August 2007

Kids Using Technology in Education (KUTE) is an annual event organised by The Auckland Computers in Education Society (ACES). On a Saturday morning every October, students congregate in a central Auckland school hall to share their learning through ICT with their school community. This year KUTE will be held onsite at Sky City during uLearn07. This is a highly interactive breakout where conference attendees will have the opportunity to talk directly with students from a number of Auckland schools who will be demonstrating, sharing and answering questions about their learning through a variety of ICT supported experiences. These include Game Making, Animation, Photo Editing, Blogs, ComicLife, Podcasting, TV Broadcasting, Inquiry Learning and also how students are effectively utilising an LMS to support their learning. Participating schools include Summerland Primary, Marina View Primary, Kristin School, Pt England School, Cornwall Park Primary and Baverstock Oaks School.

Read more about KUTE and other ACES events on their website at www.aces.org.nz

Invite a colleague to one of the 9 preconference workshops on 2 October

Leadership Strand
Curriculum Implementation; Local curriculum design (Julia Atkin & Christina Ward);
Powerful Professional Learning Communities, (Cheryl Doig & Rob Clarke, Christchurch);
Hard Fun: Fostering An Inquiring Mind (Sharon Friesen, Canada).

Classroom Practice Strand
The social web and the social classroom (Ewan McIntosh, Scotland)
Sometimes the Technology, but Always the Thinking, (Jill Hammonds, CORE)
Designing and Developing Effective Content for Online Environments (Derek Wenmoth et al)
Adventures in Podcasting (Jane Nichols, CORE)
KidPix to the Max (Innes Kennard, VUW)
Movie Making for Secondary.(Nathan Kerr and Robert Douglas, Onehunga)

If you would like to attend a pre-conference workshop ONLY and are not attending the Ulearn07 conference, please write to gdavis@paradise.net.nz with your preferred option and your school or billing address.

If you have registered for the conference and the preconference workshop as well, you can select the preconference workshop of your choice

Hey all you NZ edubloggers out there, want to put a face to the blog?  The NZ Bloggers Cafe is happening this year at ULearn 07.  Come along and engage with other bloggers in some lively debate about life, the universe and everything.  This would also be a great place for ‘budding bloggers’ to come and learn some tips and tricks from ‘blooming bloggers’.  The cafe will be open during morning tea and lunch breaks so come along and join in the discussions. The venue will be advertised in the conference handbook and I am told there will be some aromatic coffee available!

We will need people to help man the cafe during these break times, the idea for the cafe is twofold.  The first is so that we can all get together and meet in person the minds we have been reading.  The second is to be of help to other bloggers just starting out and who would like some tips and tricks.  If you would like to help, please leave a comment.

I would like to kick the cafe off with a targetted discussion during lunch on the first day of conference.  There has already been a suggestion of looking at the issues raised in the Karl Fisch presentations, if you have a topic you think would be a great one to get us started please also leave a comment.

I look forward to meeting my aggregator in person, there are some great bloggers in NZ and I’m sure there are some I haven’t discovered yet.

Tony Ryan is an educational consultant and writer, and offers professional support to school organisations throughout the world on issues such as change leadership, lifelong learning and quality classroom practice. He has presented numerous keynotes and workshops at state, national and world conferences in the past 10 years.

He has been engaged as a teacher-in-residence in over 400 schools throughout several countries. In this role, he teaches extensively, and offers guidance to teachers with their everyday practice.

Tony is a prolific author of books on effective thinking and learning. These books include The Ripple Effect, Thinkers Keys for Kids, Mindlinks, Brainstorms, Thinkfest and The Clever Country Kits. His latest CD-Rom features an extensive update of Thinkers Keys.

He is the Chairman of the Board of School Aid, a non-profit organization that encourages 10 000 schools around Australia to co-ordinate their fund-raising activities for major local and global disasters. School Aid also provides invaluable assistance to schools in the encouragement of active citizenship opportunities. See more on www.tonyryan.com.au

Ewan McIntosh is an educational technologist and teacher of French and German. Based in the Edinburgh area he frequently gives talks and workshops around the world, trying to find new and better ways of using emerging technologies in education.

Ewan currently works as a new technologies consultant for various groups, including the BBC, British Council, General Teaching Council of Scotland, the National Press and Learning and teaching Scotland.

In particular, Ewan advises on how social media can be harnessed for public service and education management, and used to improve learning. He will also bring to ULearn07 his knowledge of Web2.0 technologies in education across stages and curricular areas

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Ewan is a frequent blogger, and more information and previous talks are available on his blog.

Ewan is presenting a pre-conference workshop; The social web and the social classroom

“From the most basic knowledge of the web, Ewan will take you through the main ‘Web 2.0’, or social media, tools that have had an impact on teaching and learning in his classrooms, and classrooms around the world. We will start by taking a look at some collaborative learning students and teachers have done with the various technologies that could not have been done without them, and spend some time ‘reverse engineering’ them to see how it was done. There will be an opportunity throughout to play with mobile phones, podcasting, creating simple project-based websites that update themselves, learning blogs, games and gaming consoles. Please bring along any gadgets, phones, cameras or consoles you (or your kids) might have from home.
Suitable for Primary and Secondary educators.”

Visit the ULearn07 site for enrolment details.