Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Book Week So Far

Hi Everyone!

Book Week continues this week with the QR Code Scavenger hunt at 2:00 in the LRC. Do see Hilda if you are interested in taking part.  The  book fair is open from 7:00-3:00 today and 8:00-2:00 tomorrow. Check out our One World So Many Stories book display at the front of the LRC. You might be surprised at what you find there. Take a moment and fill in a book blurb about a book you have read recently. 

Remember, Friday is Character Day. What character or book will you represent?

We will share some of the pictures from Book Week very soon, so do check back.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Book Week is Coming Soon!

Each year the LRC hosts Book Week. This is a special event in which books and reading are the focus. Students participate in competitions, read plenty of books, focus on literature based activities, interact with guest authors and guest readers, dress up as their favourite characters and more.

This year Book Week will take place during the week of February 25th.

Do take a look at the short video teaser we have prepared for the event. There will be more information to follow soon.


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Internet Safety Week Playlist

The teachers and students have been very busy creating internet safety videos for everyone.

We have begun collecting them all in a playlist for easier view, and they are also being posted on our Facebook page.

The short videos were produced by the KS3 students using Morfo on the iPads. The longer, Netiquette video was produced by Mr. Fastiggi in the Upper Primary school, with contributions by the upper primary school students and Mrs. Garcia in the LRC.

Have a look. We hope you enjoy and even learn something new from them.


Friday, February 1, 2013

Using Minecraft

We have recently purchased licenses for Minecraft Edu and are about to set up our first server. This is a huge step for us as the 7th grades will be using Minecraft in ICT to plan and build fortresses in teams. We have a great many team leaders in the 7th grade who will be in charge of organising each build, leading the work and building the more complex structures and mechanisms. This is our first time trialing Minecraft at school. That said, a good half of the grade has rated their abilities as intermediate to expert. The remaining half are novices who will be learning on the job, with the support of their teacher, their team and our online lessons.

Students will use their understanding of Castles and Fortresses from their 6th grade work to organise the materials, and plans for the project. We will build in Creative mode most of the time, but test the structures in survival mode during the process and once the builds are complete. 

It is always heartwarming to see students selecting the right tool applying their ICT skills in other subjects. Our 8th grade students have been working on WW1 Trench projects in Humanities and two of them have recreated their interpretations using two very powerful digital tools, Minecraft and Sketchup.

I have included their work below.

SketchUp Trenches




Minecraft Trenches 

Netiquette

Preparing for Internet Safety Week
Yesterday I put together a short Puppet Pals video for the Primary School, which attempts to explain what Netiquette really is.

The Apps
I have found that Puppet Pals is a great resource, once you have purchased the director's pass. It allows you to upload your own content and produce short videos that are easy to download as well as upload. Videos can easily be opened and edited in iMovie as well as dropboxed to a Mac where they can be edited and scored in iMovie and Garageband.

I also love Sock Puppets for this type of work and Morfo is great for head shots. In both cases the puppets mouths actually move with your voice. I have had trouble with Sock Puppets recently however, as the option to save to the iPad picture roll seems to have disappeared with the free version. Time to upgrade I guess....

Anyway I hope you enjoy our little video on Netiquette.