Over the next couple of months some of our students will be working on English, Music and History projects relating to the Medieval period of English History. The “vehicle” for this project is a Television series called Jane and the Dragon co-produced by Weta Workshop (NZ) and Nelvana (Canada).

The series is based on the books and illustrations by Martin Baynton. College boys will be involved in developing resources for a web site which focuses on educational aspects of the show. This will include 3D drawings of a village marketplace, using Sketchup, writing lyrics for songs of the period as well as developing period based music. Students will be provided with opportunities to talk to Martin, via video conference, about writing for children, design and creating a television series such as Jane and the Dragon.

Ali Hughes , Martin Baynton, Paul Rodley, Jedd Bartlett

Today we introduced a group of boys to the world of Teen second life. This was part of the skoolaborate project referred to in a previous blog entry.

This first session was an opportunity for the boys to adjust their avatar appearance, explore the island and learn the “ropes” of Second Life. We assembled for a quick “team” photo as well as introducing ourselves to students from MLC.

We had closed one of the ICT rooms - so we could work on the project as well as join in on a video conference with Westley from MLC.

Peering in through the classroom windows were a group of other boys, interested in the 3D avatars moving around on the big screen, and wondering what was happening. To them it may have appeared that the teacher and students were playing a 3D game (frowned on during the school day). Inside the classroom were a group of boys, engaged, interested and learning - something completely new.

This week College has embarked on an exciting project which will link students and teachers around the Asia Pacific region in a virtual environment - teen secondlife. The Skoolaborate project is the brainchild of Westley Field from MLC in Sydney.

A range of opportunities immediately present themselves by being involved in the Skoolaborate project. Our students are already global citizens - the technology the boys have access to is something that their teachers generation only probably saw in sci fi television programmes and movies.

We need to harness these technologies for learning - and in doing so provide ours boys with positive values as they engage in innovative learning opportunities in a virtual environment. This environment will allow the students to take risks, try new ideas and learn through a constructivist approach, in a medium which is highly engaging and motivational for the current generation.

The innovation of secondlife may provide opportunities to develop learning in a “real” sense which is presently beyond the scope of traditional academic practice. 21st Century education recognises the need that changes are required in the teaching process. Skoolaborate will bring students from different cultures together into this learning environment, but in a very non traditional way.

The virtual world sets limits only with resepct to the limits of imagination. This is an opportunity for students to drive their learning in a journey where all things are possible - even those that haven’t yet been created or recognised…like a scifi movie of the teachers generation - we are going boldly…into the future….an unknown future but one which is sure to be significant for education.

As part of the Year 10 Economics course boys have been learning about the sharemarket. This is the third year that this successful programme has been run - but this year the boys have more incentive to demonstrate their understanding and skill levels.

The boys have an opportunity to win an iPod nano as an additional incentive in the course.

Each week boys make decisions about their share portfolio, following up on latest developments using both internet and newspaper resources. The boys also keep a log of the purchasing and selling decisions they have made.

On paper some of the boys have already made more than $15,000 from their share market trading.

The winner of the ipod will be decided at the end of the term.

A new 3m satellite dish has been installed on the roof of the Fine Arts and Technology building to “tap” into a variety of channels beamed from the AsiaSat 3 satellite. This dish will provide access to languages channels as well as other free to air broadcasts. The dish complements the Sky system which was installed several years ago.

Both systems enable College to record broadcast Television. Access to these recordings are then provided to staff and students via the College’s Clickview server. College pays a yearly licence to the ScreenRights Organisation which allows these broadcasts to be recorded.

In 2008 the satellite feed from the AsiaSat 3 dish will be streamed within the College network via a new video server.

The dish is assembled prior to installation

3/4 of the dish installed - remaining parts are bolted on once the dish is secure.

Assembled dish is bolted in place.

The heritage challenge (http://heritage.christscollege.com) is a project born out of the Heritage week which was celebrated in Christchurch recently. Boys have been asked to use Google Sketchup to create a 3D model of Christ’s College. The project is a challenging one and will test the boys creative abilities.

A prize of an iPod nano for the best design is an additional incentive for the boys to take on this challenge.

Over the last couple of weeks College has been preparing to shift to a new very high speed internet connection, using the C1 network run by Computer Concepts and City link. The C1 network is part of the new MUSH (Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals) network which is being progressively “rolled” out around the city.

College’s current Internet connection runs at a speed of up to 5Mb/sec - the new network connection to College will be running up to 200 times faster at 1000 Mb/sec, (1GB/sec), and will offer more than just internet - although this will be the initial primary use.

The MUSH network connects to the KAREN network - which links universities and Crown research institutes throughout New Zealand. In the not too distant future we will be able to tap into a range of resources around the country and the world - at very high speeds.

This week the Languages department received their new 2GB iPod Nano’s and Belkin TuneTalk stereo recorders. This combination of technologies is being used to not only develop audio resources for the students taking French, German and Japanese at College but is also allowing students to record their command of the respective languages for assessments.

(Andrew Moore - German Teacher - Uses his iPod and voice recorder in Class)

The TuneTalk recorder plugs into the base of the ipod and records the speech as a voice memo. When plugged into a computer, the voice memos are automatically loaded into itunes - and can then be sent to iWeb as a podcast.

In addition to the audio capability the department is now exploring the use of the iQuiz application to provide downloadable quizzes. These quizzes will test the students knowledge of the written language they are studying.

A group of enterprising Year 13 students have been developing a high quality digital animation as their entry into this years House Film competition. The boys are using Blender - an open source animation programme which requires a fair bit of “grunt” to render each clip of the film. The film is 3 minutes long which means that over 4500 frames need to be individually rendered. The rendering process requires a lot of processing speed and about 3 seconds of film takes just over 10 hours. This does not take into account the amount of time it has taken to create the characters and scenes - estimated at over 100 hours!

Tristan Read, Jeewaka Mohotti and Ben Werkmeister have been working on the project since the end of term 1.

The use of x-Grid - a process which harnesses the cpu of multiple computers was investigated but was deemed to be too slow for the rendering approach adopted by the boys. As an alternative the boys set up each computer in ICT1 and 2, as well as utilising Art 3 and the graphics intel iMacs to render the film.

Junior English students have been integrating poetry with digital photography - by creating a series of posters which display their work. Summer and Autumn posters have been completed and later in the year they will work on Winter and Spring posters. Below are some examples of year 9 posters from Mrs Petersons class.

by Harry McGuinan - harrymcguigan.pdf