Hour of Code is coming again

Tutorials             Beginners             JavaScipt             Apps for any device           Python         

Make an iPhone game              Other choices

Climb Mt Everest

This is a virtual climb of Mount Everest in a 3D environment. Keep an eye on the left side of the screen where the current elevation is indicated. When you've reached the South Summit, have a look around and then explore the menu on the right side for more information on the Sherpa community and the April 2014 tragedy.

Our class

Learn free

 Free online learning at GCF - tech, maths,
                                                                        reading, science ...

then you really might know what it's like

then you really might know what it's like   Teens (13-19 y) tell your story.

NCEA app for iOS & android

The App provides quick and easy access to key information about NCEA and makes practical information about NCEA more easily accessible. Parents and whanau are able to access simple content about how NCEA works and how they can support you whilst you are studying in NCEA (no individual student result or progress information is available).  
The NCEA Guide App is free to download from the  and 

Cartoons from Ella

Stories from Juniors

 Ella's dinosaur story     

                                                                                                     Ella & Ruth reading

Charlotte's story

Learn to Code with Scratch

Scratch Overview from ScratchEd on Vimeo.

Want to do better and be more interested in Maths?

How to learn Maths is a free course.  27,000 people have already registered for it.  Many have completed it all ready.  78% rated the course as very or extremely good, 58% are more interested in math and 72% have a stronger belief that they can do well in math.  I did some of the same course for teachers last year and found it worthwhile.

Bulls Eye - helping you find degree, career and job options

bulls-eye is an online tool that helps you identify your career options. 

Focusing on occupations that are available in the New Zealand employment market, bulls-eye matches your interests and aptitude with potential careers and provides information about different industries, job sectors and learning pathways. 

Easy-to-use and 100% confidential, bulls-eye offers low-cost career planning to help with the challenge you face – working out what you want to do and how to get there.

The bulls-eye experience starts with two questionnaires. The first of these, focus on me, builds a profile of your interests, aptitudes, skills and personality. The second questionnaire, focus on my future, creates a picture of your vocational aptitudes and the kind of career you might be interested in.

The results of these questionnaires along with career matches are then provided for review and investigation. bulls-eye members can also update their profile and goals over time.

Korero Maori: Hear how to speak kupu (words) in Maori

Te Kupu o te Wiki 21 July - learn the first word of the week

Ingoa Wāhi o Aotearoa  - Aotearoa place names

Whakahuatanga o te Reo Maori - pronunciation

Te hunga akoako - For learners

Pūkenga tīmatanga - Basics

Been feeling down for a while or stressed out?

Take the Mood Quiz and use the computer program to help you.

Talk to employers

During the week of the 28th July, SchoolConnect is offering a New Zealand first for secondary school students. Live chat online with some employers (Opis, SIT, BCITO + more) or watch the videos. You need to register if you want to take part in the chat sessions - you submit written questions. The timetable and video links are on the website. I do recommend you take a look.

Holidays and Term 3

sharpkathy123.deviantart.com

Yes you have a 2 week holiday but NCEA students should try to do as much as they can as there is very little time left to gain credits and prepare for exams.  Remember that SRHS has TODs on the first 3 days of Term 3 and restarts on Thursday 24 July.

Create a kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope               

simple.wikipedia.org

70th Anniversary of D-Day - take a look at this excellent interactive:

Storming Juno        

www.historyplace.com

                                                                   

Win an iPhone 5C

Remember that most immunisations are free up until 18 years of age.                                                                          

Going flatting?

Glassjar will help you easily manage your shared expenses.

Visual online dictionary

To quote the website, "The Visual Dictionary Online is an interactive dictionary with an innovative approach.

From the image to the word and its definition, the Visual 

Dictionary Online is an all-in-one reference. Search the

themes to quickly locate words, or find the meaning 

of a word by viewing the image it represents."

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/

ElectroCity is an online computer game that lets you manage your own virtual towns and cities. It’s great fun to play and also teaches you all about energy, sustainability and environmental management in New Zealand.

Unhappy?

Online tool SPARX could help you. It's worth taking their mood quiz to see if it is right for you.

