers. Saw some innovative equipment that we haven't seen in NZ yet. Felt the conference was very worthwhile and useful to go as a team so that we have a sharing understanding of future trends - it will help us with updating the vision for our school. National Goal 1,2, 3, 4 & 5 Our Principal now has an I-pad and is becoming more familiar with how mobile technology can enhance opportunities for learning. National Goal 2

In discussions with a Junior School Teacher it emerged that she had been using ICT creativly to engage her students during lessons by getting her own children (who are a year or two older) to record podcasts of books the students in the class would be reading. She then had the students reading along while they were listening to the recording, this helped the students by hearing children they know reading and made it achievable. It also had the positive spin-off of motivating the Teacher's children to read at home for a real audience. National Goal 1

The Same Junior class has been skyping a class in Belgium, to learn about their culture. This links well with our current concept of Globalisation and our ICT goal this term of collaboration outside the classroom. National Goal 5

The Principal and the two Lead teachers had the opportunity to visit other schools in our cluster over a two day period. It was interesting to see how other schools are using Solo to engage learners. The time to talk to colleagues was important and showed that what we are doing is good and that like other schools we just needed time to embed this tool in out teaching and learning. National Goal 5 On Friday Bevan hosted teachers from a Rotorua school and all the way from Turangi for Activinspire training. National Goal 5 This compare/contrast map was sitting on the printer in the resource room, a senior class had used it in a lesson earlier in the week. Thanks to Room 4 and Mr Bach for letting us show it. National Goal 1
 * Week 4**

Week 3 On Thursday Anne hosted a Cluster Workshop on the use of the Bighugelabswebsite. ** National Goal 1 ** On Friday a group of teachers from one of our contributing Childcare centres visited to see how younger children are using ICT"s to enhance their learning. Students in the Middle and Junior school were able to show how they use the i pads, computers and IWB's. This was a good opportunity to enhance community relationships and also provide guidance to a ECE which is looking at using ICT's to add to the learning of young students.** National Goal5 ** During Assembly on Friday a junior class used videos from Youtube to help the school learn and sing new songs..** National Goal 1 **

On 13 August Anne attended the BOP Educamp. See http://educampbop.wikispaces.com/home These links were shared with our staff - we really appreciate the willingness of others to share their ideas and resources www.mathzlinks.wikispaces.com [|http://basicfacts.wikispaces.com] www.litworks.wikispaces.com
 * Week 2**

Staff from Welcome Bay School visited to see how we are integrating ICT's into student learning and in particular the wireless system at school which allows for mobile
 * Week 1**

devices to be connected to the internet and school network. National Goal 5 Senior School classes and one Middle school class are continuing to use KnowledgeNET e-portfolios to show learning. These classes are becoming more able to give feedback to peers although technical issues have been hampering this to some extent. National Goal 5


 * Term 3 2011**
 * Our concept this term is Globalisation.**


 * [[image:app_harvest.jpg width="400" height="530"]]
 * **Teachers and Teacher Aides meet at an** **"iPad Focus"****group after school to share experiences** **and Applications** ||
 * [[image:SDC10554_1.JPG width="640" height="385"]]
 * Learnings looking at what Applications will** **support their** **Literacy programme** ||
 * [[image:SDC10557_1.JPG width="640" height="385"]]
 * Mobile learning - iPads and iPods - Engaged and empowered!** ||


 * 2011**
 * Click to view Principal's Report Milestone 3**

Teachers and students will make an effort to become part of the online Global learning space through collaborating, sharing, connecting and reflecting. The syndicates have planned for the concept curriculum of Globalisation using Solo tools and they have also incorporated online collaborative tools. Throughout the term teachers and students will connect with others, A key understanding for teachers and students is that "It doesn't matter what tool they use it's the content and connectedness that matters".
 * Our ICT based focus is online collaboration. National Goal 1 **

The senior team and Room 9 have all informed parents of their Knowledgenet logon details so they should be prepared for the parent-student-teacher meetings in Week 2 term 3.

Room 5 entered a local Museum video competition to tell a story about the treasures at our school. After their hard work and some last minute technical difficulties they were announced as the winners. It is nice to see the students producing a product for a wider audience than just their class. media type="youtube" key="yQFjn4OdQ-k" height="349" width="560" ICT is becoming more of a part of every day life here at St Mary's. This week we had an Religious Education meeting where staff were exploring different ways of using prayer with students. During an activity where staff were asked to design a prayer in partners, it was great to see laptops being pulled out to use as design and research tools. It was very natural for staff to use the technology as part of their thinking processes. Staff from around the district attended an Activboard training day with Bevan at school on Thurdsay 3oth June. This is a good day for staff to mingle with teachers from other schools and discuss ideas. Along with our school's policy of supporting dual platform computers it is interesting to note that three teachers have opted to have Mac computers for their next lease issue. This will benefit the students because it will encourage them to more flexible thinkers as they problem solve their way through translating between the different platforms. We have had issues with our INternet speed for a couple of weeks now and our Technician has put in quite a bit of time trying to sort it out. With our ever increasing online presence it is very important that secure fast and reliable internet connections so it is not holding back studnet learning. Hopefully the visit of a cabling technician on Thursday will sort the problem.
 * Term 2**

