Your new ‘How the World Works‘ unit focuses on:

Energy exists in many forms, which we can harness to use in our daily lives.

http://electrocity.co.nz/

ElectroCity via kwout

Click on the link above to take you to the website. You need to click on how to play, to learn about what you have to do.

In pairs, you can start a new game. Be sure to think about how to make sustainable energy choices!

You will be reflecting on the process of playing the game, so keep your central idea in mind.

Your new ‘How we Express Ourselves’ unit focuses on:

Understanding advertising helps us to make informed choices.

During ICT, you will create a radio ad for your product using Audacity and the royalty free music from the Media drive on the school server. Sound effects may also be downloaded from websites I will direct you to. You will learn how to:

  • Insert sound clips, and background music
  • Save audio clips from websites
  • Create an audio voice over to ‘sell’ product.
  • Export final radio ad so it can be played elsewhere.

Your ads will be assessed using a rubric on the following categories:
* audio
* dialogue
* time management
* persuasion

You will need to use your knowledge of advertising techniques to create a suitably persuasive advertisement. Once you have a plan, you will need to record your voiceover using Audacity.

The next step is selecting audio clips to build your advertisement with. You may use clips from:

The media drive (my computer -> media drive -> royalty free music -> sounzabout volume 3 -> disc 3).

or

or

Below is a screencast on how to download sound effects from the Partners in Rhyme website.

Below is a screencast on how to get started using Audacity:

It’s time for a little review of some Internet Safety information. If you were here at the beginning of the year, complete the Brain Teaser as a review. If you are a new student, then explore the different sections and do the Brain Teaser at the end.

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/cybercafe/cafe/base.aspx

Thinkuknow – 8-10 – Cyber Cafe via kwout

If you have already completed the Cyber Cafe Brain Teaser, add some ideas to your original Kidspiration Mind Map about Internet Safety in a different coloured text. Then check out the games below. You need to add more information to your mind map as you go along.

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/games.aspx

Thinkuknow – 8-10 – survey via kwout

Here are a couple of videos which provide us with some really important issues to think about.

What might you do differently after watching these videos?

…is our new campus, and how will we get there?

That’s one of the questions Grade 3 have been exploring in their ‘How we Organize Ourselves’ unit focusing on how transport services and systems are organized to connect and move our community.

We have been exploring Google Earth and Google Maps in class, and toggling between the satellite view and the map view. The students have been asked to find their house on Google Earth, and switch to Map view, click on ‘get directions’, input their details in the ‘from here’ section, and the address to our new campus in the ‘to here’ section.

We will print a PDF file of the directions and give them to our parents! There is also the public transport function to explore, which will be great for informing parents of ways to get to either major attractions in Singapore or somewhere as simple as a friend’s house.

The central idea for your Sharing the Planet unit is:

Our use of water and how it is distributed impacts on people.

We need to find some good-quality photos to use in presentations during this unit.  For this purpose, we will be using a tool called Comp Fight.

http://compfight.com/

compfight / a flickr™ search tool via kwout

Comp Fight allows us to search creative commons photos with a safe search option.

I would like you to search for some photos you think might be useful for presentations later on and save them in your file. Make sure you are academically honest by acknowledging the source of your photo. For example, if you find a photo of a water droplet taken by photogirl, you should save the photo as water droplet_photogirl.

Photo Credit: Woodleywonderworks

We are about to start our new unit about Sharing the Planet:

Our use of water and how it is distributed impacts on people

Explore the World Mapper website below, to look at how water is used around the world and where it is located.

We have now learned a couple of ways to keep ourselves safe online. Can you help the cartoon characters below by sharing what you know? Click the link below the cartoon to create your own comic with advice about Cyber Safety. You can make more than one. We will use Jing to save them to our personal files. Remember to be academically honest by acknowledging the source of your work (Make Beliefs Comix).

Comic made by Make Beliefs Comix

Once again, we are looking at the following central idea in class:

Awareness of potential risks allows us to make informed choices to ensure the safety of ourselves and others.

This week we will be investigating ways of staying safe while using computers and the internet. We will be visiting the Cyber Cafe (below) to find out how some other kids are using computers. We will explore ways we can help them be safer through this interactive game.

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/cybercafe/cafe/base.aspx

Thinkuknow – 8-10 – Cyber Cafe via kwout

So, what have you learned from visiting the Cyber Cafe? What advice do you have for others? How can we communicate our findings with others around the school so they can keep safe too?

Hi Grade 3! Welcome to our Grade 3 page.

We are learning that:

Awareness of potential risks allows us to make informed choices to ensure the safety of ourselves and others.

This is particularly relevant when using computers – especially the internet.

One of the techniques we will be using to increase our online safety is to create an Avatar for ourselves.

Avatars are pictures or icons used to represent you, without having to show your actual photo. We will discuss in class how this helps keep you safe.

There are a number of sites that allow you to create Avatars of yourselves. Some let you upload a photo of yourself and then change or manipulate it in some way. Others use a webcam to capture your image and change the image from there. Other sites let you build a character from the ’spare parts’ they have available.

Remember, you must be principled when using these tools and create something that is appropriate to use in and out of class.

We will look at the following sites to create avatars for our online presence:

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF via kwout

Mrs B goes wild.

Here are some Avatars of me using Cameroid:

Created using Cameroid

Created using Cameroid

Created using Cameroid Created using Cameroid