Technology Challenges

We have had such a busy month in Room 9, moving from our single cell classroom called Room 9 to our brand new building, called Te Waka Ako (the canoe of learning), with two other classrooms and becoming the Hauraki class. Before we shifted the students worked very hard to complete work that they could put onto their personal blogs. It is always a bit of a process completing the work, getting it checked, creating a meaningful blog post, getting that checked and finally the getting the green light to go ahead and post their work. In all of this our class blog has been a bit neglected, so several different blogs will be loaded over this weekend.
Earlier in the term we had some fun with newspaper, sellotape and string. The challenge was to create different items with a very limited time frame and only three different resources. Using the Ready Set Design site we were given these two tasks.
            I need to protect myself from the rain. I need to collect and carry small things.

Ready, Set, Design is a favourite educational activity. We use it as a way to introduce the concepts behind "design thinking" to groups. It's very adaptable, and lots of fun!  Here is a link to the instructions.
      http://cdn.cooperhewitt.org/2011/09/02/Ready%20Set%20Design%20vX.pdf

 The Smithsonian put out an great video explaining the reasoning behind having small groups create objects in this way. Check out this clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIXSuZg2awA&feature=player_embedded

Check it out and challenge your class!


Check out more photos in the slideshow.