Week 5 - Eating an Elephant

Managing Time

This has been an interesting week of immunisations, projects, and preparation for speeches! I know that there are quite a few tasks to be completed before the end of the term. Our main tasks are:

1. Classroom speeches (after completing two pecha kucha presentations, reflecting on them, preparing, editing and practicing individual speeches)

2. Individual testing for Maths (to use data to set goals, reach targets, and excel past any standards posed :] )

3. Innovative 3D Solutions (in preparation for our MindLAB visit in week 10, we are hoping to learn about 3D design, and prototypes to solve problems)

4 Science Fair (Is now next term some time, but would be good to think about prior to the holidays )

Collaboration

It's important to always think about how we can contribute to our community when solving problems and thinking about solutions. Phil gave up a bit of his time to contribute to Ruma Rima's ability to complete projects. We realised that day that to complete a project we need to really think about the specific tasks that need to be completed. Using tools like brain-storming, Evernote, Google Keep can make BIG tasks seem a little bit more manageable.

We received this email from Phil today giving Ruma Rima students some tips about managing time and workload. 

Thanks again for your time and contribution Phil :)

Hi Ruma Rima,

I know most of you are probably like Luke and have heaps on both in and out of school and find the workload pretty intense!!

I thought it was a good time to remind you to use some tools to help plan and break things to do down into manageable chunks.

Remember we talked about mind maps?! You should do one every week to break your learning down. I started one for this week based on Mr Fourie's learning outcomes for the week using mindomo. This should help you focus on what you need to do, by bringing all of the information into one place.

When you see it clearly you can identify little bits of work that you can do when you have a bit of free time. You can use the time between school and practice to reflect and make notes on what to put on your blog. You can use dishes time to hide and do your 15 minutes reading.

There's an old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Hope it helps!

Cheers
Phil 

Inspiration

Check out this solution to the World's problem of Rubbish in the Ocean. This project started out with a problem, a person who cared, and a simple idea. MORE INFO HERE --> http://www.theoceancleanup.com/

Week 4 - Part 2

Videos of Pecha Kucha presentations:

This is a selection of videos of students performing Pecha Kucha mini in class. It is based on the idea of a full size (20 slides for 20 seconds per slide) Pecha Kucha night presentation. Our version was for 10 slides x 10 seconds. Students were graded on preparation, presentation, effective slides, and idea/thesis. These will be the same criteria as our speeches:

Presentation - OUT OF 5	Preparation - OUT OF 5
Was there a gripping introduction? Cue cards - not read, used for support Relevant visual aids were used effectively Eye contact was maintained with all the members of the audience Gestures were used to draw the audience in	Each word is clear and easily heard (diction and volume) Has maintained rhythm, momentum and effective pausing (pace) Expressive voice is used to emphasise different points (tone) The speaker is relaxed and confident The speaker effectively uses facial expression
Ideas/Content/Structure - OUT OF 5	Appeal - OUT OF 5
Is the subject well known / researched? Is it said in the speaker's own words? Does the speech have a logical sequence? Are quotes and / or rhetorical questions used? Did the conclusion bring the speech together?	Did you want to keep listening? Did you learn something? Did it motivate you? Did it amuse or entertain you? Did the whole speech maintain your interest?

Week 4 - Where has the term gone!?

Projects, projects, and more projects!

Today was a very busy day with some students having as many as 3 meetings at the same time! That's what the busy life of GisInt is like at this time of the year. These experiences are effective in teaching students about communicating their concerns, and negotiating difficult situations. When technology catches up with us at GisInt again, then we can start to look at some of the project management tools that Phil suggested we use to create order in our ocean of chaos ;)

We spend a bit of time today making sure that our speeches, science fair projects, and core maths skills have been developed and considered. We also had the fun experience of listening to 'Mini Petcha Kutcha' presentations this afternoon. These experiences are about getting us prepared for delivering a speech. We will create another presentation next week, and formulate specific goals for each presenter to extend themselves. Check out the awesome presentation of Hamish and Harry below, can't believe they only spent a day putting it together! Tu Meke boys! :) Congratulations to all students who gave presentations a go today. Awesome effort :D

Project Planning with Phil

Learning about Learning...

Today we had the pleasure of a guest visitor, Phil McLeod, from ECT join us for a learning experience about managing projects. This will be very helpful when it comes to designing a science fair project, preparing a speech, or following an interest project. Thanks heaps again Phil! Looking forward to catching up later in the term to review projects - we could have a RumaRimaRhino 'Dragon's Den' session!

Creating personalised learning pathways using Khan academy was rather successful today, despite our current internet situation. Was really cool to hear that students have taught themselves how to add decimals, fractions, etc... One day soon our SNUP upgrade will be complete. More personalised data will be available to students after the completion of Pearson Maths tests, which will give them a better idea about the 'things they don't know, they didn't know'

We continue to learn about becoming an Ultimate Games Player by learning about the game of Ultimate Frisbee. Some amazing talent in our classroom, and also some excellent learning experiences!

Our Whakatauki o te wiki for the week was 'Toku reo toku ohooho' meaning 'My Language, My Awakening'. We endevoured to recreate our 'moments' where we realised that a particular language (be it horse riding, mountain biking, playing minecraft, etc...) became our awakening. Very interesting renditions!