School Newsletter 21 May 2010

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A+ Video Competition Winners Announced!

Last term, students were given a challenge - to create a short video to show what being a Springston A+ student means for them. Inspired by the movie Mankind is no island, the video was to have photos or short video clips of words found around the home or community. When the photos of words were put together they would make sentences or a poem, explaining what being a Springston A+ Learner means.

The videos could be made at home or at school - students could enter on their own, or with friends or family members. We have had 6 entries, from 11 students, and they have done an amazing job! For many, this was their first effort using the Flip video camera, or doing any video work, let alone making their own movie.

Entries were judged on how well the video expressed the characteristics of a Springston A+ learner, the use of words and images to describe the ideas, as well as the creative and innovative ways of presenting the ideas. The number of original images used, the quality of their photography/video work, and the inclusion of appropriate music, were also considered.

And now, we have our winners! They were announced at assembly this afternoon. You can view the videos of the first and second place-getters here. And you can view ALL the videos that were entered, on the E-Team Blog, or by following the links listed below. ENJOY!

First Place: Take Five: Billy and Oliver


Second Place: Izaac and Tom


Highly Commended:
Jewel
Alice T and Jasmine
Callum and Cory
Jake and Jayden

Well done, to everyone who took part!

Skype Call to Italy - Wednesday 12 May

Back on 19 April we received an email from a teacher (Luca Piergiovanni) in a middle school in Como, Italy. He had started an International Podcast for his students, and was doing interviews of teachers and students involved in different school podcasts from around the world.

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After some email correspondence back and forth, including a Skype call between Carol and Luca - neither speaking the language of the other (but using Skype Chat and Carol translating Luca's words into English, and her words into Italian using Google Translate) they were able to have some sort of conversation!

Trying to coordinate a time for the Skype interview to suit both parties, with Italy being 10 hours behind New Zealand time, was very difficult. Luca had intended to have a fluent English-speaking student interview us, but that was impossible for him to arrange for the time we decided on - 11:00 pm on 11 May in Italy (9:00 am the next morning here). So we were interviewed by one of Luca's friends, Matteo Ronchini. Unfortunately, Matteo's microphone and sound setup didn't work as well as we'd hoped, and we found it almost impossible to hear his words - they were very muffled and indistinct, so virtually the whole call involved us guessing what he was saying, and responding instead to a list of possible questions that Luca had previously emailed us.

The outcome was that teacher (Carol Kendall) and students (Kachina and Jahna), responded as best they could on the intended interview topic - our Springston School Podcast on Podomatic. They wanted to know: How long we've been doing podcasts, how we got started, the sorts of things we talk about in the episodes, why we choose them, the benefits to students, what the students enjoy most, why certain topics appear in the episodes, as well as information about our class blogs and how we use these.

We thought you might be interested to listen to a recording of the Skype Call anyway, with the patches of difficult communication where we simply couldn't hear Matteo's questions, edited out. Luca is going to record the questions separately, and integrate them into the recording they made, and publish the Skype call on their International Podcast Chocolat 3b page.

It was great to be able to communicate with our new friends in Italy, and to realise that their interest in our Podcast had brought us together. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to speak to students and teachers in other schools around the world in the not too distant future.

School Newsletter 8 May 2010

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