Microsoft Education in New Zealand part II

From MOE(ICT)

The Microsoft Academic Alliance High School Membership is not covered by the Microsoft Schools Agreement.

We do not hold any details on the Microsoft Academic Alliance High School Membership. You may want to contact Microsoft and ask them for details on this and also ask them if this available in New Zealand.

Microsoft
Ph: 0800 800 004

Still waiting on the other emails to come back from msdn and from innovative teachers network.

Microsoft Education in New Zealand

I have been to the Microsoft Education site in New Zealand http://www.microsoft.co.nz/education a lot in the past years I have been a teacher. I have looked for may varied and interesting ways to teach a multitude of topics ranging from webdesign, piracy, ethics, and operating systems. You would think the Microsoft site would be a good place to start. Well you are right, just not the New Zealand one.

I subscribe to a number of Computer Science teachers blogs from overseas and have found in the last couple of days good resources from them, and they are from Microsoft!

Number One: Digital Literacy
http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/eng/Curriculum.mspx
The Digital Literacy Curriculum consists of five courses:

Computer Basics

The Internet and the World Wide Web

Productivity Programs

Computer Security and Privacy

Digital Lifestyles

Each course has an e-learning module and an assessment. You can also take the Certificate Test, which covers topics from all five courses. If you pass the Certificate Test, you can print out a personalized Digital Literacy Certificate.

This original version teaches generic ICT skills and concepts, and features screen shots and simulations from Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Office 2003 to illustrate and provide hands-on examples for students. Version 2 of Digital Literacy uses screen shots and simulations from Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Number Two
Microsoft Academic Alliance High School Membership

The alliance that I'm referring to is the Microsoft Academic Alliance which allows any high school computer science department and computer science students to install Visual Studio. In addition, you get the following:

Three Microsoft e-Learning Library (MELL) collections:

• General Programming
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
• Programming in Visual Basic .NET

• Teaching Tools CD
• Student Tools CD
• Teaching Tools Manual
• Student Tools Manual
• Introductory Kit
• Monitored Newsgroups
• MSDN Library

• Documentation
• Technical Articles
• Code Samples

• Access to the Member's Area of the Web site
• Private MSDN Academic Alliance newsgroups
• Additional "Members Only" special offers
• 2 Professional Technical Support incidents

There are three ways for students to obtain the software for their personal use.

1. Member departments may make up to 50 copies of MSDN AA software for students to check-out from a library or lab. Students are required to return the physical media within a reasonable period of time.
2. Member departments may put the software on a secure server and have students download directly from the server. If a department desires to utilize both methods, that is perfectly acceptable.
3. Microsoft has partnered with e-academy to provide electronic software distribution for students and faculty free of charge.

Students must sign an agreement before they can download the software. The school administrator keeps track of the software and the agreements.

Number 3
Academic Resource Centre
http://www.academicresourcecenter.net/curriculum/facetmain.aspx
A number of programming resources are available here, as well as high education.
I have gathered some C# and visual basic resoures that I plan to use with the year 12 and 13 programming classes.
Example:
Code Rules: Introduction to Programming with Visual Basic - 12/19/2006
Code Rules introduces students to basic computer programming concepts. The simulation involves four students who travel the country in a Winnebago stopping at offbeat places to face coding challenges. This is a complete introduction to a programming course using Visual Basic 2005 Express.

This really annoys me, and I have made it known in a couple of emails, one to the msdn alliance, and the other to the innovative teachers Australia and New Zealand network. Why is none of this on the New Zealand Microsoft Education website, are we not important. No wonder that there is the call for Open Source. Ubuntu has just released training for students and instructors on how to use 7.10. Maybe there is the need to change. Just because Microsoft are stuffing us around.

