Wednesday 6th November - Topic: Inquiry Learning

This week's topic for Kidsedchatnz is Inquiry learning and the topic/questions have been generated by @LittleGiants7. I think they have done a wonderful job putting together these thoughtful questions! Here they are!

Q1. How do you begin (or what are the steps you follow for) an inquiry
study in your class?

Q2. Are you learning through asking questions or do you just have to
remember facts? Which do you think is the best way to learn?

Q3. What different types of questions are there and what is the reason
for asking these questions?

Q4. What kinds of questions do you think would help with an inquiry?
Can you give some examples that you have recently used?

Q5. Are there any e-tools that you use to help you with/in your inquiry?

Q6. Can you share something new that you have learnt during an inquiry?

Tweet of the Week

This week's Tweet of the Week goes to......

Today's Kidsedchatnz Session

Today was a very interesting Kidsedchatnz session! I started the Kidsedchatnz session with about 30 kids in my room tweeting from 3 different classes. After about 5 minutes the internet at Russell Street School crashed and there was no one available to fix it! Oh no, what a downer!

Since I was moderating the session I had to find a way to tweet the questions. What did I do? Answer, my trusty iPhone 5! Luckily I could use the hotspot on my phone to get myself and 4 kids from my class onto the internet. What happened to the other 26 kids? Well they had to return to their class or normal learning programme. Lots of sad faces!

So what happened during the session? Well we recorded 580 tweets between 22 classes! Not bad for such a crazy session! (I spent most of it trying to fix the internet!)

Here is R5 (What's left of them), tweeting!

Kidsedchatnz's 1st Birthday Party

Wow! Kidsedchatnz is turning one! Pascal Dresse started Kidsedchatnz in 2012 and a year later it's still going strong!

To celebrate we are going to have a special Kidsedchatnz birthday party on Wednesday 13th November at 2-3pm! The topic is going to be based on Kidsedchatnz and feature a mixture of questions.

We want to make this a special Kidsedchatnz session so clear your diaries everyone and make sure your class takes part

A New Craze Is Sweeping The Nation!

Check out this amazing video made by Steph Campbell and her fantastic class @room72013.

They made the video to let their school know all about Kidsedchatnz and showed it at their school assembly.

All I can say is what a great job! A new craze is sweeping the nation!

Wednesday 30th November - Topic: The Arts

This week's topic for Kidsedchatnz is the Arts and the topic/questions have been generated by @9Vardon. I think they have done a great job! Here's the questions!

Q1. What kind of art do you like and why?

Q2. What is one thing you have learnt in the Arts this year?

Q3. What materials have you used to create your artwork this year? What is your favourite material and why?

Q4. What do you think has been your best piece of artwork this year and why?

Q5. What stories have you told with your artwork? What is one kind of art special to your culture?

Q6. Can you share with us any digital art resources/app/websites that you use?

Tweet of the Week

This week's Tweet of the Week goes to Tane in R6 at Russell Street School. Tane is 7 years old and has just started joining in to Kidsedchatnz.

Well done Tane, the judges of Tweet of the Week think this is a great tweet!

Kidsedchatnz Mascot

The Kidsedchatnz mascot has been hanging out with @PalmyKids in Palmerston North over the last weeks. It had a fab time but unfortunately we had to send it out into the big wide world!

Where did it go next? Well it has just arrived in Henderson, Auckland and will be staying with @Rm1HNS.

While it was in Palmy the kids came up with a name for it. So what is it's name? Well Aye came up with the name 'Follow'! We thought this was a great name as Kidsedchatnz is all about following each other on Twitter!

Here's a few photos of 'Follow' on his journey!

Today's Kidsedchatnz Session

Today was another fantastic Kidsedchatnz session! We had 25 classes taking part (that is a record!) and recorded 801 tweets in the hour session!

It was also great to see 8 new classes turn up for the session!

Here's a few photos of some of the classes taking part!

Wednesday 23rd October - Topic: Sports

This week's topic for Kidsedchatnz is Sports and has been generated by @VardonRoom7. Haven't they done a great job? I can't wait to talk about my favourite subject! Here's the questions!

Q1. Do you like sport? Why or why not?

Q2. What sport skills have you learnt at school?

Q3. What has been the most important sport skills you have learnt and why?

Q4. What sports teams does your school have?

Q5. What is the most popular sport at your school?

Q6. Are you part of a sports team? Why or why not?

Q7. Who is your favourite sports person and why?

Tweet of the Week

This week's Tweet of the Week goes to.....

 

Today's Kidsedchatnz Session

Wow, what a great Kidsedchatnz session we had today! We had 20 classes involved and recorded 853 tweets in one hour! That's a Kidsedchatnz record for most classes and most tweets!

Well done everyone, I wonder if we can reach 1,000 tweets next week?

Anyway here are some photos of the classes taking part!

Topic and Questions

This term I thought I would try something new with Kidsedchatnz. What is it you ask? Well I thought I would give some classes a chance to pick the weekly topic and also generate the questions.

I thought by doing this it would help get the classes/students involved and help give them some real ownership to the Kidsedchatnz sessions.

So what they have to do is think of a suitable topic and make a list of 5 questions to talk about during the session. 

They need to pick a topic that hasn't been used before and something that is going to appeal to all ages. Topics used so far are: Books, Teachers, Maths, Science, Writing, Reading, Term Reflections, Homework, Sports, Modern Learning Environments, Technology, Learning Styles, Fun at School and Connected Learners.

Once they have made up their topic and questions they can e-mail it to me (stephen@russellst.school.nz) and I will put it up on the Kidsedchatnz blog. I will still put up the questions on Wednesday's and moderate the sessions.

So who is going to be the first class to generate a topic and make up the questions? Well VardonRoom7 have kindly offered to be the first! This is great as they are one of our regular classes that take part and they definitely know how Kidsedchatnz works!

So what do you think of my new idea? Do you think it will work? Would you like to have your class generate the topic/questions for a Kidsedchatnz session?

Let me know if you have any other ideas for Kidsedchatnz. We are always looking to improve the concept!

Mascot and Badges

Guess what arrived in the mail today? The new Kidsedchatnz mascot and badges! 

The mascot is a twitter bird and it is going to travel around New Zealand visiting some of the classes that take part in Kidsedchatnz. It is going to start out visiting @PalmyKids and then move on to visit R1 at Henderson North School in Auckland. Where are they going to go after that? Would your class like to host them?

The badges were made by a company in Auckland and feature the Kidsedchatnz logo. I thought that every class that hosts the Kidsedchatnz mascot could have one for their class. They are pretty cool! Would you like one?

Finally I wonder what we should call our new mascot? If anyone has any ideas just leave us a comment or drop us a tweet on twitter!

Interface Magazine Awards

Wow, I just found out that Kidsedchatnz has made it into the finals of the Interface Magazine Awards for Best Teaching with ICT! How cool is that!

A big thank you must go out to Pascal (Founder of Kidsedchatnz) and all the classes that support Kidsedchatnz (especially our regular classes @Rm1HNS, @VardonRoom7, @LittleGiants7, @PalmyKids, @Room2Smarties and @MKKRm2). Without you guys Kidsedchatnz would not work!

If you want to check out all the finalists just click here. 

Also you get to have a say in who wins through a voting process. All you need to do is click on the picture below and it will take you to the voting page. Kidsedchatnz would love your vote!

Voting closes on Wednesday 6th November and the results are announced in the next episode of the Interface Magazine! Fingers crossed!