Week 7 The senior team have been exploring different ways of getting their student's work posted onto their e-portfolios. The teachers are becoming more aware of both audio and visual methods and they have used the document camera and Easispeak to great effect. It has been especially pleasing that students have been the ones using this technology. Here is an example of a piece of recount writing from a Middle School student who recorded their own work. media type="file" key="cara.WAV" width="300" height="50" Week 6 The Middle School have prepared a conceptual unit of work where teh students will describe, designa dn make a new product. Staff have designed the booklet to include SOlo Maps to help teh students with their learning. Staff have had discussion about using the maps a plaing tools and helping the students to self assess against the Solo rubrics. to see an example of a statement self assessmet sheet Room 9's teacher has been using Chirbit as a tool to aid student reading progress. The teacher recorded a story for students to read along with and then used Chirbit to record student learning for their e-portfolio. It was nice to share the learning with the child's parents and they were able to give f eedback which was relevant and timely. media type="custom" key="9765302"

media type="custom" key="9765304" Week 4: A Senior school teacher has used an I pod to create a podcast of hersef reading a text for children in her class. This enabled the students to hear and read the text while she worked with other students. Lead teachers day on Thursday at Kaharoa School - what a wonderful venue for PD! Lots of ideas for use with staff. Found an interesting website which is worth a look. Has some great resources with tying digital tools into your classroom - guides for how to use some useful tools. [] []



Week 3: On Monday we hosted two one and a half hour My Portfolio Taster sessions which were run by Heath Sawyer. He works for the team at the Ministry who look after LMS and. Over twenty people attended the 2 sessions and they came from both secondary and primary schools in the Rotorua/Tokoroa areas. The big question for us is where to put our eportfolios - at this stage we will still do then on KnowledgeNET then plan to export them to My Portfolio ( which is Mahara) so that they children have long term ownership of them. Just thinking ahead - where should we get our teachers to have their resume and portfolio - maybe the best place is My Portfolio. On Thursday Bevan ran an afterschool workshop attended by approx 20 teachers from the 2 clusters. The session was on using interactive whiteboards in the classroom and was well received. A number of teachers have already requested if they can come and observer our guru working with his class. On Friday Bevan worked all day running an Activboard Part A training course for teachers new to using Activboards. Teachers came from far and wide - think the Opotiki teachers had done very well to get here by 9.30am. Lots of great feedback again. Flip video cameras are now in use in middle and senior school classrooms and we can see we now need ultrafast broadband asap - several classes uploading video and photos onto KnowedgeNET at once is stressful! ( and slow).

Week 2: We had our cluster facilitator Paula in at school on Tuesday working with staff. She worked with 3 Middle School teachers to model lessons with mobile technologies (Ipads, Ipods). Staff are becoming more aware of how this technology can be intgrated into lessons. She also ran a session on using Ipads with special needs students for four teacher aides and our special needs teacher It was interesting to hear feedback from Paula that teachers were asking specific questions about how this type of technology could improve student learning. Paula ran an after school introduction to using Flip video cameras for Middle and Senior school teachers. These will be rolled out to staff in the coming weeks. As a school we are working towards issuing and managing ICT resources through our library system. Received great feedback from ERO re the use of ICT technologies for learning in our school.

Week 1 of term we were joined by the ERO review team. A group of students completed their presentation for ERO. They used a new camera they weren't used to when videoing and captured some really interesting student voice for their presentation. Bit if a dilemma though! Some of the footage was quite "wobbly". We didn't want to lose the "from the heart, unrehearsed student comments, complete with body language that told it's own story". Decided to stick with original footage - was the message that was important and we were sure they would agree. Sometimes a retake or a rehearsed response just isn't quite the same. We were very proud of the students and the presentation which they put together and presented by themselves. The teachers need to be commended on their effective use of ICT technologies for teaching and learning - this was noticed and commented on. Check our some of our blogs: [|www.room9learningzone.blogspot.com] <span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">**http://stmarysyear6camp.blogspot.com** <span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">**[]**

Our new webpage is nearly ready to go public - online at present but not easily accessible yet. Hope it will be up and running by the end of week 2.

The weeks have flown by this term. Just a quick update re what has been happening in ICT so far this year at St Mary's.
 * Term 1**

Two teachers and two teacher aides joined the after school workshop on Ipads. Everyone learned something new and found this informal session very worthwhile.

Some challenges for teachers preparing some of the Year 5 and 6 eportfolio templates in the last couple of weeks. Lots of patience needed as we all make mistakes and learn from them. Guess we really need to plan for some hiccups when we move out of our comfort zone and into uncharted territory. Learning quickly how to do rollouts of templates to the whole team... and plenty more to still learn!

Quotes from 3 sources all gathered in preparation for the next round of funding applications.

Six year 5 and 6 students were selected to prepare a student presentation for when ERO visit at the start of next term. They decided to video some students and to incorporate these clips into their presentation. Had some feedback from a parent whose family is moving down south re how much help her 8 year old son is to the family when it comes to computer use. A year and a term in the amazing Mr James class has resulted in much new learning for the whole family. Isn't it great that the kids are teaching their parents and the parents are so grateful that the children are gaining ICT skills at school. A reminder that we all need to be lifelong learners.

The Year 3-6 students had an exhibition of their art after school on Thursday. Some fantastic work including many examples of digital art created by Year 5 students. Wow - these kids are getting pretty clever.

We have had banners commercially produced for each of the concepts we have covered in 2010/2011. The latest ones were erected on the outside of the administration building this week. There should be no excuse for anyone not knowing our key understanding for each concept. Will take a photo to upload.

Four staff ( including two teacher aides) attended the informal cluster meeting on Ipads after school. It was interesting meeting at McDonald's! Great feedback from our teacher aides on how useful this session was and they are hungry for more PD in this area.

Paula Jamieson worked with our Junior Team Leader and another Junior Team teacher today - creating an action plan for the Junior Team from our ICT Strategic Plan and refining the key questions and SOLO activities in the concept curriculum plan prepared for Term 2 - Enterprise "See an opportunity and take it"

Year 5 and 6 students spent week 10 at camp. The Year 6 students were in Auckland for the week. They have a camp blog and despite poor internet access at camp ( the site of the camp is in an area that doesn't get good reception using a vodem stick) they have had over 250 hits on their blog site as friends and family check what they have been up to. Check out their [|Camp Blog] Year 5 students were at the Thermal Mtor Camp Lodge in Rotorua - they took many photos and much video footage of their activities.

Anne met with Paula on 7 April so that we could analyse the results of the ICT survey which our staff completed a few weeks ago using survey monkey.