Where to start

I have found the last week kinda fun. Finding resources, designing space invaders for the walls of my classroom. But one of the biggest challenges is where to start with the students. Do I get all the moderation unit standards out of the way first. It would help with the ethics, but I wanted to start the year with the 2783 unit standard first. I will have to wait till I return to school to find out when the moderation is due. One of the other things that I am finding is that there are very few xbox 360 controllers with usb cables on them. I need at leat 10 of them for the xna development. As well as waiting for xna academic to come out, there was an annoucement in December 2007 that there will be a academic account come out in Janurary. Other developments are that I have nearly completed the four house web house websites for the houses at school. I am thinking of a fifth for the staff versus year 13. I probably need to also look at what is required for the webdesign course. CSS, Flash and mySQL/PHP will be used. But one of the biggest things I have yet to do is come up with the course for year 12. Whether I stay with the current plan, but what to make for the assessment is still up for discusion. However the year 13 course is completely changing, problem is that I have too many resources for it and I am still to go through them to see what I can and can't use.

Failed Internet Bookings, Community Projects and Mountain Biking

I have managed to get away from the City of Sails for the summer break. Oh the holidays! I travel south to the Garden City for some time to think, work on my scheme for the next year, to get some different ideas for units of work and get away from the rat race of work. I reflect on the year that was and what next year could be.

I normally travel south down the Island visiting various people and places along the way. However this time I have headed west to a small alpine village called Hanmer Springs. I came here six years ago through the Outdoor Education papers at Teachers College, where we walked the tracks, had a shower under a waterfall and had to plan and run a full day Outdoor Education programme with students from around the area. This has turned out to be an interesting experience coming back.

I booked my accommodation online, and should have realized something was wrong when I didn’t get a confirmation email from them, however being the time of year I though, oh they are just busy. I should have rang. I turned up to the top 10 mountainview holiday park expecting to have a tent site sorted, instead they wonder who I am and once they hear that I booked through the internet, they said “not another one, this is the fifth time its happened in the last couple of days, we haven’t been getting bookings from the internet, we need to get it sorted out” and me thinking, “its not my fault, do you have a tent site”. They had a tent site for one night and couldn’t fit me in for any more nights. So, its do I go back home, or find other accommodation. Right lets see what is round here. I find myself at the Hanmer Springs Forest Camp for four nights.

I have been and had a look around the camp and to be honest it hasn’t changed much. It has had new buildings which are cabins, however they were here last time. The old huts have had a paint job, and some more silver birch trees have been planted at the tent sites. It is good facilities and a large area to play, pity I don’t have a frisbee in the car, I wouldn’t be able to hit anything.

But why blog about this, I found a sign near the camp track which got me thinking. It explains that the camp track was built by Shirley High School Six form students in 1983 as a community project. (The camp track is a 1-2km walking track between the Forest Camp, which used to be a education centre and the Department of Conservation Information centre on the outskirts of Hanmer Springs in the historic forest) This has gotten me thinking about other school community based projects. In Christchurch there is a bridge built by Burnside High Students students at “The Groynes”. Where are these projects now. Will the new curriculum help get some of these projects off the ground again, or has the governments Resource Management Act, or the Health and Safety Act killed off these projects. The skills that these students learnt through these community based projects would have been, planning, design, building, evaluation and teamwork. Some of these are found in projects carried out at school. But to get students away from a school environment and out into the community is fantastic. In the following years those students would have gone back to the project and seen how it grew, changed, and is now used and would have said to their families, “I helped create that”. The amount of pleasure they must feel when they see it used now.

What other projects are there out in the community that schools help to create?

As I think about this, I start to see little educational projects, tree planting down a stream to show riparian planting and how it creates an environment that helps insect life and stream life improve, the worm farms that show students that they don’t have to throw everything away, recycling schemes that help the family at home with their green bin each week. Sustainability, is where this comes in, and environment. Litter campaigns to get the students to put it in the bin, this has been going for 18 years now and it still hasn’t hit through, and slip, slop, slap, put a hat on at school. But I guess my main point was where is the big projects that schools become involved in.

