Digital Citizens

Ode to the Ordinary

In Class students have been working on creating some fantastic poetry inspired by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Here is an example of his writing:

  Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market by Pablo Neruda

 Here, among the market vegetables, this torpedo from the ocean depths, a missile that swam, now lying in front of me dead. Surrounded by the earth's green froth —these lettuces, bunches of carrots— only you lived through the sea's truth, survived the unknown, the unfathomable darkness, the depths of the sea, the great abyss, le grand abîme, only you: varnished black-pitched witness to that deepest night. Only you: dark bullet barreled from the depths, carrying only your one wound, but resurgent, always renewed, locked into the current, fins fletched like wings in the torrent, in the coursing of the underwater dark, like a grieving arrow, sea-javelin, a nerveless oiled harpoon. Dead in front of me, catafalqued king of my own ocean; once sappy as a sprung fir in the green turmoil, once seed to sea-quake, tidal wave, now simply dead remains; in the whole market yours was the only shape left with purpose or direction in this jumbled ruin of nature; you are a solitary man of war among these frail vegetables, your flanks and prow black and slippery as if you were still a well-oiled ship of the wind, the only true machine of the sea: unflawed, undefiled, navigating now the waters of death.

Have a look through our great work!

Selfies

Students have been exploring why selfies are "dangerous" and are making up their own opinion on the issue. Students have used the 4Cs to guide their research, but also have thought about how best to share their learning. Jahnaya and Georgie made a great display including selfies they took, and created their own explanation of what the issue is. Aimee and Layla put together a great poster from their research. I liked the way Kaylie saved the environment by using Google docs and not printing out any images! Her display shows her great thinking and her coming to terms with using google drawing.

 

Rocks Road Letters to the Editor

We got a whole column published in the Nelson Mail. What a great way for students to show that they are engaged citizens who are prepared to share their opinions on issues that matter to them. I loved the huge buzz of excitement the class got when they saw their names in print, some even took a quick photo on their phones to show their parents! I was really impressed by the quality of the writing that the students put together after Kate Davidson, from the Nelson Mail, came to discuss with the class the excitement of being a journalist. The students then looked at the paper's coverage of a local issue - the redevelopment of Rocks Road and wrote their own informed opinion.

MATHS - HOUSES OF THE FUTURE

TASK 1
Watch this video
CLICK HERE

What are some of the problems that housing faces in the future?
Answer in a brainstorm in your maths book

Read this article
CLICK HERE
What are some important things to think about for a future house?
Answer in your maths book

The Driving Question
How can we design a house that meets people’s needs in 2075?


The Scenario and Challenge
The challenge in this project is for you and your group to examine four trends—population
growth, urbanization, energy efficiency, and changing tastes in design—that
will affect the kind of houses that people live in by 2075. You will create a floor plan and
basic model of a house of the future that reflects these four shifts, and then deliver your
design and give evidence of your thinking in the form of a 10 minute presentation about
why your house will be necessary and useful in the future. The format for the talk can vary,
but it is suggested that the presentation follow the guidelines for a TED-like talk in which
you give short presentations that focus on the future and innovation.

Your model house must accommodate a family of four. It can be a stand-alone dwelling, be part of a cluster, and use any shapes. Room for a vehicle or outdoor space is optional. The project is designed
to encouraged creativity and imagination.

You will create a floor plan, a basic model sketch, and a 10-minute presentation as your
final products. The floor plan and model should convey key geometric concepts and show
how geometry was used to construct the floor plan and model.

You will work in teams of three to four to create presentations that should include three
elements:

1. The model
2. An explanation and defence of design choices
3. An overview of why the design would help solve housing problems in the future.

Ideally, the presentation will be digital, in the form of a Prezi, PowerPoint, Google
Presentation or something more inventive. The plans that accompany the model must
include key geometric information showing that you understand formal constructions.
You must show that they can answer the Driving Question by demonstrating that your
‘house of the future’ accounts for population growth, urbanization, energy efficiency, and
future design trends.

Skyping Gustavo

Skype in the classroom:

Gustavo Borges is a friend from Brazil, who had a lot to share about Brazil and the World Cup. The class seemed really excited about the World Cup and I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet someone who is Brazilian and could share about Brazil's mixed reaction to the World Cup.

