We had a great SmackDown at the last meeting.  Here are some of the great ideas we shared.

  

Photo Peach Fresh Slideshows

 Study Ladder

Sumdog, Free Maths Games 

 

Toy Theater, Cross Curricula Games

Storybird 

Next meeting: Thursday May 10 at Puhinui School, 116 Puhinui Rd, Papatoetoe @ 3.30pm for a cuppa, with a meeting start at 3.45pm.

We will have a trial of Smackdown as suggested at the Papatoetoe South meeting in February - 2 minute presentations of an app, a site, a process, an idea etc...
That means - if you have an app, a site, a process, or an idea that you are excited about - SHARE IT for 2 minutes.
Bring your enthusiasm, and something to share or discuss. See you there. (and on the blog)

Next Meeting, W8, T1

Next meeting: 

Term 1, Week 8 - Thursday 22^nd March

@ St Joseph’s School in Otahuhu. 

Time: 3.30pm for a cuppa, then a start at 3.45pm to finish by 5pm.

Come and join us. We hope to see you there!

      

Last meeting and Next Meeting

I can't believe how fast this term is going. My apologies for not getting on this blog sooner.

We had a fantastic meeting at Papatoetoe South on 16 February. Thanks Mark, for your inspiring talk on 21st Century classrooms, and Greg, for putting together an awesome presentation of some of the things happening at Papatoetoe South School.

The following notes were taken by Megan from Puhinui:

South Auckland ICT Cluster Meeting – 16/02/12

The need to create exciting learning spaces – inviting 21st Century spaces (conversation pits, lofts, cushions, quiet areas, ‘caves & watering-holes’)

· What do we want to explore as a group this year? Ways of using ICT to extend deeper thinking; further guest speakers (could be education or product); sharing how software, apps, tools etc are being used in schools; ‘smackdown’ (2 min sharing of predetermined ideas); create a list of blogs, twitter names, wikis, skype names etc, for opening up different ways of sharing information, experiences, and thinking.

. An increasing number of schools are using different LMS formats to support student learning, including: Moodle; Google docs; Knowledge net; Ultranet; blogs; wikis.

· Explore goal setting (in blog format), no matter how small. southacklandelearning.blogspot.co.nz

· Quad blogging (quadblogging.net). Schools are connected with three other schools in the world to explore learning.

· Congratulations to Rachel from Waiuku on her Core eFellowship. She will be exploring ICT and behaviour.

· Ministry has paid for the Lion upgrade. See Yoobee (Renaissance) and remember to fight for it free of cost (contract is only for 3 more months).

· Next meeting: Term 1, week 8;,Thursday 22nd March at St Joseph’s in Otahuhu.

So, everyone, come along to our next meeting - be part of the ICT revolution in South Auckland. Your ideas, your enthusiasm, your experimenting, your discoveries, and your refusal to get bogged down by the SYSTEM - will prevail!

Our group is like a living, breathing organism - it's starting to take on a life of its own, but it's only as strong as the enthusiasm of each member. Go for it!

Cheers

Steve

Next Meeting: Thursday 22nd September

Our next meeting is Week 8 at The Gardens School in Manurewa. 

Bring any ICT ideas, sites, apps that you are working for you and/or your school. 

We love to hear of new possibilities and ideas or sites that we can investigate and use!

If there is anything you would particularly like to explore or find out about, let us know in plenty of time beforehand, so we can try to have someone available who can share on it.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at: 
The Gardens School, 
101 Charles Prevost Drive, 
The Gardens, 
Manurewa 
on Thursday 22 September, at 3:30pm for a cuppa, ready for a 3:45pm start. 

See Map link below.

View Larger Map

Thanks for everyone's contributions at the last meeting. Some good stuff to go away and explore.

Farewell also to Steve Cornelius who is leaving to take up work in publishing. All the best Steve... keep in touch.

There'll be an email going out early next week about the next meeting in Week 8, which will include a summary of the last meeting. Looking forward to more sharing and discussing some issues.

Cheers, Steve

iPad Deployment

iPad Deployment.

Get in contact with me if you want to know how we deploy and maintain 75 iPads.

Our chosen list of Apps is certainly not exhaustive, just the best of what we have trialled over the last 12 months on our initial 2 iPads, as well as getting the students to suggest apps too. The apps we installed are:

• Pages
• iMovie
• Extras for iMovie
• Garageband
• Chicktionary
• Wordlands
• NASA HD
• NZ Herald
• TVNZ
• ComicBook
• Documents Free
• Squaramble
• Super 7
• Tic Tac Toe Plus
• Blanks
• Dots Free
• IQ Gym
• Addicus HD
• Finger Physics
• Qwiki
• Four in a Row
• Word Monkey
• Word Search+
• Google Earth
• 7 Little Words
• 3 News
• Whirly Word
• GoSkyWatch
• Jumbo Calculator
• Math Snacks
• Pearl Diver HD
• Pirate Treasure Hunt
• UnblockMe
• iBooks
• IQ Gym
• Solutions
• WhatBirdNZ
• Mancala: FS5

These will now be deployed into classes at the beginning of Term 3 for integration into class programmes. Each of our digital classes will be having 14 and the 2 Academic Enrichment classes will initially share 12. All sets will be made available to other classes, although we will be needing to expand our wireless network. An Airport Base station will travel with the Enrichment set as a temporary solution as the digital classes already have a wireless network available.

Storage and security has been a big concern for us. I will detail this in another post.

Gavin