Our Inventions

Part of this week's chat was flipped. This meant that before we participated in Kidsedchatnz on Thursday afternoon we all watched a YouTube clip of the Kid President. He created a Catuum Cleaner. 

Then we drew pictures of inventions we would create to make the world more awesome. Here are some of our ideas. The Kid President YouTube clip is in the Week 4 questions post, if you would like to watch it. 

Tweet of the Week

Thank you to all the classes that joined in with our Twitter chat yesterday afternoon. You came up with some amazing ideas! 

Tweet of the week goes to @Room16Central

Here are eight more tweets from this week that were of a high quality too.

Week 4 - Passions, Talents and Lifelong Learning Skills

This week's topic is about your passions, talents and lifelong learning skills.

Part of the chat is flipped so make sure you watch the Kid President's

YouTube clip on how to be an inventor. You may also like to physically create or just draw a picture of something you would invent to make the world more awesome. There will be an opportunity for you to share your inventions during the chat. 

    Teachers, you may also like to watch the 'Creativity Takes Time' YouTube clip yourself and do this mini lesson with your class. 

1. What are your interests, talents or passions?
2. Do you get to learn about your interests in the classroom? Give us an example.
3. What do you have to do to become really good at something?
4. Do you think it's important for children to have some time each week to learn about something that they're interested in? Why?
5. The top 10 jobs in 2013 didn't exist in 2004. What jobs do you think there will be in 10 years time?
6. What skills do you think we will need for these jobs in the future?
7. The Kid President wanted to invent a Catuum Cleaner. What would you like to invent to make the world more awesome? *Opportunity to share a photo via a tweet here. 
8. Is creativity important? How can we encourage creativity in the classroom?
9. Sometimes we get stuck with our learning and have to problem solve. What does good problem solving look like?

Tweet of the Week

Wow, what a fantastic Kidsedchatnz! I have never seen so many quality tweets! 

Great work students, I was so impressed! Also please give a big Paki Paki to all the teachers who spent time preparing their classes for the flipped chat! Without these awesome teachers Kidsedchatnz wouldn't be possible!

In all we had 20 classes taking part (A couple of new classes) and we recorded over 800 tweets within the hour! Not bad going!

Anyway, who won Tweet of the Week? Watch the slideshow to find out!

Week 3 - A letter to my Grandchildren

This week's Kidsedchatnz is a flipped chat. This means you need to read the letter below before you take part in the chat. All questions are based on the following letter.

James K. Flanagan passed away on September 3, 2012. He left behind this powerful letter for his 5 grandchildren. In truth, this letter holds great advice for us all…

1. Each one of you is a wonderful gift to your family and to all the world. Remember it always, especially when the cold winds of doubt and discouragement fall upon your life. 

2. Be not afraid . . . of anyone or of anything when it comes to living your life most fully. Pursue your hopes and your dreams no matter how difficult or "different" they may seem to others. The worst thing in life is to look back and say: "I would have; I could have; I should have." Take risks, make mistakes. 

3. Everyone in the world is just an ordinary person. Some people may wear fancy hats or have big titles or have power and want you to think they are above the rest. Don't believe them. They have the same doubts, fears, and hopes; they eat, drink, sleep, and fart like everyone else. 

4. Make a Life List of all those things you want to do: travel to places; learn a skill; master a language; meet someone special. Make it long and do some things from it every year. Don't say "I'll do it tomorrow" (or next month or next year). That is the surest way to fail to do something. There is no tomorrow, and there is no "right" time to begin something except now. 

5. Be kind and go out of your way to help people -- especially the weak, the fearful, and children. Everyone is carrying a special sorrow, and they need our compassion. 

6. Read books, as many as you can. They are a wonderful source of delight, wisdom, and inspiration. They need no batteries or connections, and they can go anywhere. 

7. Travel: always but especially when you are young. Don't wait until you have "enough" money or until everything is "just right." That never happens. Get your passport today. 

