Cybersafety - MoTEC on Close Up

It's important to discuss this issue when doing ICT stuff with kids. MoTEC / Parklands children were filmed in early March by TV1 and featured on Close-up  - here is the footage about using chat rooms safely.

This is a really good video for starting a discussion about cybersafety too. 

Unconference Lesson on Gimp for Teachers

On March 31,  Kate will give a class for other teachers showcasing one of the lessons involved in the ICT unit we teach at MoTEC for Year 8 students. Detailed notes and explanations are given in the student workbook, so that they may take it home and practice. About 50% of the students in each class download gimp and practice at home.

Click on the links below to download your own version of the:
 student workbook instructions
 teacher notes with technology curriculum objectives

How to airbrush - take out those troublesome blemishes:

Intro lesson to layers - Holiday photos:

Raw pictures used to take out the background using magic wand.

Kids choose a location where they would like to go.

The final version looks something like this:

An example of a merged image using layers in Gimp - 2nd lesson using layer masks.

Final version of a student's calendar.

Animation lessons

Many of the Year 7 students have started the year off learning in the media room - learning how to make their own animated advertisement. The students' brief requires them to create an advertisement for a "revolting" product. They look at successful advertisements and use similar techniques to draw in their target audience.

 Students from Lower Moutere school using green screens and toys to create a short animated clip.

Advertisements from Mapua School students

Modified Recipes - Year 7 Classes

As a finale to thier time in Food Technology, Year 7 students create an original recipe. They use one of the recipes that they have made in previous lessons and then modify it to meet the health needs of someone whom they identify. For example, they may wish to modify a pizza recipe to make it suitable for a vegetarian who is gluten intolerant.

We have created this post so that the students can enter and edit thier recipes online using Google docs. This is a work in progress....
Teachers - please remember to turn off the editing rights for your class once the lesson is finished.


Mapua - Meeka's class
Parklands Room 2 - Mr Barton's class
LMO - Mr Young's class
Mot. South - Mr Young's class
UMO - Mrs Wilson's class
Dovedale - Mrs Wilson's class
Mot South - Mr Young's class

Researching the Antarctic using Google Docs

Welcome Room 4! 

Today we are going to start off using the Our Far South website to undertake some research on the area from Stewart Island to Antarctica

Learning Intentions:

• How to ask meaningful questions and research the answers on the internet
• Taking short notes and noting the source of the information (to be used in the bibliography later)
• Recording our research in a collaborative group document, using google docs
• How to share our research on our class blog

Group Research

We will split into 3 main research areas.

1. Biodiversity: The rich animal and plant life and why it is important.

2. Climate change: What is happening to the climate south of NZ, and what this means both for that region, and for us.

3. The Race for resources: How is the southern ocean and Antarctica governed, and what are the impacts of activities like fishing and tourism?

Click on the group document that you have been assigned:

Biodiversity 1

Biodiversity 2

Biodiversity 3

Climate Change 1

Climate Change 2

Climate Change 3

Race for Resources 1

Race for Resources 2

Race for Resources 3

Criteria for Research
Use at least 3 different websites to help answer the questions that you have asked. Try to find websites which look at your issue from different angles.

For example - if you were looking at the issue of Japanese whaling in Antarctica - you might want to look at why the Japanese continue to do it, even when whaling has been banned. Look at a protest organisations' websites like Greenpeace as well.

Up, up and away

Year 8 students at MoTEC have been travelling around the world, taking holiday snaps... all for FREE! Below are some of their pictures, edited using Gimp.

Edward - Upper Moutere

Graham - Upper Moutere

Jesse - Riwaka

Molly - Riwaka

Shawn - Upper Moutere

Tangiwai - Tasman Bay Christian

Daniel - Mot South School

Eva - Mot South school