Exemplars from Old Site

This site was created and first published from in February 2009.  Students contribute to this Blog and publish their work online.   Mr Webb (the classroom teacher) oversees the site.

Prior to running this site Mr Webb, our teacher was responsible for running a page at his old school called 'Tamaki Today' some of the highlights of that site were 'Learn to Speak Samoan' and 'Learn to Sasa'.
It featured things like Cook Island Dancing.
We also received lots of visits as a result of putting some of our rugby games online like this. 

From Melville Intermediate School we've received visitors from all over the world.  Some of our most featured work has included our 'Maori Mihi' work video tutorials,  you can even view students who are Russian speaking Maori from watching our videos or learning the Days of the week in Maori!  We also were very proud of 'Rakau Stick' tutorials.   If you click on the link here you can view students from the USA who learnt about Rakau from our video.  The following link here is our 'Learn to Make Poi' series of lessons one and two. Last year we were particularly pleased with our 'How to Count in Maori Videos' and our 'Maori Haka Tutorial'.  Two years ago we also taught Appleby School, Nelson how to perform a Mihi.  You can view that material by clicking on the link here.

We've also featured amongst other things our work and video related to our 'School Sports Teams', 'School Cultural Group - the CPA', school music videos and lots more.  You can use the Google 'search' widget to find other examples of our work, or if you want directions to a specific piece of work, just ask!

During Term Three 2010 we published our Wai Maths Video Entry, where a student from our class came up with a Mathematical problem that ended up travelling over 80,000km around the world.  We also have taught classrooms around New Zealand Waiata like Hotiki, how to speak Maori in preparation for a Marae visit, like Reparoa School, how to do a Maori Mihi with Appleby School near Nelson or introducing yourself for a junior School, Pukekohe East School in Auckland,

The digital learning cycle is the plan that we follow when we are looking at planning some online work.  Our students follow the process when they create a piece of work.

Recognition for our sites, Mr Webb's old class page at Tamaki Today was nominated in 2008 for an Edublog Award for best Educational Use of Video. and again in 2010.   This page has been featured on the TKI Ministry of Education Middle Schools Website as a example of teaching pedagogy. We've also been featured on TKI's Digital Software for Learning Site featuring our work using Skype and Moviemaker.  

In 2013 we've been fortunate to have highlights like our collaboration with Lochardill Primary School, Scotland.  We've also been involved in Quadblogging Aotearoa with Selwyn House School, Christchurch and Tawa Intermediate.  You can view examples of these collaborations by clicking on the links to those classes.

Term One 2010 is Over.

Term One has drawn to a close and overall its been much more positive than the corresponding time last year. The students in the class are different, I've certainly opted to aim for more collaboration this year, that's been important. The kids have been excited by that more than anything. That's fed excitement with the blog.

Resources have played a point too. When I started I was told that I would have a digital classroom, a data projector and 12 classroom computers. Due to the fact that I have only two power points in the classroom, we had six computers last year and two never worked and no data projector. Maybe I should have kicked up a fuss earlier but its made such a difference. We've had eight computers running consistently this year. Plus the kids overall are a lot better. My school has abandoned streaming for students, which means the best kids are split amongst the five core classrooms. In the past they were all in one (non digital classroom).

Google says we've had 3,200 classroom visitors, and while this is inflated (its not unique visitors) for a start its more than acceptable. Its onwards and upwards from here. We've just started looking at adding material through teachertube and youtube and that should start driving visitors through the site. We've got a lot of momentum, last year I was a bit shy with hyping the site through third parties, I guess deep down I knew it wasn't strong and I was repeating Tamaki Today in a diluted format. Interface Magazine had a feature about Blogs and I decided to nominate myself for it, not because I believe its particularly newsworthy but thought that it would add to the traffic that is going through the site. I guess I am playing the game. Next step I want to start looking at awards that I can nominate myself for with myself and the students online work.