8. Pick your job or profession because you love to do it. Sure, there will be some things hard about it, but a job must be a joy. Beware of taking a job for money alone -- it will cripple your soul. 

9. Don't yell. It never works, and it hurts both yourself and others. Every time I have yelled, I have failed. 

10. Live in harmony with Nature: go into the outdoors, woods, mountains, sea, desert. It's important for your soul. 

11. Hug people you love. Tell them how much they mean to you now; don't wait until it's too late. 

12. Be grateful. There is an Irish saying: "This is a day in our lives, and it will not come again." Live every day with this in mind. 

QUESTIONS

Q1. Do you think it was a good idea for the Granddad to write down his advice? Why?

Q2. Which piece of advice is your favourite and why?

Q3. Create your own piece of advice to add to the list. Why is it important?

Q4. Do you agree with the statement, "Everyone in the world is just an ordinary person." Why?

Q5. Read someone else's tweet and ask them a question! This is called starting a conversation!

Q6. What are 3 dreams/things that you would like to achieve in your life?

Q7. Advice number 11 says tell people how much they mean to you now. Have you got a message to someone special in your life?

Q8. Do you know any quotes that inspire you or you think are meaningful?

Q9. “This is a day in our lives, and it will not come again.” What does this mean?

Tweet of the Week! Hacking your Learning: What would make you happy?

What a fantastic afternoon of sharing! There were so many wonderful ideas from everyone. We were so inspired, and would love to learn with you in your incredible spaces. Here are a few of magnificent tweets that were shared.

Tweet of the Week goes to Caleb from Koraunui School

Simple, and we think it says it all Caleb! Congratulations.

Hacking your Learning: What would make you happy?

What if you could design your learning environment - both the physical space, and what you were learning, what would it look like? Imagine it! How would you design your space? What would you create?

What would make you happy?

This is Logan LaPlante. He is 13. His talk has had nearly 5 million views! He's a Hacker.

"Hackers are innovators. Hackers are people who challenge and change the systems to make them work differently, to make them work better. It's just how they think. It's a mindset."

Senior Primary/Intermediate classes might to watch his talk to help them think about the answers they contribute for the questions this week.



Junior and Middle Primary may like to watch Josh's Video about his perfect classroom.

What if learning looked like this?

Questions:

Q1. What would be your ultimate learning environment? Describe it.

Q2. What tools would be used in your environment for your learning?

Q3. What would you like to learn about?

Q4. How would you like to learn this?

Q5. Why would this learning be important to you?

Q6. How would your Dream Teacher help you?

Q7. What do you think is important to learn?

Please make sure that you have joined the Kidsedchatnz list, prior to Thursday if you are wanting to participate in this chat. More info can be found on the blog, including a step-by-step video. 

Tweet of the Week

I was really impressed with the engagement from all students who participated today.  There were many fantastic tweets and I have decided to choose more that 1 Tweet of the Week! Here are two winning tweets with their answers from Q4: Do you think going on a field trip is a good out of the classroom learning opportunity? Why?

And some more winning tweets:

Thanks for all the awesome ideas and tweets today everyone! 

Week 1 - Topic: Education outside the Classroom

1. Do you agree with the people in this video on what outdoor education is? Why?
2. What do you think are the benefits of learning outside the classroom?
3. Do you think learning outside the classroom should be part of all the 'normal' lessons? Why?
4. Do you think going on a field trip is a good out of the classroom learning opportunity? Why?
5. Where would you like to go for a learning outside your classroom experience? Why?
6. Would you rather use a Virtual Field Trip instead of physically going to or visiting a certain place? Why/ why not?
7. What does your school do for outdoor education?
8. Outdoor education is about outdoor activities, but it is also about learning about the environment. Why is this important?

Tweet of the week - Week 10

The final Kidsedchatnz session for term one was a popular with over 430 tweets made from 20 different classes. Some really good tweets were being sent and a couple were quite funny.

