FOBIT 2014 - Ed Tech Leaders in Asia

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 4 and 5

Day 4- Year 4 Football

Written by Jeni Wong over here.

The Football competition started on Day 4 and in the Year 4 competition this involved 5 teams playing 10 minute rounds to make it to the final. Year 4 Boys and Girls put up a tremendous fight in the soccer and both teams made it to the finals with the Year 4 boys winning one of their games by an impressive 6- nil. Both teams played the same respective boys and girls teams which were now becoming quite a regular fixture, for all of our FoBISSEA teams, DBIS- Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong. The finals were nerve racking with the girls taking the silver and the boys just losing out at the last minute by 2-1. Both teams did very well and as I coached the girls teams, I have to give special call-outs to Jeni for her great kicks in defence, Wendy for braving the tackles, Jade and Niktha for their super mid-field to forward work, Natalie who made some good saves in goal and Tiffany for being the right place at the right time and scoring some goals. Another medal in the bag- TES is the BEST!

Day 5- Excursion day

This was a real reward for everyone for all their hardwork in the competition and their training prior to leaving for FoBBISEA. We went swimming at the Beijing Cube next to the famous Beijing Birdnest stadium. Arriving early but spending some time negotiating door entrance with the 3 rounds of different door people! But a time well spent and everyone had a great time in the tunnels and tubes. After that a lovely lunch in the sun before playing some bowling and then going off to see the Famous Beijing ChaoYang Theatre Acrobatics World. This truely was an amazing show where acrobats showed us their talents by balancing objects, riding bikes and performing stunts with precision and skill. Check out their website www.bjcyjc.com . Rounding off the evening with a yummy buffect meal where the Year 6 boys chomped down steaks and all the meat that you could imagine. 

Highlights of the trips:

See what they were here

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 3

Day 3 - The T-Ball 

What an amazing day, we had our usual early rise and shine starting off the day with a great buffet breakfast. It was T-Ball day and we arrived at the beautiful Dulwich Beijing sports ground to the cheers of our loyal parent supporters with their horns and TES pompoms! The children got straight to work by playing in a series of T-Ball games which would determine which teams would make it to the finals. I never realised why we practised T-Ball so much during our ECA practices, but after our day today, I could see the huge part of the FOBISSEA games that the event took. Unlike yesterday,where individual medals could be won by doing your best for yourself, T-Ball really did require a lot of TTT- thinking, tactics and teamwork. Watching the Year 4s play was exciting and nerve racking at the same time...but they really did make a super team. Shubh was a quick thinking pitcher working really well with Gill on first base and Jun Sung as backstop. We had some great fielding by Sean, Svente and Lachlan with their good stopping and large throws. Well done to Tiffany who took a brave stop and blocked a strong hit. Jeni, Jade and Wendy gave some good hits and sprinted home. One tactic TES will definitely be remembered for will be its Stop and Scare tactic, which envied by others has been mastered by Natalie, Nikitha and Shubh but with varying levels of 'Scare'. 

Read on over here

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China.

The FoBISSEA Games Attendees, Beijing, China

The first day... What a BLUR!

After a 4.45am meet-up at the EPC the , bleary eyed 2012 FOBISSEA group representing TES were off. The spirits, despite the early hour, were high and everyone was super excited about what the day ahead was to deliver us. The airport check-in went extremely well and before we knew it we were touching down at Beijing Capital Airport, although we hardly realised we were there with the hazy skies closing in.

The Harrow School, Beijing representatives were there to meet and greet us and led us to the awaiting buses. The excitement was now building, especially on seeing the TES logo in the windscreen of the bus! The next journey was to the Beijing Aquarium where Mr Milner had organised for us to see the dolphin show. Something about trying to get us in the mood for the swimming competition!!! We had a great afternoon wandering the aquarium and getting used to being together as a group. 

Carry on reading the full story and day-by-day write-ups from Mr. McKelvie here on the FoBISSEA Games page.

FOBISSEA Ed Tech Conference @ Taipei European School

This weekend saw the 3rd FOBISSEA ICT conference for Primary ICT leaders being held at TES, Taipei. The city was a great surprise to me and held vast appeal for a techie and for somebody who loves Asia but would require the polite orderly-ness of mainland Europe. 

The Conference was again a relaxed affair with conversation flowing from one topic to the next. Below are a few snippets from the site we all contributed to and some of the links from last year's conference too. Lots of links and resources for teachers and pupils alike.