I find it difficult in my area of Technology ICT, can I say the same, probably due to the changing nature of ICT, in 1983 there wasn’t the internet, and computers were expensive and connecting them to each using ethernet. Not really, It is the hard materials that these type of projects get done, and with so many jobs in the education gazette crying out for technology teachers that this type of community project has probably been killed off, probably as well as the subject. Other groups that the seniors might get this type of project out of would the be environmental group at the school, or at out school the ki wanis,

As for me, tomorrow brings the Mountain Biking tracks of Hanmer, tracks like Dog Stream, Tank, and Detox. Then to take a load off in the thermal springs that Hanmer is famous for.

A hint: Purchase the Mountain Bike map from the local i-Site, the proceeds go towards maintaining and building new tracks in the Hanmer Springs area.

I also have been trying to find a wireless connection in Hanmer Springs to be able to check my email to see whether that a certain conformation email has come through. (It hasn’t) I have a copy of the Telecom Wireless Hotspots for New Zealand and there is one at the Heritage Hotel, however since I am not a resident of the hotel I have managed to find a location outside it on Jollies Pass Road, beside a walkway to gain access to the Telecom Wireless Hotspot. Pity that I was attacked by mozzies in the process of checking my email. I would have had a wireless connection at the top 10 mountain holiday park as they have wireless throughout the whole park. Oh Well, I am on Holiday.

Rise of the Videogame

Five part series by the Discovery Channel on The Rise of the Videogame

Level one:
The video game started not with a bang, but with a ping. Where did simple games like Pong and PacMan come from? And how did these global phenomenons usher in the videogame revolution?

Level two:
In the late '70s, early '80s, video games gained their face. Game creators became more liberated to create more complex video games and icons like Mario and Zelda began to give way to grittier characters. Learn how video game technology has evolved.

Level three:
Video games go 3-D, but the details they capture in the new virtual worlds are both awe-inspiring and disturbingly realistic. Critics begin to question if games are becoming too real, too violent, too addictive. Game designers begin wrestling with ethics.

Level four:
"God Games" begin simulating entire worlds and allow players to experiment with sometimes troubling cause and effect. Artificial intelligence creates lifelike characters and opens up opportunities for new learning tools and for artistic expression.

Level five:
Can a computer game make you cry? Games gain an emotional dimension, interpersonal connection, and Hollywood worthy story lines as they evolve and move onto the Web. What do these virtual world games tell us about the way we live in the 21st century?

barcamp auckland

Standards are hard, presentation by mozilla (Robert O'Callahan)
webstandards and the problems that are faced by companies creating a broswer. 
Andy Clark, blogger fustrated by the standards committees.
Standards are necessary - if you put someone in complete control, to much power to a single entity. Probelms occur and someones own opinion it overruled.
Clean up existing standards - work going on to tidy up existing standards. defacto stanadrds and the dejuro standards.
CSS 2.1 spec still being worked on
W3C not interested, stopped work on the new standards, WhatWG, open standards group, clean up standards.
Add new features - otherwise things go pear shapped. OpenWeb, make a competitive platform. Video tag for HTML 5
Codifing stuff, 
Search google for HTML 5
Webforms2 extnsion to make html forms more usability.

 

Moving Day

What a day it has been. Fare welling staff that have been at the school many years and have become friends. It is the same each year, staff get up, fare welled by the HOD through sometimes moving speeches and the tears of the staff leaving as they look back at their time at the school and the ups and downs that they have had. I think about when it will be my turn to get up and talk about my time at the school, what would I say?

Enough about that, my time to leave the school has not yet come.

Moving Day, it is almost a tradition at the school in the last week of term 4 changes happen, not the changes that you may think. This is the IT change, computers on the move, where unsuspecting year 9 and 10 students become pack mules to the rubbish skips and classroom hauling monitors, keyboards, mice, all the all important system unit to far flung places around the school. Who helps look after all this, the IT teachers, we become the Marshall's at the door telling students to stop, go, what to pick up and where it goes. You kind of feel like wearing a bright orange vest and having walkie talkies with you to make sure the puzzle is going together at the other end.
Yes there are the students that don't want to do it, and the others that "get lost" coming back from hauling computer parts around the school, but it is fun and the students geta buzz out of it because they are doing something different. They are not sitting in a classroom for the fifth time that day watching a video, they are being helpful.