Think before you post

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/a-simple-acronym-for-encouraging-digital-citizenship/

Learn 7 signs in 7 days and win

“Learn 7 Signs in 7 Days”.  Just visit our home page daily from the 12th of May through to the 18th of May to learn a new sign every day, during NZSL Week.
At the end of 7 days enter our Quiz to win fabulous spot prizes.
Our quiz will be available once the 7 Signs in 7 Days Challenge is over ... visit again on the 19^th of May to enter the quiz.

Our lonely mobile lives

Solve fraction problems to undo the evil spell

http://openclipart.org/

Great game for anyone from about middle school age to test out their knowledge and understanding of fractions.

Make online reading easier

The free extension Fokus highlights selected text and darkens the rest of your Chrome or Firefox browser window. This makes it a great tool to block out distractions online.

The extension is simple to use. In Chrome, once it's installed, you select the text you want to focus on. It will highlight that in a spotlight and fade out the rest of the page in a dark frame. You can set the opacity of the darkened background, the padding of the highlighted part, and even include a key modifier if you don't want it to be always activated. In Firefox, you will have to hit the "F" icon in the toolbar and then highlight the text.

Sugar: Hiding in plain sight

Can you do these 10 Maths Questions?

Powered By Varsity Tutors

Web tools for kids

Web Tools for Kids is a great site with creative ideas and links for you to use.  Make avatars, e-cards and cartoons or find music, photo or movie tools and much more.

Improve your vocabulary

  

Suitable for all ages.  When you sign up for  Vocabulary.com you will be given an assessment quiz in order to give you suggested lists with which to start your practice. After completing the assessment you can use the practice lists suggested by Vocabulary.com or choose your own lists from the huge gallery of vocabulary lists.

One of the aspects of the Vocabulary.com activities that I like is the instant feedback for every practice question you attempt. It also has an iPad app ($4.19).

The Cat & The Ducklings - a must see!

Your NZQA Record of Learning & Certificates

NCEA students need to order documents they are eligible for and want copies of from their Learner Login on NZQA. Your ROL will be updated to include all your 2013 achieved standards from 1 March.

• Certificates, School Results Summaries and Records of Achievement can be requested from your Learner login for standard delivery in 15-20 days.
• The first copy of each of these documents is free, but additional copies will cost $15.30 each.

See Assessment Matters A2013/032NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship 2013 Results Publication in 2014.

Want to pass NCEA Level 1 & 2 Maths, Science & Physics?

    

Students are saying that thanks to learncoach.co.nz they passed their NCEA Maths, Science and Physics.  I suggest you definitely check it out!

Learn to write code - it's the future

Hey Kids! Learn to Write Code, It's the Future!

February 26, 2014 by Doug S, Abridged LinkedIn Article.

My first attempts at coding were with a tiny Radio Shack computer that hooked up to a cassette player and the TV. I think it took me hours to write the Basic program to get “Hello world!” to display on the screen. Years later I’d work in the world of web marketing and design and work with HTML, JavaScript and CGI every day. Well that’s nothing compared to what’s coming! Top leaders in the tech world are encouraging kids to start learning how to code now, for the future.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey all recently threw their considerable tech weigh and credibility into Code.org’s video “What Most Schools Don’t Teach.” The clip stresses a growing worldwide shortage of coders, and that only 10% of American schools teach any kind of programming. Since Computer Science is the best paying college degree in the U.S., learning a little coding makes financial sense. But what’s it gonna cost YOU up front? In many cases, only time and effort!

Image courtesy of Code.org

Code.org is a “non-profit whose goal is to expose all students to computer programming. We believe that computer programming is a liberal art; it's something EVERY student in the world should be exposed to at some point in their childhood.”

Code.org offers options straight from its homepage for students to start learning code, or for teachers to start bringing code to their schools. The amount of resources available for FREE to learn code are vast and overwhelming. Who needs college? Bill Gates didn’t!

Code.org’s online learning options include Scratch where you work on some lines of code in a left pane, and see the results on the right. Also offered are links to sites where you can learn coding online. At Code Academy, you can learn to code for free. Khan Academy’s “resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.”

