Trust children - and discover what you can learn.

After some inspiring PD over the holidays, I looked for more inspiration as I ready myself for work tomorrow. Again I found such inspiration on TED! The following video is presented by Adora Svitak (author of Flying Fingers) - A "Child prodigy" who says "the world needs 'childish' thinking.... Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach."

At Manaia Kindergarten we truely believe that children are the best teachers and learners. The community at Manaia learns alongside eachother and children are seen teaching adults new ways of thinking and doing. Check them out on their Kindergarten Blog.
Trust children - and discover what you can learn.

A new role, a challenging future.

Wow - its been a while! I logged on to my blog account and found 9 comments waiting. Apologies to those whose comments I only just published.

It was an honour to be appointed head teacher at Manaia Kindergarten. The time now, however, to blog, has greatly been diminished as I seem to fill my days with other thoughts - mostly around the survival of admin. I have also found that to start with I am giving of much energy into the job, and not having a great deal of time to be replenished. So it was great to have some worth while professional development over the Easter holidays. We also have a new team of teachers at Manaia Kindergarten and I look forward to working together as a great team, sharing our learning, challenging our thinking and ways of doing things, and growing together with the children and community of Manaia.

Everythings amazing nobodys happy

Dedicated to all those at the ULearn Conference who complained about their phones!!!! and want an upgrade to a faster, better, funkier fone!

This is to keep you entertained until I have time to write my reflections of our recent inspirations from ULearn09 - coming soon.

Spell with Flickr

I'm really proud of Tayla - Fiona's niece - she has just taught me how to use Spell with Flickr. Try it out - it is a fun way to play with words. It's really easy - Tayla (7yrs) explained it all to me - and it doesn't look like a user friendly website. But you just type in your name and click 'Spell'. Then wait. The site will come up with a selection of photos from Flickr with the letters of the word. If you are not happy with one of the letters - click on that letter and it will give you another option. Keep clicking until you are happy with your choice. To share - copy and paste the code under the letters into a blog, facebook, or... other social site.

Great to hear the children of Glenbervie School are hooking a love of ICT into learning.




Tayla DID suggest I just use Bev - but that's just not me!

Comic Life - Software Review

Fiona Grant from the MOEs Software for Learning encouraged me to write a few reviews about software we use in early childhood education. There was little doubt in my mind about which piece of software to begin my reviews.



Comic Life has been an exciting addition to the curriculum at Manaia Kindergarten. This is a software package that appeals to teachers, children and parents alike. In addition it is equally usable on both Mac and PC (though marginally faster on a Mac!).

Although Comic Life is set up to provide tools for the creation of comic strips and pages, it is quite versatile for a variety of uses.

The teachers of Manaia Kindergarten use Comic Life to write children's Learning Stories. Stories about children's learning experiences had previously be written in MS Word. We found Comic Life provided a platform to easily mix pictures and text in creative formats.

• Text boxes can be placed anywhere on the page. Text headings come in all shapes and sizes. You can choose from pre-determined styles or manipulate the shape, colour, or outline of headings. When using a Mac - Comic Life provides some text formatting options.

• Picture boxes can easily sit next to text. Neither moves unless you click and drag them to the desired position. A small image library window remains open with your image thumbnails. It is easy to click and drag your images from the window into your picture box. They automatically resize to fit the window. It is also easy to crop images by clicking and dragging the boundaries of the picture or the box. Picture boxes come in a range of style shapes which can be manipulated individually along with the frame, if desired.

• Speech bubbles are the cornerstone of Comic Life. At Manaia Kindergarten, we use speech bubbles to type children's words and correspond them with particular images. You can see an example of Speech Bubbles in use in a recent story about our trip to the Fire Station.

• Blog your learning stories easily from Comic Life. Each page can be saved as an image (jpg) and uploaded onto a website or blog.

• Bling - pages can be beautifully coloured with preset backgrounds or manipulate easily to create your own. Check out some on Manaia Kindergarten blog

• Children - the Comic Life interface makes it easy for children to create their own pages and make their own choices about images, colour, heading styles etc. Children at Manaia Kindergarten see Comic Life as an opportunity to take charge of the mouse, click to make their choices, and have direct input into writing their own learning stories. Check out Sari's story about Poi meeting her friends at home.

Purchase Comic Life - its not expensive
Comic Life is a creation of Plasq. They have a variety of Comic Life options. We use the regular Comic Life option at Manaia Kindergarten. You may also be able to purchase a bulk license to cover a number of computers and computer platforms in your Early Childhood centre. Comic Life Download Link.

PS: I am not paid by the manufacturers of Comic Life for this review - though I probably should be lol!

Best Cybersafety Practices

Further to the discussion in May on ICT in ECE blog about Cybersafety Practices for Young Children - today I found a great video to illustrate some of my points.

Best Cybersafety Practices is a video produced for TVNZ for "in betweens". Inbetweens is a series of informative videos for pre-teens and teens. The series has children, talking to children, about issues that relate to their lives - and they are great. I would have liked to embed the video here - but alas that doesn't seem possible. So go over the In Betweens on TVNZs site, watch, enjoy and be informed. Read the discussion on Cybersafety Practices for Young Children. I would love to hear our comments or particitpate in discussion with you on this topic so don't for get to return to this post and leave your comments and discussions points. Enjoy.

Kahlua enjoys online company

There is something to be said about the global community. How far can we push it? To what extent can it benefit us, and our loved ones? Will I discover a new niche market in technology?

Our new chihuahua poodle began life like many young children today - online. Well not exactly but his first pictures were posted on TradeMe. Once I had discovered them (and then visited him with my partner), I emailed the pictures to Kindergarten. The new born's photos were displayed through the digital projector onto the big screen for parents and children to discuss and enjoy. Within hours of arrival, here, at his new home, he sat with me to skype my relatives in South Africa. Since then his image, movements, and faint sounds have traveled through skype all around the world. You too, can enjoy images of his first visit to Manaia Kindergarten tomorrow on their blog - along with the story of his first bath!

Today our new poodle chihuahua, Kahlua, continued his ICT journey.We used YouTube to connect with other poodle pups from around the world. In our first movie we watched and listened to the excitement of a group of puppies settling into their new home in Canada.

Maybe it wasn't the right time? Maybe Fiona's baking in the kitchen was too distracting? Maybe other pups are not where his interests lie?

Technology and puppies - is there a future here?
Or was this just an excuse to blog about our new little boy!
I will keep you posted :-) LOL!!!!!!