Scrolling through my blog roll this morning I came across one of Ewens posts with his infamous delicious links. I always find some gems in these posts and this morning was no different, a few clicks led me to this neat innovation. Heres the swissmiss link, and another one at Epica Awards.
“Hollands largest chain of coffee shop is called CoffeeCompany. CoffeeCompany wanted to attract more students. So it installed WiFi in some of its stores near universities
The problem is, lots of students just come into the store for the WiFi but hardly look at the menu. So THEY and CoffeeCompany decided to move the CoffeeCompany menu into the WiFi menu on peoples laptops.
They periodically changed the wireless network name from the normal “CoffeeCompany” to hardselling headlines. So when students connected to the network, they were greeted with the headlines in their WiFi menu like “HaveYouTriedTheCarrotCake?” or “Mmm…YummyMufinsOnly1,99″.
The best part came when people yelled across the room to ask the barista what the name of the WiFI network was and the barista answered one of the WiFI lines like “OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready”.
I have become accustomed to using Pages for everything now - lists, newsletters, documents. Making the transition from Microsoft Word to Pages was initially a bit difficult, I had created a number of shortcut keys for my most commonly used Māori macrons and found it quite annoying that i couldnt set these up in the same way in Pages.
I recently learned how to do this in pages, see below for quick tips on how to set this up.
Step 1: Open System Preferences and find “International”
Step 2: Click on “Input Menu”
Step 3: Find Māori, and click on tick box
Step 4: Also ensure that you tick the box at the bottom that says Show Input Menu in Menu Bar. This way you can change Input Language without having to go through this process.
Now in Pages, you can push the “`~” button in the top left corner along with your vowels to create Māori macrons.
Over 200 people from around the Auckland and Northland area participated in the first ever iLearn iTeach ICT Symposium. With over 18 different workshops to choose from participants had their work cut out for them in choosing only 3 to attend. Nick Billowes opened the Symposium in true CORE Education fashion by challenging people to think about the purpose of their attendance and their goals for the day, Linda followed in typical early childhood spirit introducing participants to a fun balloon game.
There were over 13 centres from the 20 centres involved in the ECE ICT PL programme presenting on the day, in only two short years teachers have maximised the learning possibilities supported by the professional learning prorgramme and seized the opportunity to advocate for the innovative work they are doing within their contexts. As their facilitator is its hugely humbling to see teachers develop the confidence and skills required to present their findings in only a short amount of time. Congratulations to everyone who took the initiative to attend this FREE event and to those teachers who took on the challenge of presenting.
Pacific Island Affairs Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban recently launched Tuatua Mai, an interactive website designed to encourage increased learning of Cook Islands Maori. Visitors to the website will be able to learn and test themselves on spelling and pronunciation, while experiencing the sounds and sights of the Cooks.
What an exciting achievement for the Cook Island community. It is common knowledge that the acquisition of Cook Island Maori language has decreased over the years. Fortunately, we are seeing initiatives (such as this website) put in place to promote the language.
My sister and I spent lots of time immersed in the Cook Island culture and language, however, we were not privileged with the ability to speak the language fluently. On many occasions we asked our grandmother to talk to us in Cook Island Maori or share with us some of the words that we could most commonly use, her response was always along the lines of “I’m trying to learn English so you can help me”. “Or its better for you to use papa’a for school”. Its so very unfortunate that we did not get the chance to learn such a valuable treasure - but we are so very proud of the fact that she taught us so many other valuable lessons that have proved to be extremely useful attributes - be humble, work hard, give with all your heart, serve your community, educate yourself, respect your elders, and the list goes on.
Thanks Nana for these amazing life lessons and skills.
The Ministry of Education funded intitiative ECE ICT PL (Early Childhood Education Information Communications Technology Professional) Programme is offering early childhood teachers the opportunity to engage in high-quality professional development. Please see the flyer below, or email aucklandregionalhui@core-ed.net for more information.
Yesterday, a group of friends and I watched the amazing Kiwi film - Second Hand Wedding! We were very impressed with the high quality performance of the cast and were very inspired by the storyline. if you havent seen it yet, I urge you to..
Update: Congratulations to Geraldine Brophy who won the Performance by an Actress in a leading role in Film at the Quantas Film & Television Awards last night!
