Bottle Bivy - continued

Here's the updated timelapse of our bottle bivy build. Over 400 bottles and $40 of hot glue gun sticks later...

Bad Weather?

They say there's no such thing as bad weather down this way! Only bad dressing.

Well - how's we dress for a jog in a snow/sleet storm down south! If I was Irish I might say, 'Diddle e dee, potato!'

Bottle Bivy Beginnings!

Today we started out bottle bivy project! Here's a sneak preview of the 'gawker' (timelapse video) I'm planning to make with the class once the making is over.



We're also asking for each student to bring a gold coin donation to help with the costs of the glue gun sticks - the build take over 60 to get the job done. Thanks to everyone who's brought bottles into school. We couldn't have started without your help and team work!

Aurasma - an Interactive, Digital Display

We have a third year college teacher, @mattmurraynz, working with us this year and he is proving to be a handy innovator in his own right.  One of his college assignments this term was to create an interactive display in the classroom.  He told me his class were thinking, 'What? How do you do that?'

With a little bit of chatter and after seeing a great ipad app called aurasma lite he came up with an idea for using augmented reality and the student's learning about taonga - special treasures.

The student's held their taonga and spoke about it's importance to them, then Matt made this into a video. The video is uploaded to aurasma and a screen shot of the video was printed out and hung on the wall.

Matt then went through the steps on the app to take an image of the photo and linked it to the uploaded video. And below is the result. When you hold the aurasma app view finder up to the image it shows the video of the student speaking inside the image of the photo.

How cool would our classrooms, office foyers, shopping mall walls, and street signs be with this kind of interaction?

Time Lapse Fun!

During the last school holidays I edited and posted a movie on our class and school blogs. I wanted to showcase the 'business' of our days for the parents of my class - a push back against the 'nothing much' response to that age old question from our parents, 'What did you do at school today?'

The video was posted on the Core Education blog here, a few weeks later.  It was great to see the comments coming in and a few questions asked and the gawker software I used to create the timelapse video is something I'm keen to use again.

Easy Infographics

Yesterday I found an easy (easier) way to make some cool infographics online! Infographics are information, stats and images mashed together in some cool posters. Makes maths super cool! You can see some amazing infographics examples here at coolinfographics or even better, on their pinterest page. There's nothing like seeing info and stats in a visual way - for us 'visual' learners and people who like things that look cool!

A few months ago we had a go at making an infographic in our class, with varying degrees of success, using popplet and uploading images.  They didn't really like look like the genuine article which is ok. Sometimes things don't always go to plan but I was happy with the process of collecting data and displaying it in a static image.  It meant the learning intention which was the goal.

So here's the online tool that lets you use easy templates and input the data you want, where you want. It's called Piktochart. It was super easy to use, lets you add your own graphics if needed but gives you that all important structure that can be hard to make on your own.
And here's my first attempt. It's using some data I collected from a parent survey in Term 1 from my class. I'm looking for another chance to create something else.

Now... where can I get my hands on some stats. Never thought I'd ever write that in my lifetime!

Bottle Bivy Progress

We're up to 172 bottles on our quest to make a bottle bivy for the class.  We're hoping to make it before the holidays but it's going to take a MAMMOTH effort to get all the bottles we need.

You can see our progress, and the efforts of other classes in the project, here at the bottle bivy site.  We're a bit behind the bottle count of a class at St Marys in Mosgiel.  Let's pick up the pace team!

We need your cleaned bottles with their lids!  Share this around with your friends and family and bring your bottles to Kauri in Room 8.