All the Year 5 students were involved with taking photos when they visited the Museum in Rotorua on 7 April.

Our Principal went to Wellington in Week 10 with other Principals from our ICT cluster. They visited some schools on Monday and Tuesday and we know that they were looking forward to seeing what some other schools were doing in the area of ICT.

We have been working on a new website for our school, hosted through KnowledgeNET. It should be ready for public viewing at the beginning of Term 2. The Senior team have been meeting at 8am on Friday mornings re KnowledgeNET.

On 31 March St Mary's hosted the day for the ICT Lead teachers for the two clusters working together. Teachers from 11 schools attended and we worked on cluster tasks in the morning then had a presentations from Superclubs Plus in the afternoon.

Three teachers were invited to provide their thoughts for the May issue of Interface magazine. Interface Magazine asked our school if we would be prepared to prepare responses for the Ask A Teacher section of their next issue. Check out the thoughts shared by three of our staff on <span style="background-clip: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; cursor: pointer; padding-right: 10px;">[]

Three teachers have registered for the Leading a Digital School conference being held in Melbourne in early September. Interesting workshops and keynotes and they will also visit some schools while there. We are particularly keen to see what some of the schools are doing with Ipads and Ipod Touch and how they engage their parent communities to participate online in their child's learning.

On 24 March the Project Manager for our School Network Upgrade Project spent three hours in the school. We look forward to plans being in a couple of weeks and work starting in about 6 weeks ( fingers crossed!)

Bevan, who was invited to train to be an Activeboard NZ trainer, ran his first Professional Development course on 22 March for teachers from a number of schools in the region. One teacher from another school in Rotorua was raving about the day as he walked out the school gate "Best professional development day he had ever been to!" Well done Bevan.

Rachel Clapp from Activeboard NZ spent the day working in the school on 22 April

In week 8 Anne attended Paula's workshop on 24 March - Tools of the Trade

By the end of week 8 the Thinking Curriculum team have met 3 times - looking at strategic plan for ICT and Thinking and what the team members (who represent each level of the school) need to do this term to help meet our goals - formed an action plan.

In week 7 Sheryl attended Paula's workshop on 17 March - Thinker's Toolbox and we were represented at the Cluster Principal's meeting. Room 1 skyped a class in New York city - this took place before school to fit in with the time difference.

On 14 March Rosemary Cathcart worked with our staff at an extended staff meeting - preparing for our Enterprise concept in term 2 Anne and Bevan attended the ICT Lead Teachers Day at Ngongotaha on 3 March

Paula, our ICT facilitator, spent a day with Senior Management from St Mary's on 1 March. The focus was on where we are, how we got to this point and where to next.

Paula and Anne designed a staff survey which was outlined to the staff at a staff meeting after school - staff then completed this. The information gained will be used to assist us to plan for ICT at St Mary's.

Three staff who attended the Learning at Schools conference shared something that they had learned at the staff meeting on 1 March.

We have been working on a new website for St Mary's and met with Phil from Dataview in week 4. It will be run through KnowledgeNET so that we can easily edit the pages ourselves. We are hoping that it will be up and running very shortly.

Some more Ipads have been purchased specifically for our ORRS funded students to use - partly funded by a project supported by the Rotorua RTLB cluster. We are having some great feedback from a teacher who has had an autistic child using an Ipad regularly.

We finalised our ICT strategic plan and this was completed in week 2, ready to be presented at our BOT meeting in week 3. Work started on this in Term 4 last year and the Thinking Curriculum team, representing all teams in the school, had the responsibility for deciding what should go in this document.

Five staff from our Middle School team joined our Principal and one teacher from the Senior Team at the Learning at Schools conference.

On 21 February Sarah Ingram from KnowledgeNET spent the whole day providing training for our staff. She worked with the five teachers from the Senior team in the morning helping them with getting set up for using eportfolios this year with their classes. The afternoon was spent with the ICT Lead teachers and one parent, providing some technical support for our KnowledgeNET site. Then Sarah ran a fantastic staff meeting showing us how we can create rich learning tasks on KnowledgeNET. A support manual was issued to teachers. Room 1 have a travelling buddy which has set off on his great O.E. You can follow his progress on <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px;">__[]__ ready.