I think all of us teachers might be in trouble though, if we let the kids make some rules for us to follow. There were some impressive tweets being sent by everyone and but these were my favourites. I hope we will see you all back here at Kidsedchatnz next term where we will continue connecting children around NZ.

Topic for Week 10 - Rules

Hi everyone,

This week will be the last Kidsedchatnz session for Term 1. It has been great seeing so many classes taking part, especially all the new faces that have joined us this term. We hope to see you all back here next term.

Before you take part in Kidsedchatnz this week, make sure you watch these two videos about the rules at school. The first is shown below, for the second please click this link to a news article about some primary schools in Auckland.



Questions:

1. Do you think rules are important to have/follow? Why/why not?

2. What are some of your school rules?  Why do you think your school chose them?

3. Should you/do you follow your school rules outside of school? If so, where/when?

4. What do you think would happen if there were no rules?

5. How can we as teachers help you to learn/understand the rules?

6. What 3 rules would you change at you school? Why? 

7. If you could write some rules for your teachers to have to follow, what would they be?

8. Should there be a consequence for not following rules? What should it be?

Remember to subscribe to the Kidsedchatnz list and we'll see you on Thursday at 2pm.

Tweets of the Week

Well done on an awesome first Trans-Tasman chat everyone. 668 tweets yesterday afternoon! It was great to have some Australian classes join us. I was so impressed with what you have already learnt about ANZAC. Thank you for sharing your special stories about some of your great, great grandparents who went to war too. Here are the tweets of the week. 

ANZAC tweets of the week - Video Maker

ANZAC - Our First Trans-Tasman Chat!!

This week we're excited to announce that it will be our first trans-Tasman chat. The topic this week is Anzac, which is fitting as it's very important to both Australia and New Zealand. 

Here are the questions for this week:

Q1. How does your country/school/family celebrate ANZAC Day?

Q2. What does ANZAC day mean to you personally?

Q3. Do you have any extended family that fought in Gallipoli? What stories can you tell us?

Q4. Do you have any extended family that have fought in any other conflicts?

Q5. Do you think ANZAC day is important? Should we celebrate the day? How else could ANZAC Day be celebrated?

Q6. During Gallipoli, Australia and NZ fought side by side. Do you think the relationship between the 2 countries is important?

Q7. Why are poppies sold before and on Anzac Day? Why was the poppy chosen and what does it represent?

Q8. How did the Anzac biscuit originate? Do you have a favourite Anzac biscuit recipe that you would like to share?

Q9. Have you ever been to an ANZAC Day celebration? What happened and how did it make you feel?

Please make sure that you have joined the Kidsedchatnz list, prior to Thursday if you are wanting to participate in our first trans-Tasman chat. More info can be found on the blog, including a step-by-step video. 

Sports: The Courage to Try

What a fantastic afternoon sharing ideas. A spectacular effort! There were over 700 tweets recorded. It's great to see that we have had so many new classes join us. 

It's always SO difficult to make a decision on the tweet of the week, and today was no exception! The calibre of everyone's tweeting was very high. Seeing your original ideas makes us all smile. It was also fantastic to see all the conversations happening between classes. We hope that you've made some new friends.

Look who favourited a couple of the Kidsedchat tweets today! 

And here it is: Tweet of the Week 

Congratulations to Room 6 from St Peter's School in Beckenham, Christchurch.

Week 8: The Courage to Continue

This week we are focusing on Sport. We have a flipped lesson incorporated into this week's chat. Here is a a clip for you to watch together with your class and discuss. There is a lot of courage involved in sport.

Mahora School's Room 13 and Room 15 have created these great questions for you to talk through and chew over. You might like to follow these cool classes. Their Twitter handles are @MahoraRm15 and @rm13dreamteam. We are excited about sharing the questions that we have come up with. We are looking forward to seeing your answers on Thursday.

Have fun! Juliet Revell

"Have the courage to try, that's how great things happen!"

