I was invited to share my elementary school experience with Grade 2 students. I talk about how strict my teachers were and how different my school is from international schools. Like last year, students were fascinated by difference between these 2 types of learning experiences.
On this picture, students try to sit the way we were sitting in Grade 5. They thought it was very interesting to sit like that. What they don’t know is that it becomes very uncomfortable to sit like that for the entire day.
I also show them some game we played and they loved it. They play it now on they own in their classroom.
The international day at WAB has always been a day to remember. This year I had 2 groups of Gr.1 students. I told them a Congolese tale and I taught them a simple game I played when I was a kid. They got into the game and surprisingly, they kept playing the game days after the International Day. Click on the picture on the left to see a short video taken as they were playing the game. Kids are saying “Moja, Mbili, Tatu.” That’s “One, Two, Three” in Swahili. We were counting in Swahili as we were playing the game. Ms Bond who spent sometime in Tanzania (where they also speak swahili) remembered the game and helped out with the first group of kids.
It is all about learning about, with and through technology. This summit was held successfully for the second time at WAB. It was great to work with teachers and administrator who are all interested in technology. Find out more by following this link:
http://blogs.wab.edu/bls2010/
I was a participant and presenter. I also was in the organizing committee. It looks like all the participants were satisfied. They said they would like to return next year.
Many teachers in my school had great activities for kids in Kid Pix. They used Kid Pix intensively throughout the year. But now we have introduced Tux Paint, which is a free app and could be used in lieu of Kid Pix. Teachers were reluctent at first and now they’re loving it. Sure Tux Paint doesn’t have as many features as Kid Pix, but students’ achievements are equally great and that’s what matters.
I have started using etherpad as a communication tool to keep in touch with teachers. We scribble notes to tell each other what we’ve done or intend to do in technology. It’s just like another way of planning with individual teachers, instead of physically going to see them and discuss. It’s going well, just that sometimes etherpad can’t be launched!
Teachers are given the choice to have their students’ digital portfolios using either iWeb or WordPress. We organized training on these two applications at different times and made sure teachers were familiar with them. So far most people chose WordPress, but a few tried it and agreed, as a grade to stay with iWeb.
I’m trying to understand why this divergence of opinion and here’s what I think. Personally, wordpress should be the way to go. One of the reasons is simply because it doesn’t cost that much compared to iWeb. If you want to eliminate the cost factor of iWeb, you could host it locally as we do, but you lose the privilege of allowing comments from your audience. The downside of wordpress is that, it can be really slow since you are working online.
As a conclusion, I think I’ll keep observing supporting both sides and try to get them do their best work. We’ll see how it goes.
About Me
I have many names, but I’ll just tell 2 of them: Jose Tumba. I’m an ICT integrator and have worked with international schools students for more than 15 years. Go through this blog and you’ll find out more about me and what I do. Happy blogging