**PRINCIPAL'S REPORT**
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">__Summary of progress that has been made towards achieving your programme goals__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since milestone 2 we have purchased 2 more iPads which are currently being used in classrooms -
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2 for general use and 2 for special needs students.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers have attended app harvest, contributed to Ipad users group on VLN and teacher aides have attended
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">PD on using the Ipads in the classroom with students. A number of teachers now researching apps which they
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">want installed for student use. Ipad technology is being incorporated in IEP’s - for example text to speak app
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">called Easi Speak.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">7 staff attended the Learning at Schools conference. One team of teachers went plus one other and the Principal.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a team, the teachers who went to this conference were able to implement and share ideas post conference
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and support each other.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Staff who attended shared new learning with the staff and helped support risk taking and new learning across
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the school
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ipods being used more widely across Middle School after a trial in the Lead Teacher’s class
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Survey designed and undertaken with whole staff around ICT and results analysed for next steps in supporting
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">staff in classrooms
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All teams and staff using Hooked on Thinking DCM online planning tool for concept curriculum planning. SOLO
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">an integral part of this and Rosemary Cathcart is mentoring staff before they plan. Her breif is to ensure that staff
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> have a deep and clear understanding of the possibilities offered by the concept for the next term. She also
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">challenges us and supports us to devise learning programmes to give children a deeper understanding of the
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">concept and issues arising from it. Display boards outside admin block ensure everyone is aware of the concept
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and key understanding to be developed for each term.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a part of our appraisal process each teacher has been required to set an ICT goal and outline how they plan
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to achieve this. Goal has been discussed with appraiser to ensure it also lines up with school goals.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Planning collected in to see the extent to which teachers are incorporating ICT’s into everyday planning.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers trying to ensure
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">all students get access to ICT’s in literacy and numeracy programmes.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All teachers are now incorporating SOLO into their planning and are using Hooked on Thinking resources.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All teachers have the opportunity to attend any cluster workshops in CRT time or after school
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ICT Lead Teachers have both offered to facilitate cluster workshop
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Three teachers interviewed for Teachers View section of Interface Magazine - on their use of ICT’s in classroom
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and what they would like to
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">make greater use of in the future
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Audit for SNUP upgrade undertaken - will be followed up with physical upgrade in near future
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Purchased 5 new Macbooks and 15 Flip Videos.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Three staff attended Visible Learning e-AsTTle training
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">PD provided on how to use Flip Videos
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">KnowledgeNET - all senior school and one middle school classes using eportfolios after two classes trialled in 2010.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lead teachers sharing responsibility for in -house KnowledgeNET training working with team members on a
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">weekly and just in time learning basis.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Forums now part of homework for Middle School and Enrichment classes using eportfolios and sharing learning
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">on KNET.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scheduled parents evenings for KnowledgeNET and parent user access to KNET being rolled out to classes
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that are using eportfolios
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Two parents have been involved in KnowledgeNET PD. Parents are working alongside students within the
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">classrooms to support learning.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">School now has a document camera which is being used to enhance student learning
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">PD by KNET trainer to help teachers design rich learning and self paced learning tasks on KnowledgeNET.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New school web page designed and will be online by the end of May
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lead teacher now National Trainer for Activboard NZ and has run courses at our school which teachers from
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">around the region have attended
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Geek Force of student helpers set up and trained to help teachers.
 * (These students are spread across year levels and classrooms and meet once a week to discuss technical
 * issues and develop resources.)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Students have developed pages which align with maths GLOSS stages for teachers to access.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Starting to issue ICT resources through school library to create more robust systems for managing equipment
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Senior Management team booked for Leading a Digital School conference in early September
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Principal travelled with other cluster Principals to visit schools in Wellington
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ICT Action plan for 2011 presented to the BOT and teachers looked at how to implement this within their team in
 * Term 1.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Outside providers using our school for web based courses and new wireless network created within our current
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">system to cope with this
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">See also St Mary’s Catholic School section on VLN and Cluster wiki

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">__Key lessons for the cluster__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ensuring that we constantly self review and plan our next steps
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ensuring we build sustainability - both for resources, KNET, SOLO, integrating ICT’s across the curriculum

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">__Our next steps towards achieving the cluster goal/s__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers will continue to take risks and step outside their comfort zone with ICT use in the classroom for learning
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers to support cluster workshops
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teachers will present at the cluster workshops
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Supporting teachers to achieve their appraisal goals
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">KNET - refining eportfolios and getting attendance and assessment data available to parents.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Encouraging parents to support their child’s learning with comments on KNET.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Providing access to parents at school to KNET for those that don’t have access at home

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">__Emerging issues, risks, or opportunities particularly in relation to service delivery and reporting requirements__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ensuring ALL classes have net safety education as integral part of beginning of school year programme
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Outside providers using school take extra time - preparation, support, strain on infrastructure
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Providing opportunities for students to bring own mobile devices to school FOR LEARNING
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Greater use of PLC”s within and beyond school - for both staff and students

//the New Zealand Curriculum / Te Marautanga// //o Aotearoa.// || National Goal 2 Increase capability of teachers and principals to improve students' learning and achievement through e-learning. || National Goal 3 //Strengthen professional learning communities and increased collaboration within and across schools.// || National Goal 4 //Increase e-learning leadership and ICT strategic planning capability of principals and teachers.// || National Goal 5 //Increase the school community’s understanding of the educational contribution of e-learning.// || An ICT Lead teacher facilitates this discussion but the teachers provide the ideas for what they want to cover. Teams discuss ideas for how to do this and teachers scaffold each other - we are all learners and the learning is ongoing. || Principal and Assistant Principal both prepared and presented an inquiry based around "How do you shift teacher practice in terms of utilising ICT's to promote learning" Teachers have taken undertaken PD and been prepared to take risks and step outside their comfort zone. Examples: [|Class blogsite] [|Camp blogsite] Teacher blogsite for classroom use Audioconference - Learnz fieldtrip On the Learnz link go to audioconferences then audioconference recordings for Friday 18 June Rooms 2 and 3 have a combined entry into Fair Go Ad awards competition Using Wordle to develop key vocabulary media type="custom" key="6606699" align="center"
 * 2010 - see our week by week diary below the table too! **
 * National Goal 1 //Integration of ICT to give effect to//
 * National Goal 1 //Integration of ICT to give effect to//
 * National Goal 1 //Integration of ICT to give effect to//
 * All teachers know how to integrate ICT into their curriculum or teaching plans and do so creatively and effectively. || All staff confidently and competently utilise a range of ICTs to provide rich opportunities for creative and independent learning || Schools actively engage in PLCs and e-PLCs to build capacity and enhance effective pedagogical practices. || All schools develop and maintain a current ICT/e-learning strategic plan || The BoT and community are informed about and engaged in e-leaning. ||
 * Regular ICT discussion groups enable teachers to discuss ideas and collaborate.



<span style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">Using comiclife to write instructions.