I’ve just finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking for the 2nd time, and again I am blown away with the way in which Gladwell presents highly complex topics in a reasonably coherent manner. When describing the gist of the book to different groups of friends, the best description I could come up with was “brilliant, thought-provoking, random and interesting”. You really do have to read it to truly appreciate it…just like any other book I imagine. Gladwell presents readers with an accessible insight into a wide range of research. I found a couple of key themes relating to early childhood:
1. Experience counts:“our reactions come out of a locked room, we become expert at using our behaviour and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgements and first impressions”
I recall my first few months working in an early childhood centre, there were so many things I didnt know, like walking around wiping noses - when actually children are capable of wiping their own and ‘Helping’ a child finish a puzzle by putting the pieces in myself - not sure what the child learned but I affirmed for him that I knew how to do it faster. Its been over 11 years since those first few weeks and I now know I am a different teacher than what I was then, I’ve learned to read different situations based on my experience, and I’ve learned to decode or interpret different learning situations….its been an interesting process…and one that I imagine will continue for the rest of my life.
2. Thin-Slicing: “refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience”
The book refers to this concept regularly, with a wide range of different ways it has been applied in practical situations. I guess for early childhood, its about trusting that ‘gut’ feeling. The ‘notice, recognise, respond’ in documentation and learning stories. Making decisions that are authentic to the situation and having that ability to follow the emergent curriculum based on a ‘thin-slice’ of experience.
Intuition is not some magical property that arises unbidden from the depths of our mind. This book shows us how we can hone our instinctive ability to know in an instant, helping us to bring out the best in our thinking and become better decision-makers in our homes, offices and in everyday life.
If you were interested in learning more about the concepts and dont want to go and get the book, have a look at other work Gladwell has completed. I first encountered Malcolm Gladwells through Ted, His talk on ‘Spaghetti Sauce’ was interesting, he briefly refers to Blink and some of the concepts of the book throughout his talk. Check out his talk below (if you can get beyond the monotone, you’ll find his work, knowledge, insight and humour quite delightful!)
CORE Blogs have made the move from Movable Type to Word Press, and I’m trying to find an outfit that fits. I’m currently working my way through the templates to see which one I like… and the one that I think suits me…
The move of our blogs is quite timely as I have been thinking recently about the purpose of my blog. I reflect lots on paper and have a reflective journal to support my thinking - I contribute to my reflection journal occasionally and have found this a useful process for revisiting my experiences. I’ve heard time and time again that blogs can be used for this very purpose. Up until now I have had reservations about ‘recording’ these reflections in a public domain. Mostly because I know that what I think today, right now may not be what I think tomorrow, later on…and Im not too keen on being held to my ‘thinking’ processes.
Actually I think that as I grow professionally and personally my views should always be changing. I recently ran a “Reflective Teaching” workshop and encouraged early childhood teachers to record their thinking in journals…I have finally realised that its okay to make statements and believe in something right now, right here…and if it changes tomorrow…then it does…thats healthy and thats ongoing learning.
So stay tuned for “right here, right now” thinking and posting…and keep and eye on my outfit aka template as I keep trying to find the one that suits.
Perhaps you could dance to Nesian’s as you wait…:-)
FOC08
Translation: FOC08 means Facilitating Online Communities 2008.
Here’s my To Do list for Week One of the Facilitating Online Communities Course
Wk 1: Orientation - 28 July - 3 August
1. Set up a blog for your weekly work in this course.
I’m going to continue to use my current blog mostly because what I do through this course overlaps with my current work and I’m sure teachers in the early childhood centres/and my colleagues would find some of what I say here useful! - C’mon guys I know your hanging off every word…lol! 2. Attend the web conference meeting room (No password required) at UTC 10pm 28 July (10am 29 July NZST, see World Clock)
Okay I totally failed this test, I logged on later than everyone else and can’t figure out whether its technical difficulties or brain difficulties. But you know me, I will persist!!! Sorry Leigh Ill try for next time I promise and Ill make sure I get the times right!
3. Post to your blog what you hope to get out of this course. Include any concerns or questions you may have.
Hmmm, what do I want to get out of this course???
I suppose I dont have any clear ideas on what I would like to get out of this course. I do know, however that Im keen to learn more, and with the wealth of knowlege with the group and the excellent facilitations skills of our facilitator Leigh…I know I’ll come out of this with a deeper understanding of online learning communities. Judging by the first week…it looks likes its going to be awesome!!
4. Introduce yourself to the course in the discussion page. When you have your blog set up, add your blog’s web address to your introduction.
Check!!! Phew…:)
5. Set up an RSS News Reader and subscribe to the blogs of others in this course.
Check!! I just stuck with my plain old Google Reader and created a folder for class blogs titled FOC08…how ingenius is that. There are some really on2it people who have created Pageflakes, Diigo and Netvibes pages. Awesome stuff! But I know what works for me at this stage and Google Reader is my friend!
I’ve just finished reading 