What did we learn when we talked to Gustavo?

Not all Brazilians are good at football, but they still love it- Israel

"Some people really like the idea of it being in Brazil, but the taxpayers are having to pay for it. 

Some Brazilians aren't that concerned about the buildings being burnt down for the World Cup"- Otis

"People have been running out into the streets and protesting. One of the new stadiums being built is in the most remotest places in the Amazon, you can only get there by planes. They are not happy because it is so expensive." Jackson  

"They weren't happy because lots of poor peoples homes have been demolished." Annie.

Students will now follow a line of inquiry of their choosing into the world cup to produce their own graphs about the world cup.

The World Cup In Numbers

One of the things that I love about teaching is constantly being challenged by students about why we are learning certain things. Obviously the World Cup is a great opportunity to see some of the world's greatest footballers showing their talent and encouraging students to value sports! But I feel that when asked "why are we learning this", the infographic above really helps to show why.

The world cup is really important to millions of people around the world.

Over the next two days, your job is to analyse the information in the videos below and the infographics in class, gather your own information from a class survey and create a graph.

Artwork by Adam Noone

Artwork by Annie Davies

Maungatapu Murderers

What a great week! I loved this week because every student in the class was involved in some part of the making of the play, whether by making music in the band- at some point during the week Aimee, Kirsty, Georgie, Jahnaya, Samara and Brea were all involved in making music that they had, on Tuesday, never even thought about and through experimenting and working together they made something great. As far as music, they were working through some pretty complex ideas about building mood and texture with violins, xylophones, guitar, recorder and autoharp.

Also, what I loved about the play was how it was originally written by Annie and Layla and then reworked by Caleb and Finn to make it a bit longer and more substantive. Together they made something stronger.

The students that didn't get an opportunity to act in the play were involved by giving valuable feedback to the class about their performances and how to make the play better.

Ultimately, it was a highlight of the year so far for me as watching the class backstage was great because they were so happy and proud of themselves, as they should have been for a play they put together in a week. They showed hiranga- excellence and should be extremely proud.

Fantastic Narratives

 Here is an example of some of the quality student work we have produced in our class this year so far. Over four weeks, students worked hard to create a quality narrative and I have been blown away by the quality of their writing. Students also got the opportunity to craft some beautiful sumi e paintings. I know that at least for Annie she was hating having to use one colour, but it has really paid off as they have made some beautiful paintings of our hidden history.


 

Ashish's great presentation about Nepal and NZ

Ashish has been exploring the cultural differences between Nepal and New Zealand to help him with his documentary that he is putting together for Land of Plenty. Students are exploring how people maintain their culture when they leave their homeland and come to a new place. In the unit this new place is New Zealand, and with lots of migrants at the school and in our classroom, including Bawi Tha, Bawi Cung, Ram Peng, Ashish and Mr Phillips, it means that we are able to draw on our own experiences and knowledge to help others learn.

Fractions Learning

In Room 16, we have been learning all sorts of interesting things we can do with Fractions. Yes, they are a bit "freaky" but we don't let that change us.








Also just as a check, would love you guys to complete this assessment if you feel confident with dividing sometime soon please!

Maungatapu Murders

We have been exploring this historical issue in order to create our own bloody and frightening historical fiction. I have been extremely impressed with the quality of the students in Room Sixteen's work.

Here is an example from Georgie Merry

"His hands sway back and forward as he moves, his skin papery underneath a well groomed bread and jagged jawling. Looking at him and his pale skin, the way his eyes reflect whatever is in front of them, creates a sort of elegance about him. His eyes remind me of my blue water tank in my yard when you open it, only my water tank is only a few feet deep and his eyes are fathomless"

Students have been focusing on creating

• vivid descriptions of characters
• painting the picture of a scene to give the reader a better idea in their mind
• interviews with the characters to make them more lifelike

In order to do this, students have read through a range of texts to explore the crime. They followed their own research and have come up with their own version of the events. 

Here is a great end product from a professional writer. I am excited to see what the class produces. 