Being creative Below is an advertisment developed by two year 4 girls who were set the task to advertise an upcoming Mikshake stall. The students were given the brief that it needed to grabe people's attention and also share specific information. Crazytalk was used by the girls after they had learned how to use it during a Religious Education /Reading activity a few weeks earlier.After using this as a tool to share a message teh girls have discussed ways which they could develop a similar presentation but with multiple speakers rather than just the one. media type="youtube" key="Si8aIoH73Rs?fs=1" height="344" width="425" || ICT discussion groups within school Thinking Curriculum Team - responsibility for ensuring we are catering for 21st Century learners in 21st Century classrooms Visit from Catholic Principals cluster Visit from a Year 1 and 2 teacher from St Patrick's Taupo Sue Crocket from Kawaha Point visited St Marys to have a look at Room 9 using ICT in their daily learning. This was arranged through an ICT Lead Teacher's meeting. Tahatai Coast School Principal and Lead Teacher visit to look at our wireless system. Seven teachers from Cambridge Primary visit to look at Activboards and other iCT technologies. Staff participate in Activstaff meetings for Activboard users in Rotorua. Staff belong to PrometheanPlanet international online community for Activboard users Three staff from our school visited Berkley Normal in Hamilton to look at how they are using Ipods in the classroom Staff member and Principal visited Newmarket School as part of two cluster arranged trips Three staff attended Eportfolio workshop at Rototuna in Hamilton. http://eportfoliosnz.wikispaces.com/ || SNUP documentation completed and sent off Week 3 Term 4. ICT Implementation Plan is on display in our staffroom, issued to all staff and constantly referred to. Regular meetings with Technology Centre staff for discussion of ideas, suggestions and advice Learning Without Limits seminar || Class blogsite used to share learning with parents. Using Photostory as a way of sharing learning with our parents media type="youtube" key="RQaGkc0ls24" height="53" width="204" align="center"

Developing Maths tutorials using Activinspire. media type="youtube" key="FZEZzDNUBLE" height="49" width="157" align="center"

Students share their entry for the national Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers award competition with the Board, the PTA and Sigma Consulting Ltd. ICT Lead Teacher informs BOT about our LMS and demonstrates how the Activboard can be used to help children to learn. Use KnowledgeNet LMS. Trial school for interoperability with Musac Hosted LMS. Parent portal established and trial classes parents given access. Attendance and assessment data accessible by parents ( some have more access than others at this stage as working through the issues involved in setting this up) BOT members all attend Cluster PD run by Jill Hammond early in the school year so that they are aware of the ICT cluster and opportunities it offers || practices in their teaching and learning programmes, especially in literacy and numeracy. ||  ||  Schools will develop e-learning leaders by providing targeted PD opportunities for Principals and Lead ICT Teachers  ||   || Two classes have skyped a class at the Western Academy of Beijing Lesson taken, via Skype, by a teacher at the Greenbush Science and Technology Centre in Kansas, USA. || Time spent creating the concept curriculum for 2011-2012 and deliberately planning for how ICT's will be incorporated in the learning activities. ICT overview planned around "seek, use, create" from the Thinking Key competency. Teachers participate in training for Activboards - whole staff PD and specialist trainer works in each classroom. Teachers work both individually and as a team to complete online training for effective use of Activboards in classroom Appraisal documentation requires teachers to set an ICT goal which they work towards ||  || Staff participate in and represent our school at cluster PD opportunities. Staff represented at BOP Elearning Group Staff represented at Eportfolio workshop held at Rototuna Staff visited Berkley Normal School Staff represented at KnowledgeNet conference ( 4 staff), International IWB conference ( 3 staff), Learning at School conference ( 7 staff), Ulearn conference ( 3 staff). Hosting teachers from other schools ||  || Teachers utilise Activboards every day and for all learning areas. Have anecdotal evidence the everyday and intensive use of Interactive whiteboards really helps to engage students. The Ipads and Ipod touch being trialed in one classroom at present also seem to provide many opportunities for personalised learning and increased engagement. ||  ||   ||   || For more information visit our School website and our Knowledgenet site.
 * Authentic contexts facilitate ICT integration to support depth and rigour in meaningful learning || Teachers’ planning includes effective use of ICTs, as well as emerging technologies and
 * At least three classes have participated in Learnz Online Fieldtrips.
 * || All teachers' planning will be inclusive of e-learning opportunities using authentic contexts. Particular consideration will be made for the needs of Maori and Pasifika students. The indigeneity and distictiveness of Maori students should be taken into consideration to foster an understanding of the cultural identity of Maori and Pasifika students (MoE 2008b) Teachers have started to clearly show elearning opportunities in planning. The planning template we have shared for next year will help make this something that all teachers are doing.

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: 800; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">Week 5 Term 4
Rocky Jensen, Digi Adviser, ran a workshop on Digistore for our staff meeting today. Other schools in our cluster were invited to send teachers and it was great to have teachers from Otonga, Kawaha Point and Ngongotaha join us for this session. We should now all know what Digistore offers, know a number of ways to search for the type of resource we are looking for and then be able to create learning pathways within Digistore. Hope to see some more classrooms making use of many good digital resources available on Digistore.

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Week 4 Term 4 **
===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Had an extra long staff meeting this week - staff were working on creating an overview of what our concept curriculum will look like ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** over the next two years. Spent considerable time deciding what the driving questions should be for each term and how we will plan ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** to have ICT tools used as an integral part of our learning activities. Discusses what tools we could use at each level of the school ** ===

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** as student "Seek, Use and Create." **
===<span style="display: inline !important; font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** ICT Lead teachers and Principal involved with others in the cluster preparing milestone report. On Friday seven teachers from ** === ===<span style="display: inline !important; font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Cambridge School visited. They were particularly interested in seeing how we are using the Interactive Whiteboard, the Ipod touch, ** === ===<span style="display: inline !important; font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** the Ipad and classroom computers to help children learn. It was great to see the exchanging of ideas happening between teachers ** === ===<span style="display: inline !important; font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** at both schools - particularly at morning tea time. This group of teachers were off to visit Owhata and Lynmore Schools after they left us. ** === ===<span style="display: inline !important; font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Had a visit this week from Northpower who will hopefully be able to help us answer the electrical supply questions on the ** ===

