DFI - week 8 - Useful Blogger Tip - post from email

Kia ora,

thanks to Phil for the Blogger Tip to enable posting from email. This is a test. 

It's good to know that the 'post as draft' allows you to edit it for more features / functions.

Reflections on Scratch. 

I liked the intro to Scratch using OMGTech's 'Waka Wero'. I will use this with my Hangarau Matihiko class. For new teachers, it's worth remembering to remind students to 'verify email' so that they can share work.

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Ngā mihi  / Kind regards.

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Matt Harrison

Leader of Digital Technologies & Curriculum Development

BA Hons, PGCE Applied ICT, Post Grad.Cert Applied Practice (Digital & Collaborative Learning)

PO Box 154, 140 Hampden Street, Hokitika 7842 

Phone: +64 3 755 6169 | 

DFI - Week 8 - Computational Thinking - Edem626 - UC

CT Things that came up today

I appreciated the Future of Tech in NZ slideshow. I was aware of many of the ideas but found it refreshing and there were some good new examples of NZ Companies with innovative tech that will be relatable to my rural students.\

1. Happy Cow Milk
2. Halter $29m cowgorithm

We have started to use Trimble SketchUp For Schools (formerly Google SketchUp).

So it was interesting to see the Trimble work in Port Otago.

I was already familiar with the DTEC curriculum but the slideshow also had good Te Reo translations for Hangarau Matihiko Progress Outcomes terminologies.

Bucky shared some good links for game creation / character design

1. Hiberworld which I thought was a nice 3D example of a template based game generator.
2. HeroForge - looked like an interesting 3D character creator app

I shared the work of #Dan Milward & Gerard McManus - :  Te HikoTāraro

Dan Milward (working with Game Praxis) has also produced a Game Jam Cards - a game concept development card pack which makes for a creative group exercise. Here is a quick random generator app: http://ygd.bafta.org/resources/game-idea-generator 

I shared links to Drone coding https://sites.google.com/westlandhigh.school.nz/technology/new-dtec/9-10-computing/drones which uses Tello drones with https://learn.droneblocks.io/ for teaching & learning coding. The license cost US$500 could be shared between upto 10 teachers from a collection of schools.

I had registered for the Cyclone "Build Better Worlds" Minecraft Edu competition. I shared my learning site's Minecraft page: https://sites.google.com/westlandhigh.school.nz/technology/new-dtec/9-10-computing/minecraft-edu

I shared the folder of resources from the Cyclone teachers webinar: https://cycloneenable-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/danny_bedingfield_cyclone_co_nz/ErRBKv0tVWxGn3tPiFchixAB569n3SkmictRYK2uzZcdDg?e=7sKvBQ

Teachers Pay Teachers

I found these two resources are useful for CT with Minecraft Edu

1. $5 Minecraft Pixel Art worksheets - Image Binary Representation -https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Minecraft-themed-BINARY-BUNDLE-Simple-Binary-Encoding-Worksheets-Project-6401524 
2. $10 Minecraft Edu posters and Lesson Plans https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Minecraft-Education-Introduction-Unit-6138907

ECE CT etc.

I thought the Cubetto looked cool and maybe my wife's early learning centre could get them, however, they are quite expensive and out of stock in Aus : https://www.primotoys.com/