I wish to thank the many students over the past 5 year I have been at the school that have helped move computer, open up the fresh batch of computers that come each year. Thank You.

Code Rules - Visual basic programming idea

I have been busy looking for ideas for my students next year, some new ways of introducing programming for visual basic. One of the websites I came across provided me with a full course that teaches the students programming through four teenagers and a trip across America.

It is called "Code Rules" http://www.academicresourcecenter.net/curriculum/pfv.aspx?ID=6667

Code Rules introduces students to basic computer programming concepts. The simulation involves four students who travel the country in a Winnebago stopping at offbeat places to face coding challenges. This is a complete introduction to a programming course using Visual Basic 2005 Express.

This set includes student curriculum that can be printed, as well as an "eBook" that can be burned to CD for each of your students. For instructors, there is an annotated version of the curriculum, projects and solutions with notes about teaching strategies, possible student questions, and points to emphasize.

Also included are PowerPoint slides to introduce the key concepts of each unit; exams, quizzes, and exercises; explanations and solutions sets for projects; additional projects; and a list of additional Web-based resources.

Designed to be used with VB 2005 Express in high schools it can also be used with Visual Studio 2005.

I hope to use this with my students next year.

This is from Microsoft

Code Rules! Visual Basic Programming Course
Category: Teaching Resources
Submitted Date: 08/06/2007

Code Rules is a course designed to introduce high school students, with little or no background in computers or computer programming, to the basic concepts of computer programming. The course teaches students to create fun and engaging applications using Visual Basic.Net. Through the course students are introduced to the basic concepts of programming, such as writing pseudo code, creating forms, defining and declaring variables and more. Code Rules has been designed to allow students to explore the world of programming, practice creating code and develop a better sense of what it means to be a computer programmer.

Within the course, students are cast as contestants in a new game show called "Code Rules." The game involves four young contestants who travel the country in a Winnebago stopping at offbeat places to face coding challenges which must be mastered before they can move to the next segment. As the students travel from place to place, their traveling companions, Jen, Kirk, Nikki and Cliff will teach them the programming skills needed to face the next coding challenge. At the end of each segment of the trip they will face a variety of engaging, real-life challenges to demonstrate their newly acquired programming skills. These projects will be items useful to students as they travel such as developing an interactive travel journal, a simple form to track mileage and gas consumption, etc.

This curriculum is available in the Academic Resource Center.

Distraction: Desktop Defence

99% of flash games are rubbish, but once in blue moon you come across a flash game. Desktop Tower Defence 1.5 is such a game, deceptive in it’s simplicity, fiendish in it’s hidden complexity. Admit it, you made a spreadsheet to calculate just which tower/upgrade combination was the best value for money or what path provided the most area of coverage versus length. I even attempted to integrate the damage per second inflicted per square per path to figure where those precious points were best spent - all in an effort to prevent some blobs moving from once side of the screen to the other…

Honourable mentions go to Scrabulous - the scrabble knock off that made grandma’s game cool again - and all the great abandonware out there.

Play Desktop Tower Defence »

http://deft.co.nz/ source

more to hacker high school

Hacker High School - Security Awareness for Students

A link to the Hacker High School web site went to the AP CS list the other day. It is an interesting site with lessons and exercises about computer and network security. It appears to be designed to be used in either a classroom or a computer club or other after school program.

Some students today know a lot about network and computer security. Some of them use that knowledge for good and others, well, perhaps not good is a better way to put it than bad. Students are curious and they are going to try to find out what they can do and where they can get in. The other students, the ones who don't know as much, probably need a good education in security if only to protect themselves from their peers. And of course there are hackers out there who have clearly ill intentions and we need to protect people from them as well.