**tech tools and pegagogy to enhance student learning.**
media type="custom" key="8640428"

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Week 3 Term 4 **
===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** The SNUP (School Network Upgrade Documentation) has finally been sent off. What a big task this was and a challenging one too. Pleased to see this task finished and look forward ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** to hearing back about timeframes for our school's network upgrade. For those of you who haven't yet done been involved in preparing this documentation you will need to have every ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** data point and power point in your school recorded as well as a detailed outline of the components of your school network. Every computer station has to be recorded on a map of ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** the school as do interactive whiteboards etc etc. It certainly wasn't a job that could be completed easily or quickly. Had to have quite a bit of assistance from both our technicians ** ===

** for the Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers Award. Some of the participating students parents also came to see the comprehensive project that the students had produced. **
=== ** Great news during this meeting - Team Beta has shared first prize in the Year 5-8 category of this competition and the school will receive $1000 towards helping them make their project a reality. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Bevan showed the BOT how KnowledgeNet (LMS) is being used to help children to learn and how students can use ActivExpressions to text responses to the Activboard. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Board members had a chance to try out this new technology and see how effectively it can be used to assist learning. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Bevan's students helped another class get started using forums and polls on KnowledgeNet. More classes are interested in doing this too - it's very easy to set up so we hope ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** to have more classes involved shortly. This week we hosted the Principal and ICt Lead Teacher from Tahatai Coast School in Papamoa. They came to see our DLInk wireless ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** system in action as they are currently rebuilding their school ( leaky building) so looking to future proof at the same time. They were particularly interested in how the system ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** manages itself so that connected devices don't "drop off" as they are moved around the school. They also shared ideas for how they are using Ipads and Mac computers ** ===

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Shona from Tahatai Coast emailed us through the following: **
<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Here are my bookmarks for the sites I have used to research some applications for special needs children. These are not exclusive but may be a good starting point for you. ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Mostly about communications but there are also ones for social stories. ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Helping autistic children with iOS devices < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">The AutoVerbal Talking Soundboard speaks for those who can't < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Stories2Learn for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">< __[]__ > Proloquo2Go: Assistive communication for the iPhone and iPod touch ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">< __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">< __[]__ > iConverse - Assisted Communication for iPhone, iPod touch, ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">and iPad on the iTunes App Store < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">iCommunicate for iPad for iPad on the iTunes App Store < __[]__ #> ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">iCommunicate for < __[]__ #> iPrompts® for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Parent Comments on Autism, Asperger, Disability, IEP, Autism Comments. < __[]__ > ** <span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="font-family: Verdana,Helvetica,Arial; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">iPhone/iPad Apps for AAC « Spectronics Blog < __[]__ **

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Week 2 Term 4 **
===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** ICT Lead Teachers Day on Friday run by Rocky Jensen and attended by two of our staff. Established some forums for our staff to complete. Heard that our application for five more ** ===

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Macbooks for classes to use has been successful. **
===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Two teams of 7 students submitted entries into the Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers competition. This is a national competition and involved approximately 30 hours of class ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** time for these Year 5 and 6 enrichment class students. Teams have to identify a problem or need within their neighbourhood and work towards addressing this. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Both our teams worked on redesigning the Junior Playground. An engineer was assigned to us for the duration of this project and she was a huge help and a wonderful asset. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Producing the project report was a major job and some of the students opted to spend time in the school holidays working on this. One thing that both teams of students quickly ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** realised was how important file management is during a project of this size and that this was definitely something that we could improve on. Students had taken hundreds of ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** photos and had been working on a number of computers - they quickly realised the importance of storing the photos on the server in clearly named folders! ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** On Tuesday representatives of both teams presented their projects to the staff at Sigma Consultants Ltd, where our engineer, Mrs So-Beer works. ** === ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Team Beta presented their project to the PTA in the hope that the PTA might be able to come up with some funding next year so the juniors could have a new playground. ** === <span style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">

Two classes have signed up till the end of January giving each student access to Mathletics.
Room 1 were pleased to have their teacher back from her trip to England, Scotland and China and they enjoyed reading her blog at www.smallboneadventures.blogspot.com This blog is a great example of how a teacher, although they were not at school, could help students to learn. Judith also posted comments on the work her students were doing on KnowledgeNet while she was away. Hope she did still have time to be on holiday!

The Principals from the cluster met. A new facilitator (0.5 position) has been appointed for 2011 and the same facilitator will also be working with the Rotorua Central Cluster in a 0.5 position.

We had the Special Character review team in our school this week and some of the Review team were very keen on hearing more about the use of ICT technology in our school. There is a possibility that we could form a cluster group in KnowledgeNet with some other Catholic Schools who also use KnowledgeNet.

We have also been busy this week filling in the documentation for the School Network Upgrade Project. This has proved to be quite a challenging task - not the sort of information that teachers really know about. Had to contact the telephone company, the electrician and computer technicians to get all the details we needed. Some of these people had to also contact others before they could answer all the questions that were asked. Roll on ultrafast broadband!

Ulearn Conference 6-8 October
1800 teachers gathered in Christchurch for the Ulearn conference, including three of our staff. Core Education do an exceptional job of organising this conference.

Stephen Heppell from the UK provided a thought provoking keynote to end the conference. Despite not being able to predict many aspects of the future, there are some things of which we can be certain. Stephen showed us some photos of what is already happening in some schools and outlined some challenges for the future.

Stuart Hale ran a really interesting session on Ipod Touches and IPads. The mobile technologies are something really worth looking at further. The new Ipod Touches come with camera and audio recorders inbuilt. For about $50 more than a Flip video you can have your video camera for the classroom and have something that will also do about 80% of what your computer can do. The apps are really inexpensive and there are NZ'ers designing apps for teachers (eg there is a running record app you can purchase from the Itunes store). Many of our students probably already have an Ipod Touch so maybe we could do what Berkley Normal School are doing and encourage them to bring them to school. There are implications for the school network and the managing of these devices and a good wireless system is of course another requirement. This session also covered some of Stuart''s favourite apps and how students can easily create using this technology. Our challenge is to continue to try and find good apps for helping students "to seek, use and create." Conference is useful for finding some others who are also using Ipod Touches in the classroom so we can share ideas for "good apps" and ideas for the management of these devices in school.

