21st Century Learning Challenge

KAREN » NEN Evaluation Project

Point England School

Glen Innes, Auckland
http://www.ptengland.school.nz/

Point England School is a contributing school (NE-yr.6) located in Glen Innes, Auckland. Their mission is working in partnership with their community to build a path to success for the children they share.


Point England School

What did they do?

On November 11 2008 the Year 5 and 6 extension group enjoyed the opportunity to Video Conference with Josh Klein in California. As part of the school-wide environmental inquiry topic "Go for Green" Mrs Tele'a and her students had watched his TED talk and started to find out more about crows. They found it really interesting that Josh was trying to find a way to live with these pesky birds and find a use for them instead of just trying to get rid of them. Everyone thought his vending machine for crows was a great idea.

Pt England School students also participated in another round of Rock Our World in Term 4 of 2008. Students shared their music, learning and movies with students from Canada, New Hampshire USA, Italy, Poland, China, Peru and Delaware USA.

Learning for students and teachers

After finding out about crows the extension group used one of Tony Ryan's Thinkers Keys, the B.A.R. key, and tried to adapt the vending machine by making it Bigger, Adding something and Replacing something. So when they got to meet Josh via Skype, after they had chatted to him for a bit, they tried out their B.A.R. thinking on him and asked him what he would do if he used the B.A.R. key. They also asked him how he would deal with the pesky magpies in the school field at Pt England School who dive bomb kids and teachers when they are annoyed.

The students thoroughly enjoyed video conferencing with students from other countries and finding out about what school and life is like where they come from. As part of this project they had a film festival and the students worked in groups to create independent movies around the 'Green' theme.

KARENS contribution

Staff and students at point England School are high-level users of ICT across all curriculum areas, and make extensive use of online projects and communications. Beofre being connected to KAREN, the experienced difficulties in terms of securing a high speed connection to the web, and their previous link to the Rock Our World project had to be done from a nearby church hall where connectivity was better. The school now has connectivity to KAREN through a radio connection over the “last mile” that allows them to participate in these activities from within the school.

Future Focus

Point England students plan to enter the Rock Our World event again next year, and are already in communication with Google to find if they can engage with another live link with a TED Talks expert, All are very excited about the opportunities this technology affords and are keen to make good use if it in as many ways as they can.

Artefacts