Code.org offers links to apps to teach kids coding set within games for Android with apps like LightBot, RoboLogic for IOS, or Kodu for Windows, and even xBox. Other online tutorials affiliated with Code.org include Lynda.com and Udemy. Lynda.com offers thousands of online courses and tutorials and offers programming tutorials on core languages like Java, C#, and HTML5. Universities are affiliated with Code.org as well. Coursera offers “free full university courses online taught by real professors.” You’ll also find resources to learn web programming, mobile app programming, and even resources to write code for robots!

So that you know where to go, what should you learn? Well, you’ll need to hone your math and basic computer science skills. When you work up to it, what programming languages should you be learning? Well, jobstractor.com did an overview of the most sought after programming languages.

Here they are in order:

PHP
Java
Objective C
SQL
Android (Java)
Ruby
JavaScript
C#
C++
ActionScript
Python
C
ASP.NET

Well…what are you waitin’ for? We gave you the links. Most of the course are FREE. We even gave you a list of what to learn. So, get out there and start learnin’ some code. Make Mr. Gates and Mr. Zuckerberg happy and maybe you’ll enter the world of all night hackathons, high paychecks, no sleep and free lunches! Good luck!

- See more at: http://www.geeks.com/techtips/community/hey-kids-learn-to-write-code-it-s-the-future.html#sthash.88tjsMQ2.dpuf

Create a visual image for NCEA and enter a competition as well

                    
Race Relations competition    due 20 March
Download the blue banner for your poster and do your own drawings.        

Hangout (the Google form of Skype) with your teacher or each other

If you click on the Google Hangout image to the left, it will link you to a teacher site which you would definitely find useful, except for the Classroom Ideas tab.  I have been using hangouts for a while and I learnt a lot from this site.  Otherwise click here for Tips.

Online safety

Netsafe OWLS - some wise words to heed.

Plan to Present

The Presentation Planning Checklist - Free eBook by We Are Visual from Nadine Hanafi

Sumdog's free Southland Maths contest 14 - 20 March

14 - 20 March

Let Ruth know if you would like to enter.

Research Skills

The Big 6

For investigating sources of information from databases, encyclopedias and the Internet is “the Big Six.” This process sets out the steps as follows:

1. Define the task – what needs to be done?

2. Information Seeking Strategies – what resources can I use?

3. Location and Access – where can I find these resources?

4. Use of information – what can I use from these resources?

5. Synthesis – what can I make to finish the job?

6. Evaluation – how will I know I did my job well?

The Kentucky Virtual Library How to Do Research

The Kentucky Virtual Library has an online poster-style How to Do Research site for guiding younger pupils through the steps to finding the information they need on any topic, whether in print form, multimedia or online. Presented in a visual comic/game style it explains in child-friendly language the process to find the information being sought. And each page of advice is presented as a set of easy to digest straightforward steps, breaking down each task (whether finding the information, recording it, evaluating it, or presenting it) in cartoon-style visual interactive style making it attractive to primary users.

Ergo – Teaching Research Skills

Ergo – Teaching Research Skills from the State Library of Victoria, Australia, is a guide for you to get help finding the information you need for a school assignment. The guide provides helpful explanations, hints, tips and further resources for each of the steps: Define the task, Locate information, Select resources, Organise notes, Present the ideas, Evaluate your work.

All About Explorers

All About Explorers is a webquest which guides you through making better use of information that is presented online. It helps you to evaluate what you read online, and how to select from the information you do find. 

Google Tools for Better Searching

Google A Day is a daily-changing search challenge. (You can go back to previous challenges if you wish). Answer the question by using a search engine. If you are not sure how to get started, click on the hint to get a bit of help. And the answer is provided. There are also links to tips and techniques for better Internet searching.

Get More Out of Google is a poster with advice and practical tips for making more eficient use of Google search engine.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk 

ICT across the curriculum in Falkirk primary schools - Glow blog by Malcolm Wilson

Maths starter for each day of the year

http://www.transum.org/Software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/index.htm