Technology Challenge: Aircraft

With our cricket team away and various other activities happening on Friday afternoon, a small group of us undertook a technology challenge.

The focus for this was around teamwork. Before we started, we discussed questions like, "What happens if you have different ideas to your peers?", "How do I get people to listen to my ideas?" and "What is the difference between showing leadership and being bossy?"

Although we would have liked more time to work on our designs (as the time limit was a bit short), we thought we worked well in our teams, as you can see in some footage of the task. Excuse the sound of workmen and their chainsaws cutting back some trees in the background...

Traits Of A Great Learner - What Do We Think?

We often speak about the characteristics of great learners. Especially as we evaluate and reflect on each week, recording our weekly highlights and challenges, as well as determining how well we managed our learning on a self-management scale. But what are we working towards? Do we really know the skills and attitudes we require to be great learners? This activity gave us a clearer perspective on the traits we collectively value.

First, we had a think-pair-share about the positive traits we believe great learners have. After sharing our ideas, we looked back on our blog to see what Room 14's class of 2013 said in a similar activity. Then we each wrote down 3 of the traits that we thought were most valuable to a learner and put our lists in a box.

Here is a word cloud showing the results. Traits appear larger the more times they were written in the box...

This graphic will be on display in our classroom and will help with our weekly goal setting and evaluations.

Winter Games Simulator

What first sounded like a weird idea, has actually turned out to be really fun!

Check out this simple virtual simulator we have built. Once you hop inside, you can watch some of the events in the Winter Olympics from the viewpoint of the athletes.

We have thought of upgrades - fans blowing in our faces, wearing ski clothes, etc. So we'll post any developments as they happen.