Learning is....
Planting a seed in our brain... learning to water, nurture and grow it.... so we can live on the fruit of our learning and plant more seeds.

Sunday 6 September 2015

EducampTheTron 15 August 2015

EducampTheTron was this year hosted by Tamahere Model Country School.  A bonus was it was also the Tamahere Market day over at the Tamahere Church, so we had time to wander the market at lunchtime and choose some food and look at the wares.  I have to admit, despite living just over the river and around the corner for half my life, I've never been to the Tamahere Markets before!


Many teachers and educators filled the Tamahere School Library and Steve had problem solved the lack of projector and his fragile voice (winter ills and ails) to ensure that the Smackdown could proceed.  We later broke into three breakouts over three sessions to share some learning.



We were very grateful for the water provided by @OnepurenzPure and the snacks from @N4LNZ.


The Smackdown always happens first after the intros and housekeeping at an Educamp, and you can view the Smackdown by clicking here


Five Card Flickr and Pechaflickr @robeanne
These are picture tools that you could use to enhance student engagement, creativity, language and communication and would be great for story telling.  There are links from the slide on the Smackdown.

Mobizen @davein2it
http://mobizen.com screen mirror to PC and Screen record for android devices - very handy to project one's phone presentation to the big screen.

Scratch @zaanacooper
This is all about coding meets the ethos of Lego.  Sign up is free.  Give coding a go.  There are beginner tutorials where the kids teach themselves.  I've had a big play with this myself and would love the opportunity to work with a group of kids on this.  https://scratch.mit.edu/

N4L The Pond  @steve_trotter
The Pond is not by TKI, but is by teachers for teachers.  The slide has some links to get your journey with The Pond going.  http://www.n4l.co.nz/pond/

Notability @tracy_dillner
This looks like a fabulous tool for i-pad and i-phone users.  Tracy talked about using it for recording annotations (written and verbal), creating assessments, demonstrating learning....  http://www.gingerlabs.com/

Quadblogging @barb1
If you want to have a nationwide audience for your class blogs, contact Barb and she will match you up.  For more details:  http://www.vln.school.nz/groups/profile/806819/quadblogging-aotearoa

Crowd Sourced Presentations @barbs1
Barb discussed how you can create and/or use a document that is crowd sourced in the classroom.  You can create a document and then share it for others to contribute to.  Links to examples of the Smackdown Slide.

Google Educator Group NZ @barbs1
Google+ is another place where NZ teachers are networking.  A place for questions.  Uses Hangouts to find share with/observe with others.  Click here for more information:  https://sites.google.com/site/gegnewzealand/events

Recordable Whiteboards @jkellow
Jan-Maree demonstrated the following online recordable whiteboards for us:

Comic Life @AbbyCMorgan
I loved playing with this programme in the workshop later in the afternoon.  There is a free month after downloading the software to your computer, and after that you need to pay a licence per device.  Once you own the licence you have access to more content.  I can see the potential for story telling by the students and creating content for your class.  Abby and her colleagues were using this to record a summary of what their learning class were doing daily for parents to access, but she is using this for not only teaching, but to also document her PTCs  -  one can insert it into their reflection blog or other documents where they are recording evidence for PTC.  http://comiclife.com/

Google Cardboard @nzleeangela
Great for creating virtual worlds around the school or visiting the worlds created by others.  In the workshop later on I experienced using this.  It was a lot of fun.  Apparently you are not supposed to walk around as you do it (but I would recommend sitting on a backless stool at least), but I did and it was a challenge not to bump into the furniture.  I actually felt woozy on the rollercoaster and got a little closer to dinosaurs than I would like to normally!  https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/

Student Reflection @MaryStGeorge
Mary shared her experiences of guiding student reflection.  There is no app or website.  This has grown out of experience of distance learning, as demonstrated in this blog post: https://creatingcurriculum.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/guiding-student-reflection-the-journey-so-far/.

Young Engineers - STEM  @reshmaph
Reshma discussed how this is accessible for all learners, and great for giving all learners success, especially children with dyslexia and similar learning challenges.  Here is an example of a group in Hamilton:  http://www.youngengineers.nz/

EdIgnite Hautapu  -  Sarah Moorhouse
Great to see that EdIgnite is coming back after a wee hiatus in the Waikato!!  Hautapu School on Thursday 3 September 6:00pm.

OneTab @carobush
This is for Google Chrome and Firefox so you don't have 50 million tabs left open.  It makes it easy to save and doesn't run down your battery.  https://www.one-tab.com/

EducampInvers is also on today!!  Encouraging interaction.

Split Screen
A Chrome app that allows you to have two windows open at once.  Like a website and a task.

Saving infographics on Twitter
Twitter > Pocket > Evernote

Google Calendar
Showed us how to find a mutual meeting time for each person required using "Find a time".

There is also way more on the Smackdown that I didn't get a chance to record.  The fabulous thing I love about attending Educamps is reconnecting with people I have met previously, meeting new people, the networking, and the inspiration that other share with everyone.

Sadly, Storify has deleted itself from the Social Media scene, so all my Storify stories have gone.  ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­