Lockdown Challenge- Create a Face using Household Objects

 

Miss Ribotton came up with this Challenge for the students to do over lockdown. I can't wait to see what the children come up with! I created a slideshow with the task so that children can collaboratively add to this slide and we can see instant results.

How to insert a picture into blogger comment....

I remember in the DFI that we were given a link to be able to comment on someone's blog and leave a link in the actual comment. This comes in handy when we are teaching remotely and want to give out awhi for quality blog posts! 

At Belfast School our school-wide reward system is using awhi. So if you want to know what to do, read ahead..... 

 All you simply do is: 

Copy this into the comment    <a href="insert URL here">Insert display text here</a>

and then replace the part, insert URL here with the URL of whatever you are trying to link in. Be it an image, doc, or whatever.

Give it a try and see if you can add something to my blog post below!

What are you? Poem

 Our class has been looking at a Poem called 'What are you?' We examined the poem and looked at the language features that it had that made it stand out. Things such as alliteration, similes, metaphors and juxtapositions. For those who don't know what a juxtaposition is, it is where two things are placed together with contrasting effect. For example- 'silent scream' or 'soft concrete'.

Here is the Powtoon that I created using the 'What are you?' poem format.

Surf to Turf Belfast

This year I have organised an event called the Surf to Turf. The children have been busy training over the last 6 weeks. Early morning bootcamps (7am-8am) with the support of the NZ Institute of Sport. Belfast Community Network have been providing beautiful breakfasts for the students. Next Wednesday is the actual event which involves the children running 5.1km, undergoing some physical challenges and then the finale being the kids pulling a fire engine up the Belfast Rugby Club driveway. Looking forward to seeing the children's successes next week! 

Google Certified Educator- Level One

 Super excited that I was able to achieve my Google Certified Educator, Level One. It's great as now I can join my Syndicate Team with the Certification. Thanks to Manaiakalani for supporting us with the DFI and also giving us the skills required to be able to sit this exam.

Google Certified Educator Exam and DFI Day 9

Today for me was all about sitting the Google Certified Educator Exam and hopefully joining my colleagues in the Year 7/8 team at my school with this achievement.

If you would like to know more about becoming a Google Certified Educator, check out this link here.

I must say that some of the parts on the exam I flew through and there were a couple of questions where I did have a wee bit of a panic. I marked them for review and then at the end was able to go back and complete them. I think it was more of a panic around running out of time that made me feel like I couldn't answer the question, opposed to not being able to answer it.

Being on the online DFI has been an amazing experience for me for a number of reasons:

* I was able to connect with a wider range of facilitators and gain useful learning and expertise from each of them

* I was able to connect with other teachers and see what they are doing in their classrooms and with their learners

* I have further developed my toolkit with useful tools, tips and smarter ways of doing things

* I have the rewindable learning material that was shared on the agenda's, that I can go back to at any stage and revise what was taught, and reflect and adapt my practice

Where to next?

For me I want to continue to share the things I have learnt with staff and students at my school and in my interactions with others. I want to look further into becoming a Hapara Champion Educator and to look at other opportunities where I can lead and develop as an educator and a person.

Thank you to Manaiakalani for the support you have provided over the course of the nine week DFI and a special thank you to Venessa who has been so amazing to work with. You have been supportive, knowledgeable and an empathetic ear and it has been fantastic. Thank you!

Code, Computational Thinking and Micro bits- DFI Day 8

Great day exploring and learning and grateful to be able to have this time to have a play and learn. So many applications for the classroom and for my code club back at school. Thanks Manaiakalani. 

Today was a great opportunity to be able to have a play around with Code. I was able to give a Minecraft code project a go through Hour of Code. What a fantastic and easy way to teach the students code. Great step by step instructions to guide you in bite sized steps. You are able to follow the steps and then problem solve to figure out where your code is taking you wrong.

Here is the link to my Mine craft Code project that I tried first in Hour to Code. I even got a nice wee personalised Certificate as evidence of my work.

I also had my first wee look at the Microbit. Very exciting that you can utilise Scratch and this site to help you to create your own projects. I am very excited by this and will definitely be looking into this further. Here is the microbit project that I created with the simple heads / tails coin flick.    

Children will see flashing images and some sounds, before they are needing to have made their heads or tails decision. Heads being the skull and tails being the umbrella. Have a play and see what you think. Push 'A' to make it start.

But for now it is time to revise and sign up to do the Google Exam..... wish me luck!