This Hacker High School page looks like a site that teachers and parents should know about. If nothing else you really don't want to be in a situation where the students in your life know more about security than the adults in their life.

Where am I today

well at the moment I am on Auckland's Queen street drinking at Starbucks and using the wi-fi access. I like my Grande Flat White.

But enough of the coffee talk, the reason why I am here and not at school today is Auckland University of Technology (AUT) is running an IT Symposium. This is the third year that it is running, kind of wish I would find this things out sooner, only problem is that the mail for this type of thing goes to one person who doesn't like to share. Just a side note: Give the person in charge of relief two weeks notice, not two days :)

I hope that I can keep this blog up-to-date throughout the entire day, I know that they have wireless at AUT, just need a login account.

Well now that I update this blog at 9pm at night you can take the fact that I was unable to get access to the wireless network. Which is a pity as now I have had to take notes on paper and enter them on here at another time.

The first speaker was Kathy Gordon talking about the future directions of AUT.

bringing together design

curriculum, students

new degree - bachelor of creative technologies (launch party tonight)

infrastructure

application

knowledge

looking at high achieving all rounders

"A BA for the modern world"

risk, experiment, evolve, adapt

looking at 40 students to start the degree in 2008

based around a studio environment

Next was a speaker that looked at the perspectives from UK - ICT education in schools.

Looked at the real issues

the drop in the number of students entering IT courses

Gender imbalance

public image - stereotype of geeks/nerds/social interaction problems

- I like this quote "computer science is the queen of the sciences"

- study computing for problem solving, intellectual, complex problems...

Now he kept posing questions that we could not answer as he kept going. SO I have a number of issues that I want to write down so I don't forget. 

Some of the real issues?

-too many courses (too varied)

-the dot.com bust

-not seen as cool by the students

-too much change?

-why do a degree when you can learn on the job?

-ICT/Curriculum/Achievement Standards problems

-1996 to get a job you have to have tertiary education

-knowledge based economy

-schools view of computing - dumping ground

-mentioned that computing was seen as the same as law, psychology in 1980's

-applied mathematics before computing came around(new subject) maybe needs to be defined more

-many home have computers, so we need tertiary study yo be able to use it?

- 80% of the people at the IT Symposium do not have Computer Science degrees.

Some more of the session

Computing has only just started

It has evolved , there is still more to come.

deal with the real problems

computer technology is here to stay, but can we use this technology to help out the problems in the world, health, third world water, cancer, global warming

no professional body to get certification in NZ

Mountain Biking

I have been asked to write an introduction for the school sports page for Mountain Biking, I will use this blog entry as a place to write a refine the entry.

Mountain biking is a popular sport for the individual?

Helping U19's earn respect. the term Huckster means someone who hucks, which means jumping off any little rock, or down a bank and loving it.

We are actually a group of students who formed a group to try and gain some respect and action for riders who are at high school.

Main Objective is to have some fun, so we encourage discussion, problem solving and participation at all levels, while on two wheels.

Bullying

As part of the 2006 ERO report into the school, an anonymous survey is to be given out to students to determine their views on bulling.

It was given out to three year 9 classes and 3 year 10 classes. Results were then tallied up and presented in  document that has been given out to staff, available to parents through the school library and also available to students through the library as well. I was skeptical about the report on first look, but now that I have looked over it and started to look at some of the comments from the students it is quite interesting.

In order to reduce bullying it is important to know the extent and severity of the problem, One way to do this is through a survey of those most likely to be victims of bullying at secondary school - Year 9 and 10 students.

Is the school a place that you like to come to and enjoy yourself when you are here?

There is a significant number of students happy and enjoying themselves at secondary school. It is to be expected that the largest number of responses is in the 'sometimes' category. Students like staff, have their good days and bad days and the challenge is to increase the number of 'Always' students.

Have you ever been bullied at school?