Westley Field provided a very interesting and informative presentation on Transforming Learning and Teachnology Education. He outlined trends in education ( based on OECD, Microsoft, NMC research)
 * Personalised independent learning
 * Collaborative learning (networking) Learning impact - Broken Hill example
 * Technology as critical friend (literacy) Are you literate? (buying groceries, navigating around shopping malls, starting the dishwasher, using a telephone, email)
 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Process to replace content. See You Tube link below on Kevin Kelly predicting the technology of the next 5000 days media type="youtube" key="yDYCf4ONh5M?fs=1" height="385" width="640"


 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Global connections eg Skoolaborate project
 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Mobile learning ( cybersafety)
 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Online learning

Lee Crockett provided a very interesting keynote.

Lane Clark challenged us to think about the Inquiry process and how we go about this in our classrooms. She reminded us that there is inquiry and then there is good inquiry.

Julia Atkin spoke about the 21C curriculum and Key Competencies

For those who find new technology a little challenging we'd like to share this Youtube video which was shown at the session titled "Practical ways for unconfident ICT teachers to use elearning and enquiry in the Junior School" media type="youtube" key="pQHX-SjgQvQ?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Competitions entered by Year 5 and 6 students in Term 3
Rooms 3 and 4 created a video entry for the Fair Go Ad Awards competition. There is a limit of one entry per school so the two classes combined to prepare their entry. A great deal of fun was had creating the movie and rumour seems to suggest that the movie about creating the movie was really the one that everyone liked best.

Rooms 1 and 3 had teams enter the Design a Front Page of the Newspaper competition - some challenges with layout tested ICT skills to the max. Well done to all these classes for being prepared to have a go.

who works for the MOE as Manager of Managed Learning Environments. Not sure how useful his presentation will be without the talk that went alongside it but you can
=== have a look at his @http://%3Cdiv%20style=%22width:425px%22%20id=%22__ss_5232249%22%3E%3Cstrong%20style=%22display:block;margin:12px%200%204px%22%3E%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.slideshare.net/paul.seiler/knowledgenet-conference-2010%22%20title=%22KnowledgeNET%20conference%202010%22%3EKnowledgeNET%20conference%202010%3C/a%3E%3C/strong%3E%3Cobject%20id=presentation on slideshare. Interesting to also have the opportunity to speak with Mark Treadwell informally and gauge his thoughts re Mahara ===

Many great presentations at this conference and it was wonderful seeing how clusters of schools are using this LMS to work collaboratively together through the cluster zone.
On Monday we had Marianne from the Daily Post come in to take some photographs for a First Sovereign advertisement in the Daily Post. First Sovereign have provided us with financial assistance for Activboards for 11 classrooms (2009) and computers for 12 classrooms (2010). Marianne was able to see one class skyping their teacher who is in London this week (the class are also enjoying the blogsite their teacher has created for while she is away. Great learning happening through this!) Another class did a very good job of demonstrating how an Activboard enhances their learning. A photo Marianne took appeared in the 23 September Daily Post on the page advertising the First Sovereign Trust.

You might be interested in joining the MLE Reference group. Anne has been following this group for a few months now and it is a great place to learn. You do get a bit bombarded with emails each day but you can be selective - some very interesting discussions take place.

At our staff meeting on Monday we continued with mapping out our school curriculum. Also had great assistance from Jo Makgill when she visited us on Tuesday morning. She referred us to this link which we have found particularly useful. Disregard the fact that the resource is for Year 7 and 8 - lots of useful information for those of us teaching at Years 1-6. Good ideas for planning for writing across the curriculum.

ICT discussion group took place again this week. Teachers from our school have signed up for discussion groups at either beginning, developing or competent levels and each group meets twice a term after school. Sessions are short and are designed for "just in time" learning to meet teacher needs. Thanks to Bevan for all the work he has put into running these sessions this term.

We received notification that the School Network Upgrade Project documentation has been signed off by the Diocese this week. In Catholic Schools the Ministry funds 68% and the Diocese 32% of the SNUP costs - so we hope we can look forward to some progress with SNUP now.

Leon and Moira headed off to the Maths Symposium in Gisborne on Thursday afternoon. Will be great to hear about any ICT links they hear about. Do you subscribe to the Wilkie Way newsletter put out by Charlotte Wilkinson

Time for the holidays - Anne, Karen and Dave are heading off to Ulearn and look forward to meeting up there with others from our cluster. We feel the cluster has gone really well this term and would like to thank Lorraine Taylor for her role in co-ordinating the cluster schools and ensuring that we have had a worthwhile term.

**Week 9 Term 3 2010**
On Monday Susan T and Bevan attended a Core Skills Activboard Training Day run by Rachel Clapp from Activboard NZ. Approximately 12 teachers attended the training day held at our school. Bevan attended the session because he has been invited to be a Regional Trainer for Activboard NZ - he was able to assist Rachel and see how she ran the day.

Our school finished at 1.15pm on Monday and the staff worked from 1.30 till 5.45pm on curriculum mapping - designing our curriculum for 2011- 2112. The staff had prepared for this session and had a very worthwhile afternoon. We spent a considerable portion of the session deciding on the key understandings for our 8 concepts then in teams looked at possible contexts and how to best ensure we provided a balanced programme over the two years and across all curriculum areas. Still plenty of work to be done but feeling very pleased with what has been accomplished so far. || ||   || The KnowledgeNet conference is on in Auckland 17-18 September and Anne, Brigit, Bevan and Dave will be attending.
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Sue Crocket from Kawaha Point visited St Marys to have a look at Room 9 using ICT in their daily learning. This was arranged through an ICT Lead Teacher's meeting.

