Thursday, 29 November 2012

Parent Surveys

We're very pleased with the number of entries to the parents' questionnaire. However, we still need lots more to receive the main verdict from all of our school's parents- only about 20% of the parents have gone on the survey.

Thank you if you are one of the 64 that have filled it in.
This means that you will be helping us innovate our school's technology.


Friday, 23 November 2012

Blog layout

Excuse us while we experiment with the layout of the iTribe blog. George is trying out different backgrounds, fonts and widgets, and learning how to use Blogger. So the appearance of our site may change everytime you look at it. Leave us a comment if you spot something you like!

Thursday, 22 November 2012

Parents' Survey

We would like all Henleaze Junior School parents to complete our survey about the use of technology in school.
You can find the survey here:
http://tis.im/itribeparents

How iTribe works

We have project group meetings once a week, and in between times, we do lots of independent work at home.
 
Right now, we are conducting surveys to find out the views of parents, pupils and staff about the technology the school uses now, and what they would like to see in the future.

We thought it might be helpful to start a blog so we can keep people upto date on what iTribe is and what it does.

Nexus Meeting

Meeting at Bristol University

George and Luke went on behalf of iTribe to a meeting all about different ways of using technology in schools, and how ICT helps children learn.
 



Curating the self (Children's autobiographical video projects):



John Potter
Alice Potter
Ian Thomson
Matthew Pitt
Lorna Smith


John potter
Videos!

Literacy can be video text and all those things print based. Motivate children.
Use of portables!
Video camera is most used media tool...
His research concerns 'what Is the raw material of kids lives?'
Some schools don't have much tech.
Picture Memory boxes used some times in education.
Video clip overlaid with stuff that they are saying!
Media is a permeant Record of the self.
We got showed a funny video and the story boards!



Alice potter
Blogging!

It has a high profile.
She uses it to engage reluctant BOY writers...
she motivated her pupils to give there best piece of writing!
Her pupils learned how to pick out there best bits
Her pupils used 'vokis' to speak their words for them! Classy!
They described a hero using few words
She tried to involve parents in the work their kids did.
her pupils wanted to show off their achievements .they had something to aim for...
Some of her problems..
.keeping the blog going
.time management
.finding & keeping audience, they sent home invitations with the web address.


Ian Thompson
Collaborative writing

He Uses simple tech.
He Was a classroom teach for 16 years.
He focuses on Comprehensive teaching.
He looks at his own teaching.
Lot of filming of classrooms.
He was very focused on writing on computers.
Mediation nothing change nothing is taught.
He finds writing painful but comes from sociality.
He..umm..uses dirty old computers
He asks his pupils to write a dual narrative
He then asked them to work on the same computer
They physically wrote together...
He was interested in pupils as learners and writers
"In play children develop!" said Ian.
He stood at the side when he was teaching ,not slap bang in front of them,and pointed from the side.
His pupils wrote a story called 'family murder'
He used the title 'planes of communicative activity' taken from Malcolm Reed actually!


Matthew Pitt
Broadclyst TV

He's a yr 5 teacher
His pupils have 1 to 1 acces to computers
The school has it's own tv studio!
They have their own on air and studio where they green screen a lot.
They like green screening because it can create a more vivid feeling for the work.
New demoted children see what other people have done and have ago at it themselves and achieve a new ambition.
They make program's instead of videos.
Success breeds success!
Program's give experience to children.
Literacy is strongly linked to making program's.
Had a goal to create a program for living history.
Improves speaking and listening improvements.
Lessens anxiety which improves performance.
Constructive criticism!

Lorna smith
Discussion

No need for hi tech.
She showed us a storyboard.
NATE helping teachers on which they find difficult to teach.
Wiki pages and discussion threads.
You can see what other people say without speaking with them.
You can have more than one person speaking at a time.
You can exchange knowledge easily and get other peoples opinions.
Unfinished business!
Pupils created there own wiki threads about questions and issues.
Twitter wars which 2 accounts contrasting so they can post their beliefs.
You can log onto it after school.

Me and Luke thought about Matthew's studio idea and thought about creating our own school tv channel!

See y'all later

George & Luke

What is iTribe?

What?

A "think tank" set up by Mr Barber to rethink the way the school uses technology to communicate.

Why?

  • Because HJS is pretty good at techy stuff and wants to stay ahead of the game!
  • Because we produce lots of brilliant stuff and we want to publish it so people can easily find and enjoy it.
  • Because the people who have the best ideas about the technology of the future are the children of today.

Who?


Jake, Lily, George, Sarah, Luke and Katrina