Brain Break

Today we were making posters about being safe back at school. After a while we needed a brain break. We had a fork, a cup and four straws. We were in teams of two.

We fast walked to the table and using one hand how to hold the fork and try to get all four straws on with out touching the straws with our other hand. Mrs Mundy lined all the straws up and got them all on at once. I wish I had thought to do that. Once all the straws were on the fork, we had to stand the fork in the cup. That was tricky because of the wind blowing in our class. 

Have you ever had a brain break, What did you do?

Postcard from the East Coast

 

Today we had our final session on Media and Creating it with a purpose. My purpose is to convince you to visit the East Coast or more specifically Hokitika. I use a photo I have taken and enhanced it. Then on the back told about all the reason I love it down there. It certainly takes a special type of person to survive down there when you can be cut off easily.

Altering Media

 Our second session on Media we had Phil join us and talk about how Media tries to influence us. One example of this is before meal times and later at night we see adverts trying to convince us we are hungry by showing us food. We may have already had dinner but the images remind us of some of our favourite food and make us hungry again. The companies are hoping we will go out and buy their food.

We talked about Covid and how the signs are trying to inform us of the risk and symptoms we could end up with trying to influence/persuade us to get double jabbed. 

We then had to change a piece of writing from Jack and Beanstalk. We had the choice of whether we were going to write to inform, persuade or entertain. And we only had 100 words.

Jack cried himself to sleep he didn't like being in trouble with his mum. But she was right as always they needed the money and beans weren't going to help them save the house or get food to eat.

When he woke up in the morning (or at least he thought is was) it was still dark in his room, he tried to look out his window but the view was blocked. He tried to dress but he couldn't get his head through the right hole. Finally outside he saw it the beanstalk. He scurried up the giant plant never to be heard of again.

Well that's the end of my 100 words however...

His mother worried about him day and night. Each morning she would go out into the fields to search for him. After months of searching she found one gold coin. She eventually fixed up the house, but she would cry herself to sleep wishing for her son be healthy and to return.

Jack after scurrying up the beanstalk had managed to sneak into a giant house. The lady of the house found him and feed him a pot of chicken. She told Jack stories of how lonely she was and how she wanted her very own son, but had not been able to have one. She locked  him up in his very own beautiful house (the size of a giant dolls house). She would bring him out to cuddle him and feed him and occasionally they would go out for walks but she never let him go. He felt like a puppy on a lead. 

As the days past, she took him into her vault filled with gold and silver. Jack thought if only mum could have a little of this treasure she would be happy. He often thought about his mum and even though she had been mad she had loved him. Jack tucked a coin into his clothes knowing the lady would take him for a walk, if he could reach the beanstalk maybe he could drop the coin.

Months went by it seemed like years. he had managed to drop a few coins down the bean stalk. But he missed his mum, he thought if only I could see her one more time. 

What Media have you been Viewing?

Our Cybersmart Theme for Term 4 is Smart Media. We complete a form about what Media we have been using over the last few weeks. When we looked at the resulted we discussed the bias that goes with it because today was the 'first day back at school' even if through Auckland lockdown. Hence, during the holiday period we had more time to do what we wanted and when we wanted (parents allowing of course).

Then we realised we didn't read the initial instruction which mentioned 168 hours in a week, so we were to consider how many hours a week we viewed the media form. Yeah, most of the students did media in one day.

There was an even balance of students across the youtube usage. But then I suppose it depends if people are looking for something particular.

The students guessed it right Mrs Mundy loves to read over the holidays and could easily spend 10 hours reading, and some day did. It would have been great to see 0% for the less than an hour. But overall, most people were doing some kind of reading.

This did not surprise the teacher as it appeared limited by the name Netflix, but if people considered Disney+ or Sky or another pay per view it could have been different. Having said that, it is also a cost factor so many people may not be able to afford pay per view and rather spend money on food and family. 

That could be why the next one TV was from 1 to 5 hours roughly a day.

And of course then there is the Gaming you either did or you didn't. I didn't even think about games on my phone, so I might of told a fib here.

It will be interesting to reflect back on this once we have settled back into school in the classroom and see how that effects the results. And of course making sure we are all on the same page about the viewing and what each title includes.

Robotics With SDA

Throughout lockdown, I have continued to teach Robotics, Coding to a Technology Class that comes into Wesley Intermediate. 

Last week we started creating a game similar to the Gameboy layout. Students how to pick a back ground, create a sprite that appeared to move left, right, forward and back.

Here is what a student achieved well done Ryan!

The challenge was then set to see if students could add obstacles for their sprite to jump over, crash into and then restart. Here is an example I created using a maze.

Previously we had used the pen extension in Scratch to draw shapes and Ethan took that to another dimension.

Another way to look at code is through hour of code and making flappy bird fly. I had fun doing this and can see applications to scratch and other methods of coding.

Animation Creations

After looking at Myths and Legends we think we are ready to start our Animation for Ako Hiko Film Festival, all for the sake of learning. There are many ways to create animation. Tomorrow's post will show one using scratch (not quite the PG, we require for Film Festival).

Today we are looking at using slides again. This time we have some tips for you.

So we don't give away all our secrets before the Film Festival, I have taken a copy of the slide with the feature on to only show they tip.

1. You can show passing of time by darkening the back ground, you could also have the sun moving across the sky during the day.

2. You can show movement by creating an object in one slide, duplicate the slide and then move the object, repeat. You could use the initial slide to show rocking back and forward, or duplicate second slide and move object along a little further to show travelling.

3. You repeat a slide with talking on so the audience has a chance to read what is being said, this one also incorporates a moving boat.