For Kids - By Kids: Nelson Kids' ICT Expo

...a powerful concept and one I was only too proud to be involved with last week as my ICT Cluster hosted the 2nd Nelson Kids' ICT Expo.

The expo was a wonderful 2 days of busy, exciting and intriguing action! 8 out of our 9 cluster schools were involved and all had a wide variety of different technologies and uses of technologies in teaching and learning to show and demonstrate. Over the 2 days over 2,000 students from all of our cluster schools visited and got to 'have a go', see what the other schools were up to and learn from other students.

Take a look at the video below that I made with my class to see what it was like at the expo:
(We luckily chose a not so busy time to film!)




Personally the most powerful part of the expo was having nearly half of my year 2 students (6 and 7 years old) presenting and demonstrating at the expo. It truly has been a highlight of year for these students and they made us all so proud!

Demonstrating and teaching like professionals; between the 12 of them they demonstrated and taught their way through over 2,000 students ranging in age from 5 - 13 years old!

Two of the stations were good old 'have a go' set ups where one student was in charge and assisted other students. We had a Kidpix art station where kids could come and create something awesome and a Tutpup station where students could come and challenge themselves in mathematics. The Tutpup station was an absolute hit with the students as it appears my school is one of the few in our area to be using it with students. Teachers' comments like "I've never seen my students so excited about maths!" flew during the two days.

One of the best initiatives we introduced this year was my class handing out small cards (like business cards) to students after they'd had a go at something completely new. These cards hadall the information and detail on them that they'd need to access the tool when back at school or home. You can see the cards as pictures here (click to enlarge).

Our third station my students ran was more challenging. They were demonstrating how to use the site xtranormal to make a animated movie based on their Inquiry learning topic about healthy streams.

I had used xtranormal with my class earlier in the term to introduce the topics we'd be learning about in the coming weeks, it was an absolute hit with my class! When it came time to think about the Kids' Expo it was an obvious choice.

I "sold" it to my group as their chance to be a movie director, writer and producer... they would get to choose their cast, setting and write the script for their movie. I also showed them the "Magicam" button which was the true trick to success for my 6 and 7 year olds - it automatically controls and varies the camera angles to make the movie look interesting.

After a basic introduction and some experimenting I gave my students a project brief to guide them. I also spent a a few lunchtime sessions with my group asking them questions that would most likely be asked by students and teachers at the expo. After less than 2 weeks they were ready. Take a look at one of the results from two 6 year olds:




It has been truly amazing to watch the growth in confidence and the huge amount of bravery shown by my group of 6 and 7 year olds. With good scaffolding and structure coupled with good preparation and support from whanau they have been able to step out of their comfort zones and truly teach and help other students.

This morning at the Techie Brekie session that I run weekly they taught the teachers!