Singapore

Our Otford Friends in Singapore

Well, this is the last posting of mine on this blog. I'm back in Australia now after the trip of a lifetime. Yesterday in Singapore I caught up with the Newbery family who took me on a sightseeing tour of their city and generally spoilt me. They're all well and it was great to catch up again and see some familiar faces.

From this trip I've met so many wonderful people and have seen so many interesting things going on in schools. I feel very lucky and extremely grateful to everyone who has been so kind. The kids at Otford will soon get to know many kids from around the world and I hope that some of the people I've met will one day be able to visit Australia and see Otford in action.

For anyone interested in my report about what I've learnt, it will be attached to Otford School's website at http://www.otfordweb.info/school in the near future. It will provide the framework for the directions Otford will take, to integrate ICT into its learning programs in the future. There are exciting times ahead!

Isle of Man

View from my hotel window, Isle of Man

Well, my trip around the world is almost over now and the Isle of Man has been a wonderful way to wrap things up. I’ve visited several schools on the island and they are all doing really creative things. What an exciting place! The 1:1 laptop program is very effective because of the great things that the kids do with their computers. They do lots of multi media presentations and other interesting things. I hadn’t seen some of the programs they use but we’ll certainly be getting them. Sketch Up allows you to easily convert 2D drawings into 3D models that can be viewed from any perspective and then used in iMovie. I Can Animate is another program that looks brilliant.


Dhoon Primary School

Our podcast was shown to the year 5 students at Dhoon Primary School and they are really interested in emailing and perhaps putting together a presentation that shows what life on the IOM is like. Wait ‘til you see the sorts of things they’ve been doing. Dhoon and the other island schools are outstanding and it’s been a great opportunity to visit them.

This afternoon I even met with the island’s Minister for Education. Pretty special!


John Thornley (ICT Coordinator), myself & Ann Crane (Minister for Education)

Now it’s back to London and finally on to Sydney, with a brief stopover in Singapore to catch up with the Newbery family. The last five weeks have flown but I can’t begin to explain how incredibly worthwhile they’ve been. The people I’ve met have been fantastic and the sharing of ideas has been nothing short of overwhelming.

We can expect great things to happen at Otford when I return. The real journey is only now about to begin!

Northern England

A castle in Northern Wales

This time I'm posting from the Isle of Man, UK. What a beautiful place! This trip of mine is coming to an end soon but the next couple of days will be spent having a look at the island's 1:1 laptop program. It should be good.

Earlier today I visited Otford School in Kent and it was great. Peter Denereaz, the principal, is keen for the 2 Otford schools to keep in touch and share ideas. Perhaps we could begin with telling each other about the history of our villages. Wait 'til you see all of the photos I have of Otford in England. It's so different.


Otford Primary School, England

Prior to dropping in on Otford, I was in the north of England at a town called Durham. I visited several schools there that are doing lots of really great things with computers. We'll have to get some Digi Blue cameras and Digi Blue microscopes. They're great, especially for the younger kids. The kids at Hunwick and the other schools in Durham are doing all sorts of interesting things, including broadcasting their student council meetings to the rest of the school. We'll have to try our hands at morphing, which is where you change a person's photo into something else. It's great fun! Hunwick wants to start some emailing between the 2 schools so we now have stacks of new international email buddies to look forward to. Sue Smith, the principal there, was really excited about getting something happening.


Hunwick School, Durham

The Midlands

Hello from Wolverhampton in England. This is the second last week now and lots of interesting things have been happening. The other day I saw Stone Henge. Ever heard of that? The villages over here often have really narrow, cobbled streets and the buildings are so different to what we have in Australia.

On Monday morning I popped in and met Nic Baykaa-Murray who we’ve been sending emails to. I took some photos of the school and the kids there, and the St Peters kids are going to email photos of themselves to Otford.


Nic & the kids at St Peters

I visited a school near Birmingham called St Huberts and they’re right into looking after the environment. They’ve set up a partnership with a school in India and some of the teachers are just about to fly to India to see the school they’ve been emailing.

Balsall Common Primary is doing amazing things with technology. They have spent a lot of time planning things carefully and even get the kids to write letters to companies, asking for prizes for competitions they run on their very own radio station. We spent a lot of time talking about different websites and fun applications like an animation package and some really cool cameras designed for younger children. I had a brilliant day there with Christian Hilton who manages their computers and we plan to set up some links between the schools.


Balsall Common

Today I spent the first of a couple of days talking to people in Wolverhampton about how they’ve introduced a system for year 5 & 6 kids to have their very own PDA. Google PDA to see what it is or have a look at the photo. It’s pretty impressive what they’re doing. They also have eBooks so kids can read books on their PDA as well as do the usual things like take pictures, create presentations, write documents, etc. It’s a bit similar to the laptop programs in the US but a lot cheaper.


