School Tour
Posted by Allanahk on April 20, 2008
The second to last week of term I facilitated a very powerful tour of local Nelson schools. We picked up a mini-van full of Discover IT Tasman teachers and prinicpals and headed for town. First up was Brightwater School- just humming. Brightwater principal, Janice Gulbransen, and her staff have embeded the inquiry approach and the use of ICT into daily programmes of work. Children are engaged and are able to articulate their learning. They use the Mark Treadwell inspired KnowledgeNet extensively as a hub for their on line activities and all classes are actively creating content on the web.
We visited Liz’s class and saw children locating on a world map where people are who make comments on their blog. Great learning in a meaningful context. It was great to be able to wander the school and have children able to tell us what they were learning and why they were learning it.
Next stop was Henley School. Henley is a large urban school. We were in awe of the art works abounding in the school and had a good chance to have a look at how teachers were using interactive whiteboards and see their computer suite in action.
We then broke into smaller groups to have a look around Nayland Primary and Broadgreen Intermediate where they had a limited FM radio station in action.
It was very powerful for us to get out of our classrooms and schools to see how others are going- it was affirming for us to know how others are implementing the curriculum and building on learning experiences for children enhanced through the use of ICT.
A big day out.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
A great write up Allanah. You make me wish I was coming to Nelson during the term instead of the holidays. Some very cool things seem to be happening in your schools. It must make you feel very satisfied after your first term of facilitation
May 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
That is great Allanah, it is so encouraging to hear of these schools successfully embedding technology and using it in a meaningful way.