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Congratulations to DigiOps project Studyit, which is a finalist in the 2006 TUANZ Innovation Awards. |
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The Tech Angel team at Wellington Girls’ College has been joined by mentoring angel, Cheryl Horo, whose role is to inspire and educate the young women about career opportunities in the IT industry.
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For seven Community Technicians their perseverance and hard work was recognised and rewarded at a small informal graduation dinner and ceremony held at a Christchurch restaurant recently. |
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Opoutere School principal Vaughan van Rensburg, accompanied by teacher Jan-Marie Kellow and Kopu project facilitator, Wayne Howes, donned their best bib and tucker for the Computerworld Excellence Awards held in Auckland recently.
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A phalanx of journalists as well as Brooklyn School's Kapa Haka group greeted the Minister of Education, the Hon Steve Maharey on his fleeting visit to the school's Tablet classroom. |
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Forests of Life (FOL) pilot school Mokoia Intermediate is set to be joined on the project by their Aussie mates from Golden Square Secondary School in Bendigo, Victoria.
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The latest case study looking at the integration of Tablet technology into the classroom has been released by CHaOS project facilitator, Dean Stanley. |
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Visitor numbers to the Studyit website continue on an upward trajectory with figures almost doubling in the past year.
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Congratulations to Opoutere School which is representing the Kopu Project as a finalist in this year’s Computerworld Excellence Awards category of Excellence in the Use of IT in Education: Primary and Secondary. |
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Feedback from the 3News coverage of the CHaOS project and the Tablet classroom has been overwhelmingly positive according to Brooklyn School Principal, Chris Bryant, and project facilitator, Dean Stanley.
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Community technician, Lucy Hazelwood, is noticing a trend. Demand for her repair service is dropping away and Lucy is delighted! |
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The MOTIS project earned high praise from a visiting senior Texas Instruments (TI) executive who was in New Zealand for the worldwide launch of TI’s next generation of graphing calculator, the TI-nspire™ CAS+.
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The One News story on Project DISE aired on Monday 15 May 2006. To see it, click on the video link below. |
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Hamilton East School recently hosted students from Peachgrove Intermediate and Woodstock Primary School at a skills training day for student ambassadors who are part Digital Bridges project.
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Mount Maunganui became a classroom for the day recently when 70 students from Mokoia School descended on it to take a hands-on look at the coastal habitat of the pohutukawa tree. |
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Through the use of leading-edge hand-held technology (HHT), the MOTIS project is aiming to improve curriculum delivery, and increase and retain student participation in mathematics and the sciences.
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A one day seminar on hand-held-technology (HHT) in science is being hosted by MOTIS participant school, Wainuiomata High School, on Monday 10 April. All science teachers are welcome and encouraged to attend. |
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Privileged, buzzing and fantastic is how Paraparaumu maths teacher Paula Spence describes how she feels after attending the Texas Instruments T3 conference in Denver, Colorado in late February.
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DV digital diaries replaced traditional paper-based end of year reports for some students at Whangarei’s Blomfield Special School and Resource Centre, and the response of parents to the new medium of report delivery was unprecedented and unexpected. |
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Opotiki College’s case studies into the use of mobile laptops at the school are now available.
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Rita Angus, John Britten, Annie Crummer, Charles Pharazyn, Charlotte Badger and Betty Guard are famous, not so famous, and even infamous New Zealanders who can all be found at Te Papa Museum, as students from Brooklyn School recently discovered. |
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Project Activate participants were personally congratulated by the Education Minister, the Hon Steve Maharey, for having the project’s first year findings into the use of Promeathean Interactive Whiteboards successfully published in the academic journal, Computers in New Zealand Schools.
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The Digital Bridges Project uses ICT such as mobile phones and email to help develop and improve the literacy and English skills of students, and their families who have English as a second language. |
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John Paul II High School's case study into the cross curricula use of mobile laptops to make movies is now available.
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MOBLAP project participant, Edgecumbe College, has released their milestone report into the use of mobile laptops (MOBLAP) in their school. |
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Blomfield Special School and Resource Centre's milestone report on the use of digital equipment to produce videos that help to desensitise and socialise children with special needs is now available.
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Brooklyn School’s milestone report into the trial use of Tablet technology and Pocket PCs to support the school’s transition to an ICT and inquiry-based learning environment has been released. |
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The Kopu Project’s case study is now available to be downloaded.
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The first Digital Opportunities project case study is now available to be downloaded. |
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Technology partner, Texas Instruments, recently awarded Paraparaumu College maths teacher and MOTIS project participant, Paula Spence, a scholarship to attend Texas Instruments’ T3 (Teachers Teaching Technology) International Conference being held in February 2006.
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Ninety-eight kilometres north of Westport is, arguably, one of DigiOps’s more isolated participants, Karamea Area School. Sandwiched between a bluff and a forest, the tiny farming settlement’s school is part of the mobile laptop project, MOBLAP, and in the three years since the project began, the 125-student school now cannot imagine the place without the laptops. |
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The Studyit project, which offers free online revision resources and discussion forums for NCEA maths and science students, has recently added English to its list of subjects.
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The 14 Auckland and Southland schools participating in Project ACTIVate have recently submitted their findings on Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) for publication in the November issue of the academic journal, Computers in New Zealand Schools. |
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There is no doubt in the minds of any teachers at Blomfield Special School and Resource Centre in Whangarei that digital technology is proving to have significant benefits for the students involved in Project DISE.