At the school, we have a 'zero tolerance' to bullying, the results do show that a 1/3 of students have had some form of bullying during there time at secondary school. This is a disappointing result as any bullying is unacceptable. A positive picture could be painted by the figure of 2/3 of students who said they have never been bullied at our school. However 1/3 of students in years 9 and 10 who completed the survey have experienced some form of school bullying at secondary school.

What kind of bullying have you experienced at secondary school?

Verbal bullying is the most significant for both years 9 and 10 with this type of bullying forming the top five responses. With the advent of new technology it is interesting to see that text bullying is happening through nasty/threatening texts. Others that are a cause for concern are year 9 students are forced to do something as well as asked to give up money or goods. these could also be happening from older students and that the year 9 are new to secondary school and that older students may see them as easy targets.

Where did the bullying happen?

Most responses detailed that the bullying was happening 'in class'. This is a concern as this is a place where there is a teacher supervising and so students should be 'safe'. There is also a significant amount of bullying between classes/outside classrooms and in the playground. this is when the bullying will often happen as it is often 'lost' or 'disguised' with the number and rapid movement of so many students.

Who did you tell that you are being bullied?

The responses made to this question are similar to published research. Students are often unwilling to report bullying - the second highest response, and they will often confide in a friend for support and advice about the problem. Speaking to a teacher is often very difficult for teenagers and so they will also try to minimize the issue by downplaying it. 

It is surprising that no student indicated that they had spoken to a student leader. These year 13 students are closer to their age that a teacher, visible around the school and would be considered by many junior students as 'sympathetic' towards someone being bullied.

My own comment on this: at intervals and lunchtimes the year 13 students are often off site down at the dairy or away getting some food as the canteen does not supply the food that they want. Many of these students walk out the gate at the beginning of lunch and make there way back before the school bell rings at the end of lunch. I think that the school needs to look at this. Also many students who have study often leave the school grounds as well. When are the year student leaders actually at the school for juniors to talk to them?

If you have been bullied and you told someone? What did they do and was it helpful?

The support received by a bullying victim is very important and the responses show that while many feel alone and overwhelmed by the bully, they have some empathetic support. Often the right message is being given - tell a teacher, or dean, but often the victim is reluctant to do this.

If you have been bullied and you told someone, what would you have liked them to have done differently?

The idea of support is seen again with some wanting the bully to be 'warned off' or 'talked to'. They needed the help of others to challenge the bully to make them stop. The feeling of the victim 'being alone' to face the bully is strong along with the idea of payback with 'punishing', 'suspending' and hurting the bully for what they have done.

Have you ever been away from school because of bullying?

Some explainations were given for this;

[They] are still bullying us and could still be angry.

Because no one in my class would talk to me or be my freind or sit with me.

Because I got mocked nearly all the time.

I said I was sick and didn't want to face her.

The might smash me after school while I'm walking home.

Because I was sick of the talk and the mocking.

I didn't want to get hurt.

I didn't want to get bullied anymore.

I was getting fed up with the situation and I had family problems to deal with.

Because I didn't want to face the people that were bullying me.

I though that it would stop the bullying.

 

The explanations are very telling and it is easy to see the pain and sadness these students felt.

asttle

we use a product at school to test and record student literacy marks, the product is called asttle. When it works it does a great job, when it doesn't you have to come up with some creative thinking to be able to get it running properly again. Today was one of those days.

Thre are two versions of asttle, one that is pre-installed on a laptop, that is the single user, and the other which is a network version, the multi-user. the majority of laptops in the english and maths department use the multi-user. The teacher has been using for a number of years and when she got her new laptop didn't think to have it changed over to the multi-user. Now all of the year 9 and 10 english exams have been setup from her laptop on teh single user account. Imagine when it came to putting these results in by the teachers, they could not find the test, the other option was to redo the entire year 9 and 10 english exam. No way.

So one thing about asttle is that it always, and I mean always backs up. Everytime you do something in it, it backs up. 

