More opportunities with NEN and UFB, e.g. LENScience Senior Biology Seminar Series

This arrived in my mail today from REANZ and I wondered if it is new to you and your schools, or maybe some BLP schools are already engaging with this. Please let us know with a comment, Thanks, Niki

Real science for NZ's brightest budding biologists

The LENScience Senior Biology Seminar Series connects world-leading scientists with Year 13 biology students throughout New Zealand for regular curriculum-linked seminars. The interactive e-learning experience is broadcast via video conferencing and multicast on KAREN to the National Education Network (NEN), and over satellite television. "We're facing a global shortage of science graduates just when we need them most, KAREN is helping us to turn the problem around," says Jacquie Bay, Director LENScience. For more, you can read the Growing the next generation of scientists case study. See the LENScience website for the schedule of seminars for 2011.

Showcases

Drama

Drama has been fun. We enjoyed telling our stories through freeze frames. This is our final frame at the dance. We learnt that you can do anything if you work at it.

Weebly greebly

This is more a "how not to" than a "how" but probably some of you will have great ideas I should have asked for before I started this!
My year thirteen class were doing newspaper-style columns for their assessment and I said they had to put them up on the web, thinking particularly about what one presenter said at a session (might have been at Ashburton??) that it tends to enhance presentation and proof-reading, as the real context keeps the kids more vigilant for errors. So I bravely ventured onto Weebly, where each kid made their own site. Yay! But now, if anyone wants to read all their columns, they have to go onto 20 different websites to find them. I think we might look at putting them up as blogs on this site, rather than as separate websites.

(Little note, too. In Hokitika, at least, when the kids get to choose their own website domain name, even year thirteen boys go for pen island (all one word) and are then surprised to find their enormously original idea isn't allowed!)

Comments in Google Docs

Follow this link to a great post about how you could use the comment feature in google docs to provide extra guidance.  Did you realise that the insert comment feature can be used for ongoing discussion within a document?  Very useful.

Vicky UpStage & "The Haka tells a story" (with Vanessa too)

Michael Barbour and I met with Vicky Smith on campus this week and had an update where she is with her VLN project "The Haka tells a story". Vanessa knows lots about it because she is the teacher in one of the schools involved!

Of course UpStage is an important tool alongside Moodle.

We were very interested to hear that Vicky and the students will not only be creating, performing and mentoring but also making teacher and student training materials.

And that the cross curricular project has a home in PE plus writing, te reo, and other subjects.

I'm pretty sure Vanessa and Darren can help you link into this in some way if you are keen.
Niki

Shelfari and web2 tools

I am about to organise an extension reading assignment using Amazon's web2 environment "Shelfari". I'm setting up a group for my readers to add share reading experiences, book reviews etc. If anyone else is using Shelfari I'd be pleased to hear about your experiences.

The second thing I'd like to share is an award winning wiki made by a librarian, Joy Cevalenza, it gives lots of information and instruction for a large number of free to use web2 tools. http://www.newtoolsworkshop.wikispaces.com/