Catch the Wave

Living in Whakatane I’m noticing how quickly the seasons change. We’re only 7 days into spring, but already the sky is bluer, the sun is warmer, the sea sparkles and everything looks greener. I even feel inspired to go for a walk.

Recently I’ve made several freeware discoveries. Teachers I work with needed a programme which would compress photos in bulk. ‘Jpeg 4 Email ‘ does this and it’s really easy to use. You just need to set the size you want, make multi-selections and drag the photos into the Jpeg for email window. You can then save the compressed photos into a new folder. It’s really useful for adding photos to a blog as well.

The second goodie is ‘Switch’, which converts sound files (e.g. .wma) to MP3. You can also multi-select.

Another discovery is the ‘vidtoMP3 website‘ which will save just the music from a video as an MP3. I know you’ll find a use for that one!

I also added the chroma key to Windows Movie maker so I can make blue screen movies. Follow the steps on this wikiHow page I think it’s better to use a green screen though because lots of people wear blue clothes. I ended up with an armless person in my underwater movie because she was wearing a long sleeved blue top!

I’ve been travelling around a bit lately.  First came the Nelson ICTPD Conference, then last week I spent 2 days in Palmerston North with 22 school leaders from the eBest ICT Cluster.  Today I was in Tauranga at the Bay of Plenty ICT Clusters home group meeting.   In fact the last six years has been like this for me - lots of meetings, conferences and workshops.  Lots of professional development and learning.  Lots of new ideas and skills.  Change has been constant, necessary and stimulating.  Why do some teachers resist it?   There are times I’ve gone from student (with the Internet as my teacher), to teacher in a matter of days.   Perhaps other ICT Facilitators can relate to this.

ICT Clusters have had an impact on New Zealand education.  They can take a lot (if not all) of the credit for the education renaissance that has has happened during the last six years.  And in true Kiwi style, while we all have a vision and goals, there is no ‘how to ‘, ‘what to’, or ‘when to’ blueprint provided.  And yet we make a real difference - talking to a teacher who hasn’t been in an ICT cluster will prove that.

I’ve been with the eBest ICT Cluster in Whakatane, New Zealand for four months now. Our main cluster goal for 2008 is to develop a thinking programme for each school that reflects the needs of the 21^st century learner. Each term we have a whole day ‘Leaders Think Tank’ and an ‘ICT Lead Teachers Workshop’. This year we are looking at a variety of thinking strategies and ways to implement them in daily classroom practice.

The eBest ICT Cluster website is our sharing and collaborating environment and contributes to our development as a learning community. Here, teachers share their planning and resources and the files reflect the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Thinkers keys and Habits of Mind in their teaching practice.
The website URL is www.ebest.co.nz

You don’t need to be a member to use the site and the resources are available for everyone to download free. If you find the resources useful, please add a short post to the eBest Blog. I’d love to hear what you think of the website.

Lately I’ve been pretty much living on/in my laptop. This is not really a bad thing … athough I did take a long walk yesterday to give my eyes something in the distance to focus on.

I got a new Toshiba Tela laptop in February and love the faster speed of 2 gb of Ram. The only annoying thing is the volume icon/indicator which pops up on the screen every time I brush the volume wheel (which is on the front.) If anyone knows how to stop this happening, please let me know.   And no, I don ‘t think a sticking plaster is really a long term solution!

I’ve been playing with Marvin. While I think it’s clever and cute, I’m not yet a convert to the avatar craze, so I can’t see me using it much. I’m puzzled about why the software was so ‘high profile’ of at the Learning@School Conference. Is there a need to constantly have new things? Do education conferences depend on ‘new’ for their existence? I suppose we wouldn’t keep going to hear the same stuff over again! There is also the thought that Marvin used L@S for their New Zealand launch and paid the organisers for the opportunity. I spent time on the Marvin website trying to add some more understanding. Apart from learning more about Aboriginal health issues, I’m really none the wiser.

In my Internet wanderings, I discovered that Russell Street School in Palmerston North has changed their website to a blog. It contains all the features and pages of the original site, but allows for easy posts by the principal and teachers, photos, media and comments from parents. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll be trying to convince all the schools I work with to do this too. Best of all, the eBest ICT Cluster is taking a group of 19 leaders and teachers down to Palmerston North at the end of May to visit 3 schools - including Russell Street.

Well here I am in sunny Whakatane, in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. I’ve actually been here for five weeks, but there have been lots of things to do and places to explore … so you’ll have to forgive me for not posting. I’ve bought a little place down by the river next to the botanic gardens.

While I wonder if this is a good time to buy real estate (I keep reading gloomy predictions about the market in the newspapers) I really love living in my own place again after six years renting in Wanganui.

Whakatane has sensational scenery. All I have to do is point my digital camera and click and I get the most amazing photos! I’ve used some of the photos I’ve taken to make the eBest ICT Cluster website banner

The local newspaper (Beacon) is printed 3 days a week and amazingly costs only 40c on Tuesday and Wednesday and 50c on Friday!! It has a great website and you can even download a .pdf of the classified advertisements.

Whakatane has an impressive ‘3 bin’ recycling system, taking away your rubbish, plastics, bottles, paper and green waste from the curb.

Another neat thing is that I’ve got a new Toshiba laptop (with 2 Gig of Ram!) and an aircard - so now I have Internet wherever I go - which is pretty much essential. I love it. And I finally got my home wireless Internet going … so now life is almost perfect. I just need to win lotto and find a perfect man. (Yeah, I know!)

The teachers in the eBest ICT Cluster are positive, confident, talented and enthusiastic - it will be fun learning together. If you’re coming up this way, let me know and I’ll show you around.