Question 1:

What sports are offered at your school?

Question 2:

What makes a great sportsman?

Question 3:

Who is your favourite sporting hero? What attributes of theirs standout?

Question 4:

Why is it important to be involved a sport?

Question 5:

What sport do you need the most skill to play?  Persuade the rest of us (try and start a conversation with another class)!

Question 6:

How have you displayed courage while playing a sport?

Question 7:

If you could take 3 sportsmen out for dinner who would they be?

Tweet of the Week

What a a fantastic kidsedchatnz we had today, with about 786 Tweets recorded from schools around New Zealand! Thank you to everyone who participated in our chat today. It was great to learn more about your schools and how you learn.

Tweet of the Week goes to:

Congratulations Vaish!

Kidsedchatnz - Thinklink

Do you want to know a little bit more about Kidsedchatnz? Well now you can!

Check out this fabulous interactive image made by Kidsedchatnz co-organiser Reid Walker (@ReidHns1). 

The image is made using the website Thinklink and Reid is going to use it to support his up-coming presentation about Kidsedchatnz.

What do you think? Is Thinklink a worthwhile on-line tool? Hit the comment button and let us know what you think!

Week 7: General stuff about school

Click to see a Geo message from @LittleGiants7

This week our topic is "general stuff about school".

Questions on Thursday will be:

1. What do you like about your school / What makes your school special?
2. Does your school have any special physical features? Describe its layout and physical features.
3. Where exactly is your school and how many students and teachers does your school have?
4. Describe your classroom. What does it look like? 
5. How would you like your learning to happen in the classroom?
6. Is there anything you would like to change at your school/in class? What is it?
7. Do you think it is good to have your own blog? Why?
8. What other technologies are you using in your learning? Tell us why you are you using them.
9. What fun things do you like to do when it is raining during lunch time?
10. Tell us what you liked about school today.

Tweet of the week

Tremendous effort this week everyone! 

There were heaps of tweets sent today, 15 classes took part in today's session and its really positive to see that several schools now have more than 1 class taking part.

I was really impressed by the quality of tweets this week and noticed many conversations happening between the tweeters. There were a number of students who were tweeting some great ideas and it was fantastic to see that so many of you take your online safety seriously.

It was quite hard picking a 'Tweet of the Week' so I think that these ones demonstrate just how switched on you all were this week. Congratulations to all who took part.

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Week 6 Topic: Digital Safety

The questions for Thursday's topic are all based around Digital Safety or staying safe online. It is sometimes called being a good digital citizen or cybersafety.

Before taking part in this weeks topic please try to watch the following video.

 Digital Safety Video

When we learn about a topic before the lesson we call this a Flipped Lesson.

The questions for Thursday's topic are as follows:

1. How can you be safe on the internet? How can you keep your computer safe?
2. Who teaches you about staying safe online? What are the best ways for learning about online safety?
3. What is a digital footprint and why are they important?
4. What are some important things to consider when taking part in Kidsedchatnz?
5. Should school’s be using social media in the classroom and why?
6. How do we know which websites and people to trust on-line?
7. What should you do if your personal information is hacked?
8. Does anyone know any website/resources or Apps to share about Cyber safety?

If you have enjoyed this weeks Kidsedchatnz topic and want to learn more you could visit the Privacy Pirates to play a game about staying safe online.

Hope you all enjoy Kidsedchatnz this week.

Tweet of the Week

Who won Tweet of the Week? Well I was so impressed with today's fantastic tweets that I decided to choose more than 1 Tweet of the Week! Here are the winning tweets!

Great Kidsedchatnz Session!

Today was a great Kidsedchatnz session with over 20 classes recording 817 tweets! The timeline was working over time! 

Well done everyone, the quality of tweets were excellent and everyone looked to be having a fantastic time! Here are some photos of the classes taking part!

Week 5 - Topic: Learning

This week's Kidsedchatnz is based all around learning! Here are the questions!