PDA use at Wolverhampton

Everyone I’ve met everywhere has been really nice and that’s been the best part of this trip around the world. I hope that some of them will one day make it to Australia so that I can look after them too.

London

Buckingham Palace

Newport Junior School

Westfields Junior School

Hello again. This time from Portishead in England. A week’s gone by since the last post and so much has happened. Of course there’s never enough time to write posts and check emails but I’m trying!

We had a couple of days in London at North Islington Zone where I saw some really good interactive whiteboard ideas. The boards are very common in England and are a normal part of the daily routine in most classrooms. There’s a school here that would like to start emailing and doing some website related work with us. Lynda Maple visited our classroom in Otford earlier in the year and it was lovely to catch up with her again at Islington. Lynda and her team train and support the teachers in that part of London.

London is an incredible city. There are so many sights to see and wonderful things to do, but boy is it expensive. On Wednesday I caught a train out to Greensward College, east of London, and saw how a secondary college has created a Virtual Learning Environment to communicate with parents and kids at home. It’s fantastic what they’re doing. They’re able to see and work on any file that’s on the school fileserver from a home computer. No need for flash drives.

Then Jutta and I hired a car and it was off to Newport Junior School where they use a thumb scanner instead of a barcode reader when you borrow a book. Make sure you tell Mrs Leslie about the new system and we’ll have to get it. Newport use interactive whiteboards in really cool ways and it was great to pick up lots of good ideas about the boards and many other things as well.

Finally I visited Westfields Junior School where the similarities with Otford are enormous. They’re a much larger school but they concentrate on the same sorts of things that we do and it’s a really caring school. It was just like being at Carver Academy in LA again with Betty. One of the teachers, Simon, is keen to get some emails started between their older kids and Otford, so we’ll have even more e-pals. They have the world’s nicest looking library. Have a look in the photo.

Tomorrow I’ll be popping in on Nic at St Peter’s School in Portishead and I’ll take photos of some of the kids we started emailing months ago. I’m really looking forward to that.

There’s so much going on but that’s a snapshot of what I’ve been doing. Make sure you let me know what you’ve been doing too. Bye for now!

The School @ Columbia Uni

Great to see so many posts. Thanks everyone! Check your email account for a reply.

Well, I’ve just visited a place called The School at Columbia University and it’s fantastic. The sorts of things they do are really similar to what we do at Otford. The School itself is quite different though. It occupies a 6 storey building in upper Manhattan in New York City, and the only playground the kids have is a small rooftop space with padded flooring. Check it out in the photo. I’ve picked up a lot of great ideas from what they do and there is a year 4 class (pictured) who would like to send us an email. They use KidPix and iMovie to do some really cool things.

Have a look at their website on the list to the right.

The other night Jutta and I went to see a Broadway show called Mamma Mia. It was brilliant! There’s so much to see and do in NY. It’s the sort of place I could come back to over and over. Onto London now!

More Of America

View from the top of the Empire State Building, NYC

Hello again. I'm now in New York but a couple of days ago I visited a school called Fisler in Los Angeles where they have a special laptop program. Each student from year 2 up has their very own laptop that they bring to school each day and work on. The parents mostly pay for them and you ought to see some of the great things they do at school with them. It's pretty amazing when you walk into classroom after classroom and see absolutely everyone with a computer sitting on their desk. Do you think we should do the same and get parents to buy laptops?

More recently I visited a couple of New York City schools. One was a junior high school that only has students in years 6-8 but still has 1200 children. I was told that some high schools in New York have as many as 5000 kids. Unbelievable! The schools I went to have laptop programs and do all sorts of interesting things too. One place uses Sony Play Stations with the younger kids. The PS's have special educational software and the kids love using them. New York is a great city; it's so busy and exciting and it's a shame we have to leave so soon. Onwards to England, after another school visit in New York tomorrow.

Check your email accounts for a reply to all of your recent questions. Bye!

LA

Carver Academy


Welcome to Carver


Hollywood

Thank you to everyone who has posted a response on the blog. It's fantastic getting them. Check your emails because I've replied to you that way.

I have just spent the most unbelievable day at a Los Angeles school called Carver Academy. The welcome they prepared was amazing. The classes had made welcome posters with kangaroos and Australian flags and these were displayed around the school. There was a whole school assembly where I was introduced and made to feel very special.