Flat Classrooms: What are they?

The Flat Classroom Project is a global Hands-on working together project for middle and senior high school students. It was founded by Vicki Davis (Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay (Qatar Academy, Qatar) in 2006.

The Project uses Web 2.0 tools to make communication and interaction between students and teachers from all participating classrooms easier. The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman.

Below from Julie's site is a slide show detailing the Flat Classroom. The Flat Classroom Project will take you there.

 

 Links, Resources and Goodies

The great thing about these conferences is the wealth of resources that come bundles with them. This year didn't dissappoint. Below are the list of web resources and applications that will undoubtedly go into this year's requisition.

Applications: A review of lots of sites and progrms for learning - www.educationalfreeware.com 48 Free Microsoft Apps www.techradar.com  Education City - online learning platform in modules for the Primary age range. Busy Things - http://www.busythings.co.uk/ Aggregators Make Use Of http://www.makeuseof.com/ Games TutPup  http://www.tutpup.com/ Moshi Monsters http://www.moshimonsters.com/ Fantastic Contraption - http://fantasticcontraption.com/ Similar to Armadillo Run (try embedding to avoid adverts) Armadillo Run - http://www.armadillorun.com/ Simulations Maths Mathletics http://www.mathletics.co.uk/ Maths moves you: www.mathmovesu.com/  - a game like situation for maths   2diyarchive www.2diyarchive.co.uk/ excellent resources for 2DIY Birchfield http://www.birchfield.co.uk/ - VLE content pack apparantly compatable with the majority of SCORN based VLE's. Timelines Capzles - http://www.capzles.com/ Dipity - www.dipity.com -timelines, goes back to about 100AD, dates, maps (great for explorers/adventures), children can comment, use flip books, youtube videos, give kids the same login so that they can do collaborative work from home Presentation Vuvox  www.vuvox.com/ more ambitious than animoto, timelines, storyboard, glossary, hotspot Prezi - http://prezi.com/ replaces powerpoint, timelines Edu Glogster http://edu.glogster.com/ -Interactive posters, kids in the class can comment on friend's poster (you need a good internet connection) An example of using Edu.glogster - not a particularly good one!  http://bertjacha.edu.glogster.com/school-council/ SSUU - http://issuu.com/ make it in word and upload, magazines, newspapers, scan as pdf and make a book, or make a flipbook and embed Video and sound Editors (online first) Creaza - http://www.creaza.com/ -all in one package for movie making (integrates with Fronter) Jamendo http://www.jamendo.com/en/ - Need an account, but also an alternative to Garage Band Myna http://aviary.com/tools/myna - Online version of Garage Band Collaboration: Voice Thread: www.voicethread.com - very good voice and image collaboration site. Primary Pad - http://primarypad.com/ realtime collaborative writing Pirate Pad - http://piratepad.net/ Etherpad - http://etherpad.com/ realtime collaborative writing Wall Wisher - http://www.wallwisher.com/ online post it note, great for homework. Mind42 - http://www.mind42.com/ Free online mind mapping Shelfari - http://www.shelfari.com/ online book club for librarians EAL/ ESL - Languages BYKI - http://www.byki.com/ creates online flash cards (great for MFL teachers) Frengly - http://www.frengly.com/ Online translation Tools for Primary School - www.primaryschooltools.com - This is my colleague's collection of links from BISV Cool Tools For School - http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ Free Tools http://web2educationuk.wetpaint.com/ - reviewed by the author NCH Software - www.nch.com.au Sound conversion software  Animation: Monkey Jam - http://www.giantscreamingrobotmonkeys.com/monkeyjam/ Kahootz - http://www.kahootz.com/kz/ 3D Modelling CB Model Pro- http://www.cbmodelpro.com/ Scibble Maps - http://scribblemaps.com/ Crazy Talk - http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/ Dino Mixer - http://www.dinomixer.com/ itouch app, great for KS1 Imaging - Web based Word it Out http://worditout.com/ Similar to wordle Tagul http://tagul.com/ Similar to wordle Image Chef http://www.imagechef.com/ Posterazor http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/ -Makes huge posters Big Huge Labs http://bighugelabs.com/  Picasa - http://picasa.google.co.uk/ Print huge pictures Clevr - http://www.clevr.com/Will make panoramic pictures