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Taumarunui-based Community Technician, Paul Northwood, is also exploring his options post July 2006. However, unlike his colleague Clint Deckard, Paul says the possibility of him building a self-sustaining business is unlikely at this stage. |
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With the Community Technicians’ project past the half-way mark, and graduation day only eight months away, some of the Comtecs are looking beyond July 2006 and are starting to plan life as a qualified Community Technician.
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Congratulations to Opoutere School teacher and Kopu Project participant teacher, Jan-Marie Kellow, who has been awarded a 2006 E-Learning Fellowship. |
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An Australian report looking at emerging technologies and their influence on policy development in the education sector has recently been released.
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I have recently returned from attending the annual trans-Tasman ICT conference, NavCon 2005. The conference’s key theme was whether schools can remain relevant to students now and in the future. |
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A commitment to learn and a commitment to help others learn are the tenets that guide students at Mangere’s Viscount School, and for one class the fulfilment of the second tenet has become easier with the arrival of an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB).
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Kaikohe-based Community Technician, Graham Dalton, recently had a day in front of the cameras being interviewed by reporter Nick Carew for the Maori Television technology programme, Cyberworld. |
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The Minister of Education, the Hon Trevor Mallard, recently released evaluation reports for the first round of the Digital Opportunities projects.
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Preliminary results from a recent experiment held in a Southland Girls’ High School science class, have shown that students taught with the aid of an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) achieved better learning outcomes than students taught by traditional methods. |
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In between study, working almost fulltime and moving house, there is barely enough time left for the South Island’s only Community Technician, Kiwia Lake, to participate in her favourite seasonal hobby – catching whitebait.
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Sound pedagogy, thorough technical planning, and staff buy-in have been key factors in Opoutere School’s successful implementation of the Kopu Project. |
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The Community Technicians’ Project took home the award in the Excellence in the Use of IT in a Community Project category at the IDG Computerworld Excellence in IT Awards held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Auckland recently.
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Helping install extra memory into some of the computers at Wellington Girls’ College is giving the school’s Tech Angels a valuable opportunity to ‘tinker under the hood’ and see the inner workings of a computer. |
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Lighting, camera angles and the overlaying of soundtracks were just some of the techniques and ‘how tos’ imparted to staff of Blomfield Special School and Resource Centre involved in Project DISE, in a one day workshop run by education ICT and professional development supplier, Edtech.
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The Forests of Life project has so inspired Mokoia Intermediate School student, Shannon Stewart that she’s decided a career in forest science is for her. |
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The July issue of Community Technician Richard Milne’s newsletter is about to hit the notice boards, staffrooms, principals’ desks and inboxes of the Central Plateau schools involved in the Community Technicians’ project.
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Stunned delight was the reaction of Blomfield Special School and Resource Centre principal, Bev Topia at the surprise donation of ICT goodies from technology company and Project DISE partner, Hewlett Packard (HP). |
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The Community Technicians’ project was recently announced as a finalist in the Computerworld Excellence Awards 2005.
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Principal of St Mary’s School on Auckland’s North Shore, Paul Engles, recently presented a paper on Project ACTIVate at the inaugural Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Conference in Hong Kong. |
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The online collaborative portal MindSpring has been enthusiastically welcomed by a cluster of primary schools in Northland.
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Consensus from the principals, project administrators and teachers involved in Northland’s Community Technicians project is that the region’s three technicians, Graham Dalton, Emily Glew and Tristan Blainey are fast becoming invaluable resources to the schools they serve. |
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In the five months since the appointment of William Berryman as the Digital Opportunities Community Technician, the Reporoa ICT cluster in the Bay of Plenty has welcomed the arrival of broadband and several new high-spec servers.
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Congratulations to Graham Warburton, MindSpring’s lead teacher from Riccarton High School whose contribution to the development of Class Server has been recognised by Microsoft and have acknowledged him as a Most Valuable Professional (MVP). |
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Five teachers involved with Project MOTIS spent the first week of their holidays at a training workshop run by the project’s technology partner, Texas Instruments (TI).
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Five Year 9 students from Brooklyn School have completed their first term trial of HP tablet-style personal computers as part of Project CHaOS and have enthusiastically given the tablets the thumbs up. |
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Sustainability, preservation and restoration were the key themes at the Forests of Life project launch held jointly via video link between Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School and Mokoia Intermediate School in Rotorua.
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The picturesque Opoutere School on the Coromandel Peninsula was the setting for the launch of the latest Digital Opportunities initiative, the Kopu Project, by the Minister of Education, the Hon Trevor Mallard. |
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The fifth DigiOps initiative, Mobile Technologies in the Sciences (MOTIS), was launched at Wainuiomata High School, near Wellington, and was attended by local MP and Minister of Education, the Hon Trevor Mallard.
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The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark launched the latest DigiOps initiative, Project ACTIVate, at St Mary’s School in Northcote, Auckland. |
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The third DigiOps project got underway with the launch of Community Technicians’ (COMTEC) project in Christchurch recently. A highlight of the proceedings was the technicians getting to see their ‘tools of the trade’ for the first time.
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MindSpring, the second of 11 Digital Opportunities projects was launched by the Minister, Hon Trevor Mallard, at Riccarton High School in Christchurch. |
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The Minister of Education, Hon Trevor Mallard, launched CHaOS, the first of the new Digital Opportunities (DigiOps) projects.
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The new-look Digital Opportunities (DigiOps) website was launched at Brooklyn School in Wellington by the Minister of Education, Hon Trevor Mallard. |
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In the build-up to the end of year studying frenzy, the Studyit website registered almost 7000 unique visitors for the first week in November alone!
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