So we had a backup, we just needed another machine with single user on it to restore the backup and export the test to be able to import it on the multiuser program. 

c:\Program Files\asttle\asttledata <- copy this directory and paste it into a network area to be able to be copied to the single user machine. Then open and restore backup, next export the tests to a .ast file and open up the multi user admin mode. Then under the advanced options import the .ast file.

 

So in under 15 minutes the problem was fixed and the teachers are happy they don't need to see the exam supervisior to get 800 papers re-photocopied or retested.

Why don't we have access to e-asttle now? This may have solved half this problem, but does e-asttle have the facility of the current asttle system in being able to print off a test and the teachers input the results into e-asttle?

Mountain Biking 2008

Since I have enjoyed the mountain biking this year, it looks like I could be taking it again next year. So far this year I have cracked a couple of ribs, I have a 2 inch gash on my arm and fractures my right shoulder. What a fun season it was. I found it great fun with the students who probably would never get the huge opportunity of every 2nd week to go out and do a sport that they enjoy. I think I have to get into it a little bit sooner next year to get some of them into racing mode for nationals in April.

http://www.collegesport.co.nz/sports/mountain_biking.html

So far the dates for the Auckland Winter Series are: AKSS WINTER SERIES:
Round 1: Sunday 6 May Riverhead forest
Entries close: 14 May
Round 2: Sunday 10 June Woodhill Forest
Entries close: 11 June
Round 3: Sunday 5 August Hunua Forest
Entries close: 30 July
Round 4: Sunday 2 September Whitford Forest
Entries close: 13 August

The new bike I am getting from Cycle City is a Avanti Hammer

The new versus the old

This appeared in the nzherald describing the new versus the old curriculum.

I wonder how relevant it will be in the next couple of years when it has changed.

House websites

I have been running the house websites for a year as a proof of concept on how important they are to promote the house spirit within our school. They are used to inform students of upcoming events, sports rules, who won what, and how the points are going for the year. Many students have come up and said they have enjoyed jumping online after an event and seeing how wining or losing an event has had on the points.

One of the things has been having the time to develop these sites. Looking after four very individual sites has been a busy task. I did not use any Content Management System or online system either. All was developed and designed in Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Fireworks and Macromedia Flash (for those .flv files we all love)

Next year the house leaders will be looking after the content for there own houses. This poses a few technical problems, access to the web server, access in general, how can they post information online simply enough without having to know CSS or HTML.

I have looked at changing one of my five servers over to windows XP and installing WAMP on it as demonstrated at the TUANZ conference this year, built into it apache, mySQL, PHP, all up to date and integrated fine. For the house websites they will be running wordpress with customised themes for each house. This allows for house captains and leaders to put up there own content through online forms as well as I will look at putting gallery plugins on so they can upload photos to make things more interesting for the students.

I have now started on getting these up and running, and one of the problems I am now faced with is actually trying to find themes that are good. There are many themes out there but most of them are too simplistic, to be able to keep students attention, they have to be graphical and have colour. We are trying to promote house participation and house spirit, not "the monkey made me do it".

Technology and Key Competencies

The Relationship between Technology and the Key Competencies

Technology, as an essential learning area, has a responsibility to work with all other learning areas, to ensure the key competencies are mediated into the classroom curriculum. The capabilities captured in the identified five competencies are all essential underpinning capabilities for the development of a technological literacy that is broad, deep and critical, in nature, and one that will result in increasing student empowerment for future citizenship.

Key competencies cannot be developed or evidenced outside of a context. Technology provides a range of diverse contexts, where students can develop their capability with regards to these five foci as well as use these capabilities to support their learning in Technology. In this way, technology-specific learning intentions and the competencies become integrated within the learning environment.

All aspects of Technology education would support and be supported by an increase in sophistication across the key competencies. Examples of how the key competencies are embedded within technology learning experiences are discussed below.