Click here

Our Heritage in Nelson

I am so impressed with Emma's outstanding presentation of her learning about Heritage, she has shown a range of great sights of heritage in Nelson (or sites) and has made her own opinion as to what heritage is. I especially like how the camera zooms in to her own photographs of the places of heritage.
 Caleb has created a presentation that is a big improvement on his last presentation, I especially like how he has followed our success brief and has made a great personal comment on the issues around heritage. The quality of the thinking displayed is mirrored in the fantastic use of prezi.
 You don't come away from Jackson's prezi without learning heaps and being blown away. Jackson has clearly thought really hard about how best to show the hidden history of Nelson, and this prezi is as sophisticated and as sharp as they can get. A brilliant effort.

Bawi Tha's research into historical buildings

Bawi Tha has shown a great understanding of how places change over time, in his research he has found a variety of places in Nelson that have developed over time. I especially like how he found the old picture of the Christ Church and now the newer church. He also got his work in before everyone else, so very impressive effort. I think that this project could have been improved by Bawi Tha sharing his opinion on the buildings he had found, but that is something that he can work on next week.

I am looking forward to seeing more of these outstanding presentations of learning.

Social Timelines of the 19th Century

One of the things that is great about learning, is that you can often visible see the results. Take for example Finn's project. Last week, he used Prezi, but this week with the addition of some new skills that he has both learnt himself and had a bit of help with, his ability to share information using Prezi has massively improved. This is a great example of student work that is both informative and shows Finn's huge interest in the topic.

Students were finding out different aspects of the social timeline of the 19th Century. We had broken apart what social timelines meant. We saw that it could be race - as racism had big impacts on social relations during the period; women's rights- because women had to fight to be socially equals with men; or war, because wars impact on people.

Great work Finn and everyone else in the class who has completed such outstanding presentations of learning.


Great job Finn!
 How could Ram have improved this timeline? Does it show the way that things change over time? I really like the way that Ram's project zooms into facts and out. It seems really cool.
Great work  Ashish!
 When we showed this to the class, everyone was really impressed by Bawi Tha's research. He had combined a text he found in the library, with extra research in the library to back it up.


.

Timeline Explorer

Finding about social history was hard as we discovered on Friday. Because social history is diverse it has lots of parts to it. When we told each other what we thought social history could encompass, students said that

"The Treaty of Waitangi" 

"Women getting the Vote"

and

"Slavery being abolished"

all were aspects of social history. 

Social history is any history that touches on the economic, cultural and social institutions of a people. For New Zealand this can be as broad as impacts that laws have; especially for the Votes for Women campaign, and other political changes to NZ. 

When we look at wikipedia to explain it, because I know that is a key point of call for your research. I looked at the contents bar and it gave me a great idea of what social history is.

• 3.1 Demographic history
• 3.2 Black history
• 3.3 Ethnic history
• 3.4 Labor history
• 3.5 Women's history
• 3.6 Gender history
• 3.7 History of the family
• 3.8 History of education
• 3.9 Urban history
• 3.10 Rural history

So Social history shouldn't be as hard to search for after all, all we need to do with our search terms is to incorporate some of those key words.

Lets have a try

if we use the key words

19th century women's history

Lets see what results we get.

Looking through this, we could go for the video. But if we look down the page using our skimming and scanning strategy we will find the 10 key dates in women's history- the 19th century. Its the 5th term in the google search, but it looks like it will be the best fit for the information we are trying to gather.

Have a go at searching by adding one of the social history trends that were above in yellow  to your google search of 19th century.

In my searches I found some great resources that can also help.

This site with a slideshare of information 
Slideshares or prezis can often be a treasure trove of information to help with searches and often easier than reading wikis. 

This timeline:
How does this relate to NZ?

This great infographic about New Zealand economic development. How does is show that New Zealand was growing more resources for export? 
(export means to send resources from one place to another for profit)

Kirsty's mineral that changed the world

                  GOLD

TRADING

Gold is falling today, trading now about $1,672.70.  It’s 52-week high of $1,918.10 per ounce.  Prices dropped after the dollar concerns over Greece’s dept swap and stayed low in developed countries.  In 2011, global banks carried on being buyers of gold as people tried to have a variety from their dollar keepings and balance reserves plus to protect national wealth.  Speaking of wealth what is gold actually used for?

