Ambassador - Video Conferencing

In 2010 I have been an ambassador for Pt England School.  My role has been to talk about my learning to hundreds of visitors who have come to our school from all over the country and around the world.


This video shows you what I had to say about how Video Conferencing helps us learn - and is fun

Erene -Video Conferencing from KPE TV on Vimeo.

This is the transcript of my presentation:

"We really enjoy using Video Conferencing to connect with other people and to help us with our learning.  Sometimes we connect with kids our own age and find out about their lives and talk about issues together.  Sometimes we connect with experts who can help us with our Inquiries.  And sometimes WE are the experts and people contact us to help them.

 At the end of last year we were part of the Global Rock our World Project on Tolerance. 

 As part of this our students got to collaborate in recording a song called Shine Your light.  You can buy the song, with us singing in it, on iTunes, and you can see the music video they made on YouTube! It is very cool. 

This year we are joining in a project called Walk Our World where we are joining with other kids to actually walk all around the world.

  Recently we met the Nike shoe designer and submitted our own designs for a Nike shoe!  

One of the best parts of Rock Our World is getting to talk with kids from other countries on iChat.  We have made  friends now in Peru, Hongkong, Australia, Tokyo and America.

I am sure you have all heard about some of our kids getting to video conference with Will Smith last year.  They spent about 30 minutes with him on iChat and he was really fun to talk to.  They collaborated in writing a poem with him and he sent us a copy of it which is hanging in the school foyer.  That poem is also on YouTube if you search for Will Smith, Shine Your Light.

Belonging to the KAREN high speed network has given us the opportunity to connect with people around NZ who can help us with our learning.
Hamish Campbell has been a great friend of the school because not only is he a paleontologist, but he also knows lots about geology. So when we were learning about dinosaurs, he was our expert to tell us all about it. 

He seemed to really like talking to us too, so when there was a big earthquake in the South Island and NZ shifted 30cm closer to Australia, he emailed us and asked if we would like to know what had happened!  Of course we said yes. We wanted to know how soon we would be meeting up with Australia. We aren't ready to be Australians yet!  

I told you that sometimes we are able to use Video Conferencing to help other people with their learning!  You may be surprised to hear that most of the people we have helped are adults!  From time to time adults want to know about eLearning and because they can't visit us here like you are, they book us in for a video conference.   And last year two of our students got to talk to thousands of teachers at the Ulearn conference in Christchurch, sitting right here at Pt England School.

And it's not just our senior students who get to do this.  One of our Year 3 classes, Room 10, have been helping a professor at the University of South Alabama in America teach his post graduate students about eLearning!  They use Skype to talk to his students during their lectures.  

Video Conferencing helps us make connections with anyone, anywhere in the world.  It also can happen at anytime. We have had to have sleepovers and some very early morning starts to be able to speak to people in some of the countries. That is all part of the fun.  

It it a great way to learn things and become better at communicating."

Minister Heatley speaking to us after we gave our presentation.

Minister of Housing, Phil Heatley, was one of the people we presented to this year.