Q1. What is learning and why is it important?

Q2. What skills/things do you think you should learn and why?

Q3. Who are the people that are responsible for your learning and why are they important?

Q4. What are the things that drive/help your learning and why are they effective?

Q5. What are the things that block/stop your learning and what can you do to prevent them from happening?

Q6. Why is it important to share your learning with others? What is your favourite ways to share your learning?

Q7. I am proud that I learnt how to___________because……... 

Q8. What are some of your favourite learning activities/games/sites that you use in your class?

Back to School kidschatnz

A BIG thank you to all the classes who took part in today's kidsedchatnz! We had approximately 650 tweets today!

Here is a snapshot of some of the amazing tweets and the tweet of the week!

All of your tweets were AMAZING so thank you for taking part today! 


Kidsedchatnz - slideshow

First kidschat of the year!

Welcome back to kidsedchatnz!

We hope you had a wonderful summer holiday and have had a fantastic few weeks back at school!

Our first kidschat is about being back at school... "A New Year, A New Start"

Here are the questions:

Question 1. What was the highlight of your summer holiday and why?

Question 2. What are you looking forward to most this year and why?

Question 3. What rules do you think are important in your class?

Question 4. Our classroom should be ______ every day. (What word should fill the gap?)

Question 5. What qualities do you bring to your classroom?

Question 6. What is one thing you will do to make this year great?

See you on Thursday 27th of February 2-3pm!

Tweet of the week....

Thanks everyone for a great kidsedchatnz today! There were so many great tweets!

It was so hard to choose. Here are a few tweets ...

And the tweet of the week goes to.....

Well done Room 9 at Hannah at Maungaraki School!

Can we answer her question? What languages do you want to learn? Write a comment below!

Week 8 - 2013 Reflection

Wow! 2013 has been a fantastic year!

This week kidsedchatnz is all about Reflecting on 2013! This is our last kidschat for the year so we are looking forward to having everyone join us!

The children from Room 7 at Vardon School (@Vardonroom7) wrote the questions for this week's chat.

Take the time to reflect on 2013.... Here are our reflection questions for you to answer on Wednesday. 

Question 1:
What was your most favourite part of this year and why?

Question 2:
What are some of the things you have learnt this year that you have really enjoyed? Why did you enjoy learning about these things?

Question 3:
What have been some of the challenges you have faced this year?

Question 4:
What do you want to do better next year?

Question 5:
What do you want to learn next year?

Question 6:
Where are you going for the summer holidays?

Question 7:
If you could describe 2013 in one word, what word would you choose?

See you on Wednesday! From Room 7 and Mrs Natusch

PS: Have a wonderful Christmas and a great summer holiday!

Interface Awards

Last week we found out that Kidsechatnz won the Interface Awards for Best Teaching with ICT. 

Wow, how cool is that! It's great to get that exposure and recognition for a fantastic concept! The Manawatu Standard Newspaper also ran an article about our success.

Anyway a big thank you must go out to everyone who voted for us and all those fantastic classes that take part in Kidsedchatnz every week. We appreciate your support!

Edublog Awards

Wow, I just found out that Kidsedchatnz made it into the Finals of the Edublog Awards for Best Educational Use of a Social Network! How cool is that! The Edublog Awards has been running for 10 years and is a great way to celebrate all the fantastic things that are happening in ICT around the world.The winners of the Edublog Awards are decided by votes from any person around the world - so we need your votes!It is a live voting process so you can go to this website and vote and watch in real time.Thank you for supporting Kidsedchatnz, we really appreciate it!

Our Flipped Chat - 4 December 2013

What a fantastic afternoon of sharing! There were so many wonderful messages from everyone. We were so inspired. Here are a few of magnificent tweets that were shared.

The Tweet of the Week:

Great thinking Jedd. Congratulations. 

See you next week, everyone! Thanks for joining us.

Miss Revell