Relationship: Thinking

Critical and creative thinking are essential in Technology education, as is the development of a high level of awareness of the nature of thinking underpinning any decisions. Being able to step back from a situation and answer questions such as ‘what is happening?’, ‘why is it happening?’, ‘should it be happening?’ and ‘how could it be done differently?’ rely on sophisticated thinking skills.

These thinking skills are required across all three strands of technology education. Such thinking is essential for making informed decisions that are based on ethical, as well as functional grounds, allowing for an understanding of fitness for purpose, as well as explorations of the fitness of any stated purpose. For example, opportunities for the enhancement of such thinking are clearly identifiable when:

• undertaking technological practice within innovative problem solving situations;
• understanding the nature of technology through exploring examples of existing technological outcomes or developments, debating contentious issues, or projecting into alternative scenarios; and
• developing key technological knowledge that is then used to evaluate within technological modelling, or to explain how and why products and/or systems work.

Relationship: Using Language, Symbols, and Texts

The specialised language of technology provides significant opportunities for enhancing students’ competency in using language, symbols and texts. This will be reinforced through informed technological practice where critical evaluation, as part of ongoing experimentation, analysis, testing and final evaluative judgement, requires students to understand specialised language, symbols and texts. They will also need to use such language to explain and justify their thinking across a diverse range of contexts.

Because Technology draws knowledge and skills from across a range of learning areas, and additional disciplines, it allows students to appreciate how and why language, symbols, and texts differ across disciplines and contexts, and why what is thought of as accepted knowledge and skills, also differs across disciplines and contexts. Understanding these differences supports students in their ability to interpret and use language, symbols and texts in appropriate and informed ways in their own lives.

Relationship: Managing Self

When undertaking their own technological practice, whether individually or as part of a group, students are required to develop self management skills in order to effectively plan ahead and manage resources efficiently. The ability to understand and undertake technological practice that takes account of wider social and physical environmental factors allows students to develop a strong sense of self, and recognise how they can manage themselves within and across a range of life situations inside and outside of formal education communities.

Relationship: Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing

Technology programmes provide opportunities to develop ongoing and mutually beneficial community relationships critical for developing student competency in relating to others and participating and contributing. Because of the inclusion of a range of knowledge and skill bases in Technology, both technological and those from other disciplines, it is common practice in Technology education to draw expertise from the community and/or industry. Inviting people in as valued experts provides a meaningful opportunity for the development of relationships with a range of people from local and extended communities. Students also often work alongside service organisations, local businesses and other community groups to meet an identified school or community need. This type of working relationship allows all parties the opportunity to develop a better understanding of the ethics, beliefs and understandings of respective groups and individuals, and thus enhance future interactions.

All technological practice and resulting outcomes are situated in specific social and physical environments, resulting in both opportunities and constraints. Conflicts and the need for collaboration are common factors that students in technology have to deal with. In turn, students become empowered to operate across a wide range of social groups. This is key to increasingly sophisticated technological practice, and the development of a broad and critical understandings of technology’s role in contemporary society.

copied from http://www.techlink.org.nz/curriculum-support/tech-key/page2.htm

programming ideas

http://www.thornhill.ss.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/Departments/Computer%20Science/ICE4M/ICE4M.shtml

Game programming links
http://www.schoolgamemaker.rupert.id.au/links.htm

The New Zealand Curriculum Online – launching 6 November 2007

The New Zealand Curriculum Online will be launched on 6 November 2007

can't wait, are they going to annouce how it is going to be implemented in schools. Teacher only days to get it going and schemes changed. Or is it just going to be the big stuff.

Subnetting a network

One of the things that I have trouble with when setting up networks is the subnetting part. On digg.com today they an article that talks about how to setup a subnet for schools. This could be interesting part to talk about when doing the networking unit at school or the hacker high school.

http://www.learn-networking.com/design-basics/how-to-subnet-a-network.php

Denial of service attacks and how to prevent them
http://www.learn-networking.com/network-security/how-to-prevent-denial-of-service-attacks.php

Now one of the things I like about the learn-networking is that they have is a quiz at the end of each.