GATE Week 7

Busy busy!  Tournament of Minds and DigiCREST students have had fun this week.  The TOM teams are pulling their challenge solutions together ready for Saturday's regional tournament.  Scripts are being tweaked and staging / props being finalised.  The teams have worked so hard and now at this late hour are striving hard to work around illness and other commitments.  We wish them well for the event this weekend.

The digiCREST students reinforced previous learning about Binary Digits (Bits) using glockenspiels  which was noisy and fun! Individuals chose a 'Bit' and then had to be played by a conductor to create code for different numbers.  High notes were 'off' bits and low notes were 'on' bits.  It took careful concentration to play the codes correctly but everyone had a go at being the conductor and really got into the swing of it.

Then we built on programming knowledge gained last week.  Previously we have explored the roles of the programmer and the tester, looked at writing simple, clear codes and debugging errors.  Yesterday's activity involved the students creating code for various physical activities and then placing them in sequence.  Starts, stops, numbers of repetitions and loops were also added.  The 'programmes' were tested and debugged, with the student taking turns at being the robots following the programmes.  Energetic computer science!!

GATE Week 4

What a busy day!

Lots of GATE students were active today, Tautoko students completed their Seed of Potential presentations - they will receive their feedback/feedforward shortly.  The Year 5/6 TOM team were working hard on props and set elements while their script was being devised in the background.  Spontaneous challenges practiced.  Some very good teamwork shown in this today with everyone having room to speak and ideas being shared concisely with some great language choices being employed - no easy task in just three minutes! 

The Year 5/6 DigiCREST students were exploring Parity.  This follows on from our learning about Binary code last week.  Parity is the binary safeguard added to data to ensure that the information is transmitted accurately from one location to another.  We had fun exploring this - it takes a bit of getting used to...but the students all grasped it - even to the point of being able to prank each other!

             
                                         

And finally this afternoon the two TOM teams worked together on their drama skills, practicing layering up the various characters we explored.  There is always a great deal of hilarity when we explore drama - the students find some very entertaining ways of expressing themselves.

A scene from the year 7/8 retelling of Cinderella (starring Maddi as 'the Rug' and Kaija as 'the clock').

Emma (The Prince) to Riley:  "Does this shoe fit you?"

Riley after giggle shakes her head.

Emma to Noah:  "Does this shoe fit you?"

Noah:  "I'm a guy, I'm not trying that on..."

Axis: "Oh, I will..."

But it doesn't fit

Emma to Jojo (Cinderella): "Does this shoe fit you?.....it fits!  Do you like Wednesday's?"

Jojo:  "I DO!"

Emma: "You're the one"

And they waltzed off into the sunset....

                                         

                                         

There was also a very animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood played by Hannah, with a voice over by Charlotte. Also involved was a tandem wolf played by Ella and Olivia, an enthusiastic narrator (Prya), a crazy-haired Grandma (Lejla) and a sure-footed hunter (Louis).  This group explored a used of a number of drama conventions and put them to good use.

Digi CREST Year 5/6

Binary Numbers

Six students from Kahurangi and Haepapa are undertaking the primary DigiCREST award being run through Tahi Rua Toru Tech.  This differs from the First DigiCREST that the Year 7/8 boys are doing in that it is activity based rather than project based.

We began today looking at 'Bits' (Binary Digits).  We explored the patterning of binary numbers and were able to start to see how they can be used in computers and programming sequences.  It was exciting to start to explore how these simple building blocks can have such a diverse application and the students commented on how much fun they had at the end of the session.