Introducing Jason Milner: A visit from an Australian Teacher!

July 12, 2016August 28, 2016 @MarcWithersey Apps, Collaboration, early years, Social Media Australia, Collaboration, Community, Connected, international, Jason Milner, Sydney, Visit, Working Together

Over the years I have developed a network with fellow Apple Distinguished Educators which brings the world to my early years classroom. I regularly receive positive feedback from parents who are amazed at the way their young ones connect with other children around
the world using software like FaceTime.

Monday 4th July marked another one of those moments in my career where my classroom became an international hub for collaboration between the children that I teach and classrooms around the world. It was such a pleasure to welcome Jason Milner from Sydney, Australia to Burton Joyce Primary School, Nottingham!

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MakerSpaces: Foundation Stage Best Practice in Key Stage 2

July 12, 2016August 28, 2016 @MarcWithersey Child Initiated Learning, Coding, Collaboration, Computing, Design, early years, iPads, Leadership and Managemant, Technology Australia, Challenge, coding, Collaboration, Community, computing, Connected, Cross-Curricular, Europe, geography, international, Jason Milner, Key Stage 2, MakerSpace, play, Sydney, Visit, Working Together

What is a MakerSpace.

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I was interested in MakerSpaces because of their strong links to Foundation Stage best practise. It’s a place in school where children use sets of resources to work on projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic skills. Children design on their own projects or respond to challenges. I wanted to see how best practises and resources from Foundation can be extended to support learning further up school. For the Year 4 teachers, they wanted to see how our new range of iPad compatible robots can be used in their coding curriculum.

For this MakerSpace I was joined by Jason Milner. Jason is an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) from Sydney, Australia. Throughout July he visited other ADE schools across Europe and today we collaborated on this project at my school. Jason wanted to gain experience using iPad compatible robots and also observe the impact that wrapping code around the curriculum may improve the way in which children apply mathematic skills.

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The MakerSpace: A Foundation Stage Challenge

July 12, 2016August 28, 2016 @MarcWithersey Apps, Child Initiated Learning, Coding, Collaboration, Computing, Design, Early Years, Science, Technology, Understanding the World Australia, Challenge, coding, Collaboration, Community, computing, Connected, Cross-Curricular, early years, international, Jason Milner, MakerSpace, play, science, Space, Sydney, Visit, Working Together

Monday 4th July was the day I had been waiting for since February. Apple Distinguished Educator, Jason Milner a Year 4 teacher from Sydney, visited my school to work with me on a MakerSpace project we had been planning for months.

What is a MakerSpace?

Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 12.27.03

I was particularly interested in this concept of MakerSpaces because of the strong links to Foundation Stage style practice. It’s a place in your school or setting where children use open-ended resources or work on projects related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic skills. Children work on their own projects or respond to challenges set. I wanted to see how best practices and resources from Foundation can be extended to support learning in computing and programming skills. Jason also wanted to gain experience using our Dash robots with Foundation Stage children.

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Connecting Classes Across Continents… 2 years on!

June 30, 2016August 28, 2016 @MarcWithersey Assessment, Blogs, Collaboration, e-Safety, Leadership and Managemant, Social Media, Understanding the World Calls, Collaboration, Connected, connected classes, early years, FaceTime, global, Global Readiness, Impact, skype

Connecting Classes Across Continents is a collaboration I began with Apple Distinguished Educators who teach in the early years. We met in San Diego in July 2014 and began planning how we could use FaceTime and social media to build a personal learning network for our young learners, In the beginning we had classes connecting between South Carolina, Maine, Ireland and my class in England. The process is simple, we looked at what we taught throughout the year and found topics which overlapped or linked so that our classes could exchange knowledge over a video call.
Over the last two years my classes have made short video calls to these classes to talk about their place in the world, ask questions about the different places and share stories or festivals from their home country. We have shared Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving, Christmas food similarities and differences and Chinese New Year. Connecting with real children celebrating these festivals made the learning so much more real as we could have genuine discussions with real people involved in these celebrations.