They have document cameras in each classroom that can project anything onto a screen. We’ll have to get some of them. The amount of computers they use is incredible and the kids really know what they’re doing. They teach each other and do it really well. They’re into GarageBand and iMovie, and watching them at work has given me some new ideas. One of the year 6 classes saw our podcast and was very impressed. They’d like to send us some emails.

Betty Hyatt is in charge of technology and she took me around the school. Betty and the whole staff are amongst the friendliest people I’ve ever met and it makes me want to stay in the US a lot longer. Unfortunately, I have to move on early in the week to New York and then to England. Luckily I had a little time today to visit Hollywood but I didn't see any movie stars.

NZ Schools

Peterhead School


Pt England School


Opoutere School

Auckland

New Zealand

Kia ora from New Zealand! How are things back in Australia? Are the websites on Canberra and our Prime Ministers on track to be finished? Time has flown this week and tomorrow (Thursday) Jutta and I fly to the USA. It’ll be a great shame to leave NZ because everyone here is so friendly and welcoming. There are so many beautiful sights to see and lots of interesting things to discover in the schools.

Peterhead School in Hastings is doing lots of video conferencing with a neighbouring school. The program allows a year 3 boy to join in a maths lesson with year 5 kids at the other school. It’s like he’s actually there. There’s also a year 5 student who helps the younger kids with their writing. They use a program called Skype to talk to one another and give each other ideas. Simon Evans is a teacher there who is very inspirational. Thanks for showing me around and looking after me Simon.

At Point England School in Auckland (hello Dorothy!), they’re doing great things too. Every child at the school has to complete a project using computers at least once every term and they do some excellent things. They also have a special recording studio where some children are able to record podcasts which are then posted on iTunes for the whole world to see. Each morning there’s a TV show that’s produced at the school that is shown to each of the classes. It’s a big school with a small school feel to it; everyone is really nice. The work done by Dorothy Burt and the rest of the staff has made an enormous difference to the kids at Pt England.

Over on the Coromandel Peninsula to the south-east of Auckland, there’s a small community called Opoutere that has a 4 teacher school. It’s only a little larger than Otford and incredibly similar in so many ways. The older kids there would love to start sending emails to the Otford kids so we’ll get that happening when I return. At Opoutere they use something called Knowledge Net, which allows everyone to have their own personal web space to present all sorts of interesting things. Vaughan van Rensburg, the principal, is a great guy and went out of his way to make me feel welcome. He and his students loved the podcast too. Now they want to do one about their school.

Each of the schools in NZ are using interactive whiteboards. They’re in most classrooms and are constantly in use. It’s been great to see the ways in which teachers and kids use them; they do a whole range of meaningful things that can’t be done easily any other way. One of their best features is that you can write on them and save the page for future use. This sort of technology seems like the way to go so we’d better put our thinking caps on and come up with ways to raise some money.

NZ is the sort of place every Australian should visit at some time. I’ll certainly return as soon as I can because there’s so much more to see and do. It’s been a great few days here but not nearly long enough. Thanks for a wonderful experience New Zealand.

Departure Time

Hi everybody. Congratulations to everyone for their great efforts at the athletics carnival today. Has everyone had a look at our new school website? There are heaps of great new links from the home page so make sure you have a good look. It's now only 2 days until I fly to Auckland. I know Renee knows where Auckland is but does anyone else know which island in New Zealand it's on? See if you can find it on a map. It's great to see that a couple of people have registered for the blog. How about some more people do the same and send me a message? I'm looking forward to hearing all about what's happening back at Otford. Ask any questions you'd like to about the places I visit too. Bye!

Seven Weeks To Go

Hi everyone. There are still another seven weeks before I head off on my big adventure but there's a lot to do. There are lots and lots of emails to send, to sort out all of the details about each school visit. I need to choose gifts for the people who are looking after me (things that are famously Australian like toy kangaroos) and there's a huge amount of reading, trying to learn as much as I can about the countries I'm visiting. Of course, there's the podcast about Otford to finish after the Easter holidays too.

So where am I going and when does it all happen? My lovely wife Jutta and I have around the world tickets stopping in Auckland, Los Angeles, New York, Vienna, London and finally Singapore. Basically, one week will be spent on the North Island of New Zealand, another in the United States and then three fun-filled weeks travelling around England. It's really exciting thinking about it all; all of those different places where there are so many interesting people to meet and great things to see and do. It's a shame I can't take all of my class around the world on an excursion!

My departure date is half way through term two on Saturday 26th May and I return to Sydney about five weeks later, at the start of the July holidays. When I'm back at Otford in term three, I'll be able to tell the Otford kids what everyone thought about their podcast and what sorts of things kids all over the world are doing in classrooms. There's so much to learn!