New Shop In Town

Kia ora koutou
There is a new ICT shop in Gisborne that could be worth a look.
"CONEL" is the name of the shop and they sell compatible ink cartridges, flash drives (memory sticks), MP3 players, rechargable batteries and lots of blank CD's/DVD's.
Costs are very resonable, much cheaper than other Gisborne shops. Quality seems ok.
They are going to increase their stock progressively.
Certainly worth checking out.
They are by the clocktower/number 1 shoe shop. The phone number is 0508 243 274.

Up until recently they have been doing all of their business on TradeMe and recently decided to open there shop. You can still purchase there goods at auction on TradeMe as well.

"STICKIES"

There has been plenty of interest from teachers about the software programme “Stickies”. I did mention it earlier on in the year but it is certainly worth mentioning again.

"Stickies" is a freeware programme that sits on your desktop and allows you to stick Post It notes for remainders to yourself or you can also email them to others who have the Stickie programme.

I find it very useful and it sounds as if many of you feel the same.

Go to http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/ to download the latest version.

Ministry ICT Strategy Publication

The publication 'Enabling the 21st Century Learning should be available in your school'. This is a handy document when looking at the contribution of e-learning to your school's strategic goal. This document outlines the different e-learning areas i.e. learning resources, infrastructure, leadership...and the projects, tools and resources available for your school.Download the pdf from this link :http://www.minedu.govt.nz/web/downloadable/dl10475_v1/itc-strategy.pdf

Gaming Software

Just back from the Australian ACEC conference, my apologies for not posting. Must be full of Jet lag.

Spent a bit of time playing around with gaming software and further realising the value of using computer game making software in the classroom.
They are learning skills that I think are very important for the modern world. They are not content like science or chemistry, but they are learning how to think about complex worlds and situations. Problem solving is a huge ingredient. Check out "Video Games in Education"


Check out some free game building software at http://www.gamemaker.nl/
This is a program called GameMaker.

Also a very good bit of game making software is "Neverwinter Nights" where you create your own environment, much like SimCity, but heaps more fun. View at http://nwn.bioware.com/

Good hunting.

Comic Life

For all you Mac users out there.
"Comic Life" is a very easy to use bit of software to enhance your literacy programme. At a relatively cheap price of about $30 your class can add images and written speech bubbles to make their very own comics.
It's simple and well worth the purchase price. Your local Apple Mac dealer will have a copy.
I have been informed that the latest Macs have the software already installed.
Ivan