Cluster Tour

Last week the ICWC cluster toured the remaining schools. We were first of the day and after some last minute panics with ICT hardware!!! we presented our progress. We had planned for a skype meeting with Nick Reed but he was away in Auckland so he recorded a video for us. Thanks Nick (see side panel).

A short video of some students being interviewed about inquiry, bridge to life and learning was also recorded (see sidepanel).

The principals and teachers toured classrooms superbly guided buy year 7+8 students. A couple of teachers were kidnapped for on the spot video interviews by some year 5+6s. Feedback was very positive. Comments included:

• Nice atmosphere
• Friendly open students
• Evidence of key competencies/inquiry in classroom displays
• Students able to talk about what and how they are learning.

The tour around the rest of the schools was very interesting and highlighted that we were as well and maybe better than others. We gathered a few cool ideas to think about.

Next year we are planning to link with Tiritea School to share ideas, buddy teachers and joint staff PD sessions. It would be good to maintain links with the ICWC cluster also.

Suzie Vesper- Web 2.0

Last term we went to Coley Street to work with Suzie Vesper. At that time, Nick Reed (Principal) left for Ashhurst school and Tony Greer (exDP/ Acting Principal/ Lead Teacher) was preparing to leave so Jo W and Roger K attended. Her workshop was interesting and shared a wide range of resources available online. The sharing student work online were discussed.
We have experimented with using blogs, podcasts and wikispaces but have had a very luke warm reception with the community. Most teachers at Opiki have decided to leave using these tools at the moment and investigate ways of effectively incorporating them into class learning and educating our community of the importance and value of online tools and elearning.