Asia New Zealand Foundation Award

Singapore and Education are an amazing thing, I have been able to attend #ICTlt2014 and this was an amazing experience although as I have stated the most compelling part of the experience was the time that was spent in the school prior to the start of the conference.

Earlier this year I became aware of an award from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.  I applied for an opportunity to travel to Singapore in September and was successful in my application which was an amazing opportunity.  It has the dual aspect of promoting collaboration and also also professional learning and opportunity for myself.

I have a pre visit meeting occurring in May, however the details that have already been supplied are exciting and I am looking forward to the prospect of continuing to engage and work with the classroom and students (and teachers and administrators) from another country.

Singapore Reflections 2014

In 2014 I had the opportunity to attend the ICTLT Conference which took place in Singapore. it was the first time that I'd had the opportunity to visit the city, although I had done so briefly as a 9 year old in 2982. The context for the 2014 visit was to attend the conference. This had been provided by the Auroa Primary School BOT as Professional Development. The part consisted of three other Principals from local schools, who were part of a PLG group. The conference was an interesting experience. Having attending numerous ULEARN Conferences in New Zealand I assumed that the conference would be run along similar lines and associated matters such as social media would run similar. I started using the conference hashtag from New Zealand as we began the process of departing and was surprised that there seemed to be minimal tweets prior to the conference. During the conference the tweeting was minimal. There was a break out or workshop that was devoted to Tweeting and unfortunately I missed it. The best part of the entire experience was being able to attend a visit to a local school prior to the conference. We visited the Geyling Methodist School first and saw it in operation. As Singapore was first in the world in the teaching state as ranked by the PISA test I was interested in observing in the classroom and seeing how it operated. The school was extremely encouraging and welcoming.

The experience was something that I enjoyed immensely from a practical point of view but also from an understanding of pedagogy.   However I was realistic that visiting Singapore as part of a conference was a opportunity that would only come once.    This year I applied through the Asia New Zealand Foundation and was thrilled to say that I was accepted to travel to Singapore later this year for a trip to strengthen relations and investigate the Singapore Education system.

5 and 5 Year Old Races - Matapu Wins Boys Relay

I applied for another position at another school in March 2016.  The school was local to Auroa hence while I had recored our students at this competition I also had inadvertently recorded my prospective new school as well.  I intended to play this as part of the interview process to highlight the fact that they didn't have a significant digital footprint.  As it was I was unsuccessful with the application.

One of the highlights of the MT SPA Cluster Athletics which was held at Victoria Park, Kaponga on Thursday 6th of March. These videos are of the Y1/2 races the five year old and six year old students. Manaia are in the blue, Matapu are in the blue with gold, St Patricks are in the purple, Kaponga are in the black and finally Auroa are in the orange.
AtheleticsY56 from myles webb on Vimeo.
Athletics56Boys from myles webb on Vimeo.

MT SPA Relays - Senior Students.

Recorded with an iPad at the event (no tripod) with myself standing near the finish line. One take and no editing. The final race of the MT SPA cluster field day took place on Thursday with the senior students racing. This included teams from the four of five local schools - Manaia (blue), Kaponga (black), Matapu (blue with gold) and Auroa (orange). The teams were competing against each other to contribute points towards the shield for best overall school.

1112Girls from Myles Webb on Vimeo.

SeniorBoys from Myles Webb on Vimeo.

Taranaki Survivor

Note:  This is the entire 20 episode run of the classroom internet competition that was run in the room called 'Taranaki Survivor' it was a tribute/parody/copy of the 'reality TV show' from the US.  I applied for a position in March 2015 at another school, where I was unsuccessful but I realised that if I took that job and lost my rights to the domain name then I would loose all the work from the show and wanted a seperate location to house the work that was not the domain of my school.   The opening sequence was shot with Final Cut Pro and a High Spec PC.   The episodes were then shot with iPad2 by the students themselves.  I would then finish each episode by having the 'vote off' by the losing team which would be recorded by myself and 'green screened'.  The full competition is on the tab above.  I have run versions of the competition in my class since 2008 but this was the best full season.

Episode Twenty: The Jury Vote.
Summary:  It was finally over.  After two full school terms, twenty episodes and eliminations it all came down to this - Caro vs. Harry and the final jury vote.  In this all eliminated players, right back to Jayden who had been eliminated in Round One, came back to cast one final vote, for the winner of the 2015 Taranaki: Survivor Competition.   One by one players voted - there was the option for players to wear if they choose to wear a mask to disguise themselves.  Some choose to, others were very open about who they were voting for.  Abby, the only player to vote against Harry, who did so twice, voted for him to win.  Caro had double crossed a number of players en route to the final and this may have been a factor in ing the final vote which Harry ended up winning to claim the Grand Final Prize and gain the title of 2015 Taranaki Survivor Champion.  This left Caro reflecting on decisions that had been made: should she have taken Mackenna to the final with her? Did she regret her game playing during the episodes? Those questions remained unanswered and will have to wait until Taranaki Survivor 2016: Middle School Vs. Senior School.

Episode Nineteen: Grand Final - Part One/Two/Three
Summary: The final four consisted of Harry, Caro, Zariah and Mackenna.  In the final challenge they had to claim puzzle bags from across the school.  When they had recovered all four bags they then had to solve a puzzle by completing a phrase.   There would be two rounds, the winner of the first would receive an advantage of a rest before the final.  At stake was a place in the final two.

In the first qualifying round Zariah struck early trouble three times collecting the wrong bag and having to go back to the start.  As the challenged progressed Mackenna had a clear lead.  She claimed to have solved the puzzle, with Caro hot on her heels.  However Mackenna while she had solved the puzzle did not have it in the right order - as she went to re-order it Caro solved her puzzle and stole the prize of making it into the final.
 


In the second round Mackenna was keen to make up for her miss in the first.  However it was not the case as Harry claimed a come from behind victory in the second round putting the final immunity competition of Caro Vs. Harry.


Both player were feeling the affects of two intense rounds before the finals  Both also knew that ultimately if they wanted to make the final they need immunity to make sure of it.  Once again the competition was decided by seconds - Harry was able to retrieve all the bags of puzzle pieces before Caro but she had made a decision to solve the puzzle as she was running towards the finish line.  This strategy paid off in spades as she made up time in challenge to ultimately claim the final victory.  A double vote followed - in the first Zariah received votes from Mackenna, Caro and Harry and sent her home in a 3:1 margin.   There was another twist as the final vote then took place immediately afterwards.  Caro was safe having had immunity from the final challenge which left her with a crucial decision to make - would she take Harry, her greatest rival or would she take Mackenna to the final jury vote.  In the end she decided to take Harry with her eliminating Mackenna and making her the final member of the jury.

Please note the rest of the season can be viewed from the 'Taranaki Survivor: Tab

3d Printing in Schools

One of our most popular posts that occurred from last terms work was our 3d Printing Project. We've had a group of students working independently on a problem solving project. The students have identified the problem and moved through the problem solving process. The slideshow about the project has been updated and reflects the students progress. The project has undergone twelve or so prints that have detailed the significant changes in the project as the students have continued to adapt their production. The best part has been the students who are the ones driving the project. They are also responsible for creating this video detailing the progress: Where to next? On the first week of the term the students from Room One are going to mount the hinge on the door and ensure its completed and works. This will involve further testing and checking, and possibly more production.

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.