USED FOR

Gold is used for many things like “earrings, necklaces and so much more.  Even toe rings weird isn’t it.  You can’t really blame them because I have a toe ring at home. J  But gold isn’t just for jewellery,   people buy gold instead of putting their money in banks and that my friend is called an investment.  

  FINDING REAL GOLD STEPS

So let’s just say you think you found gold here are some facts to see if it is real gold.  1.  Gold is not magnetic so pass a magnet over it. 2.  Scrape a bit on the top of the element and then take a feather dip it in the nitric acid put a drop of the acid onto the bit you scraped. 3.  If it’s 18 or higher karat it won’t change colour. 4. If you do it on a nine karat it will turn to a light brown. 5.  If it is brass or there are brass elements in the gold it will turn green.

SHORT STORY

Any other metal rust’s but not gold even if it’s under the sea. Someone diving for crayfish found a thick gold wrist chain which he gave to his wife as a little gift or present.  But I will explain how I know about that soon, very soon.

PERSONAL LIFE

When I was a little girl I knew that my grandfather was a jeweller and as I got older I was very interested in jewellery.  I remind my grandfather to keep the gold and ruby pendant for me.   Sadly he wants to sell it.  Luckily my nana talked him into maybe keeping it for my 16^th birthday.  And my mum said that “we might go there next year with some friends of ours for a visit near the time my mum’s birthday plus my birthday only for a month though.  I am hoping that he will give it to me then.

Bibliography:

www.businessinsider.com.au/countries-biggest-gold-reserves-2012-3?op=#10-india-1

http://www.chemistryexplained.com/elements/C-K/Gold.htm1#ixzz3113COFHU

BY KIRSTEN.W

Emily's mineral that changed the world

Emily seems to have found some of the best bronze sculptures in this presentation. I was really impressed by its vibrancy and engaging information. I wonder what you think?

Finn's mineral that changed the world

I love the way that Finn has used prezi, he has made the presentation zoom in really close and it seems really engaging. There is also a fantastic image that he has found of quartz mines, if you find a great image of a quartz mine to add to the prezi why not attach a link in your comment!?

Dylan's mineral that changed the world

Adam's minerals that changed the world

Samara's mineral that changed the world

Caleb's mineral that changed the world

The 19th Century

Why aren't we using the multiplication sign?

Hi Dylan, Arjuna, Jackson, Liberty, Finn


Practical
Evaluated expressions


Once you feel confident with this task,
Try





Practical activity

Evaluating expressions

Why aren't we using the multiplication sign?

Hi Dylan, Arjuna, Jackson, Liberty, Finn



Evaluated expressions

Maths Learning T1- W9

PYRAMID ACTIVITY

-Dylan, Bawi Tha, Jackson, Ethan

LI use a range of multiplication strategies to solve problems

Please show working in your books and draw a pyramid at the top of the page to indicate where you started this activity!

ARJUNA

Order of operations

Watch the video, if you want there are some practise equations here...

Show me this to show that you can do BEDMAS!

  Using brackets
 

Put brackets in the following equations to make the answers correct.

a)b) c) d) e) f)

18 – 3 × 5 = 7524 ÷ 2 + 4 = 4 28 – 6 + 5 = 17 18 – 3 ÷ 5 = 3 30 ÷ 5 + 1 = 5 29 – 7 + 2 = 20 DIVISION WITH REMAINDERS Tama's Method Day 2 Practise using the learning task in class. If you are feeling like you are ready to show you can use division and want to be assessed Left over toys This task is about equal sharing with a remainder. A toy company distributes a range of toys to shops.  The shops need to get equal numbers of toys. Sometimes there are toys left over.  This is called a remainder.  The toy company needs to know: how many toys each shop gets; and how many toys remain (if there are any).  a)         Show how you could divide 298 trolleys equally between 4 shops. Answer: ____________________ b)         Show how you could divide 629 tricycles equally between 6 shops. Answer: ____________________ c)         Show how you could divide 567 robots equally between 8 shops. Answer: ____________________