**Week 8 Term 3 2010**
Staff meeting on Monday provided teachers with a brief introduction to the cluster wiki and staff were reminded of the cluster goals by reference to the new wall display on ICT in the staffroom. This display outlines the cluster goals and our school three year plan for ICT - Anne and Bevan were inspired into action after seeing the awesome display board in the Ngongotaha staffroom last week. Big day on Saturday getting NComputing system installed in 4 junior team classrooms. Year 1 classes now have 4 new computers for student use and all other classrooms either have, or will shortly have, a 6 user Ncomputing system. Junior team staff have been given an idea for how they might make use of these computers in their literacy or maths programme this week - plan to keep giving ideas for student use on a regular basis.

ICT discussion group During the discussion group the teachers investigated how to make use of the new Ncomputing systems in their rooms. The teachers had a go at accessing bookmarked websites on the school server to aid teaching and learning in Literacyand numeracy. The teachers are to introduce their students to this learning material with a view to the students being able to access it independently during lessons. [] []

Anne, Bevan, Karen attended the ICT Cluster Lead teachers and Principals day run by Pam Hook and Julie Mills. Dave and Leon attended for part of the day. We we scaffolded through the process of planning a unit of work around the concept of Enterprise. Pam and Julie did a job great of guiding us and making the whole process very clear. The steps that they took us through will be great to use with our whole staff.

**Week 7 Term 3 2010 - 1 September Lead Teachers Day**
The ICT Lead teachers from our cluster schools worked with Rocky Jensen to unpack the cluster goals and how as lead teachers we can assist with the achievement of these. We looked at all five national goals and our cluster goals for each of these - then brainstormed what we could do back in our own schools. Check out the links in the cluster goals section of this wiki for what the group put together over a couple of hours. What next for our school? National Goal 3 - ensure teachers at St Mary's Catholic School are aware of the cluster wiki to a) know where we are heading b) what the lead teachers are trying to do c) collaborate and share ideas of what is happening in our cluster National Goal 4 - Create a display in our staffoom to make the cluster goals and ICT strategic plan visible and also as a place for sharing tools and strategies that teachers might want to utilise in the programme

Rocky Jensen emailed a great link re Ipads following the BOP Elearning Day

Week 6 Term 3 2010
On Saturday Anne joined a group of teachers from the Cluster to visit Newmarket School in Auckland. Fabulous day and worthwhile trip to look at one school's journey with SOLO and ICT On Thursday a group of teachers met afterschool for an ICT discussion group. We were meeting tohave a general discussion abot ICT in the classroom. We had a look at a Prayer flipchart which has been developed by students and then we started looking at some useful websites ( [], [] ). Our discussion took us to Activinspire and we looked at using the desktop tools to insert images onto a flipchart. The teachers are going to have a go with their classes before we meet again in a few weeks time.

Rachel Clegg, an Activboard trainer, visited our school on 23 and 24 August. She spent approximately half an hour in every classroom providing a demonstration lesson around content suggested by the classroom teachers in each team. The purpose of this lesson was to show the students and teacher ( but particularly the teacher) how they can make even greater use of the interactive board to aid learning. The emphasis was on activities that were interactive and the goal was to try and move the teacher out of their comfort zone so they will experiment with using the board for more complex interactive lessons. Rachel also ran a really good staff meeting showing the staff how an Activboard can be very effective in the Inquiry Learning Process. Teresa has attended a session on this that Rachel ran at the IWB conference and said how worthwhile it was so we organised for Rachel to redo it for our staff. Everyone gained many useful ideas to go back and try in their classrooms.



Week 5 Term 3 2010
Today we began our target ICT discussion groups. Worked with self assessed 'emergent teachers. These teachers have used the St Mary's Catholic school ActivInspire competencies sheet to target their learning. We focused on tools within ActivInspire and in particular the ready made resources in Shared activities. We also discussed how to manage folders within "My resources". Modelled how to download and save flipcharts from Promethean Planet. The teachers have a shared goal of using resources and joining Promethean Planet before our next discussion group later this term. This week I have been spreading the Wordle experience and two middle school teachers (even after some technical difficulties) have used Wordle as a form of identifying key words or brainstorming. Bevan James

Judith and Anne attended the BOP Elearning group day in Tauranga on Thursday 19 August. The focus of the day was mobile technologies and you can see some of the things covered at this day which was facilitated by Rocky Jensen.

Week 4 Term 3 2010
Dave and Anne attended the Learning without Limits seminar on 9 August. This seminar was run by the MOE Looking at preparing for ultrafast broadband, SNUP, Tela scheme, MOE software and other items. For more details about the content of this presentation check out this [|MOE Link]

Senior Management and Bevan James attended a workshop at Rototuna School in Hamilton to take part in a session to discuss e-portfolios. In the afternoon we visited Berkley Intermediate to see how they use ipods to help student learning and to find out how they manage and organise the use of Ipods within their school. Our visit was very worthwhile and they have given us some very good tips and hints. We were keen to find out what educational apps they use and some of theses are listed on their website []. It was good finding out how they synch 20 Ipods at once and some of the setting they used for the initial set up of the school Ipods for student use. Gained some very useful information that we can apply at St. Mary's.

The e-portfolio [] meeting at Rototuna was very informative with a range of presenters who described how they use the different platforms. It was pleasing to hear that the philosophy of using an e-portfolio as part of the learning cycle (formative assessment and reflection/feedback) was pretty much aligned to that of myself and our school. Here are my notes. Bevan James.

Brigit, Teresa and Moira attended the International IWB Interactive Whiteboard conference in Auckland from 30-31 July. They came back with some really good ideas which they shared with teams.
 * Week 2 Term 3 2010**

== Anne's class are participating onsite in a <span style="background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; cursor: pointer; padding-right: 10px;">[|Learnz Fieldtrip on Renewable Energy]. They will visit the new wood pellet burner at Tokoroa High School with the Learnz teacher ==