Belmore South Public School

The collection of space capsules, rockets, space stations, Hubble telescope is huge.

Hope you enjoyed a glimpse of the Space capsule that first circled the moon and came back to Earth. Look at the burn marks on it. It had to land in the ocean so it didn’t smash to bits or burn up.

The Space Capsule was sent into space on top of a big rocket like in the picture.

When did man first step on the moon? Can anyone tell me? Isn’t the picture inspirational?

The way man gets into space now is on the Space Shuttle which can go back and forth like a plane,
here is a picture of one of the Shuttles. How many were there? What were their names?

The Space Shuttles take astronauts to the Space Station now.

Mrs P and I were standing in the endless Starbuck’s line wearing our Pearson’s shirt. These 2 people came out of the crowd yelling at us and waving their arms. 

“You’ve won, you’ve won” they said and presented us with an ipod shuffle each!!!

At this birds of a feather session at NECC 2009 we were looking at what it was possible to do with iphones / ipod touch apps.

Be entertained by the guitarist and his 3 iphone ‘appers!!!

This is a huge conference where over 13 000 people come to learn about the latest trends in technology.

People meet other people and talk a lot but mostly teachers spend time going to lessons and learning.

We’ve learned about;

• how powerful Google is as a web based engine for searching the Internet and that it helps focus and then organise your searching
• iphones and ipod touches and what great learning tools they can be in the classroom
• all sorts of amazing Apps from web 2.0
• literacy and how it’s so much more than reading and writing and how it is nearly impossible to test using old test formats
• making the classroom a happy and fun place to be
• what students think about the way they are being taught and how they would like to be taught using technology
• the importance of the web as a place for publication
• the new web, web 3.0

As people cannot fly they have had to learn how to . . .

One of the museums at the Smithsonian Institute is devoted to Space and Flight.

Look what we learned about flight. Look at all the people having a fun time playing around with all sorts of experiments about elements of flight. It as a really exciting place to be!

Does anyone know people who have been there?

BubbleShare: Share photos – Find great Clip Art Images.

Our Principal, Ms Gail Dyer, was invited to Canberra earlier this month to be awarded with a National Quality Teaching Award for Excellence as a Principal. Here she is sharing her success with our local member the Hon. Tony Burke MHR and Minister for Agriculture.

Ms Dyer was one of 52 educators from across Australia who were recognised for their work in education. She was one of 6 principals who achieved a highly commended and one of only 2 primary principals. Along with the Certificate of Recognition presented to Ms Dyer by the Deputy Prime Minsiter, Julia Gillard, the school has received $15 000 to put towards continuing to improve our students’ learning.

Ms Dyer stressed it is the quality of Belmore South Staff who are responsible for the recognition. She may lead them in their professional learning but as she reminds people who ask they are the ones who take the ideas and incorporate them into their quality classroom teaching practices. They have also embraced and acknowledged the importance of embedding technology into all learning experiences. Every teacher in the school confidently uses Interactive Whiteboards and many are skilful users of Web 2.0 applications.

She also feels she has great support and superb role models for the younger teachers in Mrs Kim Pericles who is a world leader in the use of Web 2.0 applications in her classroom, Ms Judi Leonard who led the development of ICT confidence as an Intel: Teach to the Future Tutor. Mr Greg McGuinness who translated his excellence as a classroom teacher into our magic Mr Computer. Mrs Vanessa Jenkins who is in there always ensuring she is leading the way.

We’re back. It’s only taken a term to get back to blogging. So many things happen in a school day, week, term that to have the luxury of blogging is just too much. The thing is  . . . it’s getting back into the habit. Maybe it’s the fact that next Friday May 9, 9 staff will be attending the Will Richardson, Judy O’Connell Seminar. Teachers and students are switching on and into blogging as part of their daily routine. Anyway watch this space as our School Blog gets itself back together.

John and Kath from Invercargill in New Zealand visited our school on Tuesday. John, Principal of St. Therese’s Primary School received a scholarship to research the use of ICT in schools across Australia and NZ. His wife Kath is a teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School.

They are doing some very exiting things with technology in Invercargill and talking to both of John and Kath we learned a lot about visible thinking and developing a curriculum for the 21st Century.

John and Kath gave most of our staff a quick introduction to Kidspiration a program we have just acquired and are about to start using in 2008 to support our thinking routines.

Sitting and talking with both John and Kath gave us new insights and ideas. It would seem fairly certain that we will be in touch with both John and Kath and their schools in the near future.

Thanks for your time John and Kath.

Mrs Pericles (in the red hat) has been recognised by the NSW DET and Microsoft for her outstanding work with Technology.

Mrs Pericles a self avowed techno moron was recognised on November 13 at a presentation by Virginia Judge MLA in the presence of the Director General of Education Mr Michael Coutts-Trotter and other members of the State Executive Service.

Mrs Pericles has worked closley with her students as they have learned how to best use technology and Web 2.0 tools to communicate with the world. She has also led the teachers at the school to understand how to use these tools to best effect in their classrooms.

Congratulations to a very fine teacher who is rapidly developing a world wide reputation as a leading 21st century educator.

We are all so very proud of you!!!!