The iPad

The highly anticipated launch of the Apple Tablet happened this morning (NZ time)Steve Jobs has announced the iPad (my fav name for the device) and as suspected by many in appearance is like a flattened iPhone.
Specs include a 9.7 screen surrounded by a wide bezel. It will have between 16GB and 64GB solid state flash memory and weighs 680grams.
It has 10 hour battery life so will be perfect for watching video on long plane trips.
Apps will include Apple Works for iPad, an Art app, iBooks which includes a virtual bookshelf where books are displayed. The iBook reader looks similar to the app I currently have on my iPhone.
So what to use the iPad for? Movies, games, reading books, email, web browsing etc etc.
Check out this link for more information and photos

An aside Mark Webster's website http://www.mac-nz.com/ he mentions that Air New Zealand is in the process of adding iPod & USB jacks to economy seats, very handy I think.

Cheers
Jo

The Apple Tablet?

With less than 48 hours to go before Apple's much hyped media event my anticipation is increasing and I am reading with interest the tweets coming through about speculation that an 'Apple Tablet' is about to be released.
I can not wait!
There are many names floating around, including, 'iPad'. 'iSlate' and the Apple Tablet. What ever it is named one thing is certain, it will have the sleek lines and innovation of the Apple products gone before.
Look no further than You Tube and you will find many fake images of the yet to be announced Tablet, they do look very cool! Rumour's include the design of the Tablet likened to a flattened iPhone with a 10' screen, a front facing camera, a virtual keyboard and e-book to name a few.
Have a look at this link for one of the fake Tablet's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysW2T0kf4As
Cheers
Jo

From Berlin: Dealing with difficulties and uncertainties!

Another fabulous colleague from Germany joins our blog! Hartmut has been deeply involved in learning stories for several years and brings to the blog some very interesting insights into current early childhood practices in Germany. I would have to say that we would also find these practices in NZ as well. Hartmut came to NZ and spent many days participating in three early childhood settings in NZ, engaging with the teachers, the children and sharing his insights with us. He, like us, is working as a Facilitator of professional learning in settings in Berlin. 

Greetings from Hartmut … I’ve been trying to work with the fascinating learning story framework for almost five years, and I am still convinced that narrative assessments, as you do them in NZ, can and surely will make our communication about learning richer and deeper. What fascinates me most is the idea of socially “distributed” learning, leading to communities of learners as most important agents in early childhood education… You see this on every level, not only in children’s learning, but also in this blog that shows the benefits of a strong group of learners – the ELP team – sharing experiences and “making meaning” together… 

However, everyday life is sometimes a little embarrassing… For instance, in our learning culture the idea of communities of learners that involve adults (teachers, parents) who join into children’s learning journeys is not so very popular. Adults often prefer to stay outside the learning processes, and don’t want their world to be changed by the changing world of children…  Looking at the way “Learning stories” are put into practice in German Kindergartens, it can be noticed that they often turn into an observation-based assessment procedure that goes back to knowledge and skills and fails to meet learning dispositions in action. 

The last two years I’ve spent much time in thinking about these processes. Drawing on Bruner’s distinction of “narrative” and “paradigmatic” cultures (he put Germany on the “paradigmatic” side) the difficulty might lie in implementing a culture of narrative practice into an environment that is quite far from valuing this kind of practice. I experienced, that a mother hearing a learning story about her son struggling to join a peers’ play group and finally succeeding did not at all enjoy the story but rather searched for a “hidden message” – why does the teacher tell me this? What’s the point of it? Maybe her feeling was a little like “if my son would do well then the teachers would not tell me such stories…” On the other hand, there are already teachers successfully implementing stories (not accounts) about learning into our children’s portfolios… 

So I learned that storytelling and narrative assessment are not just pedagogical techniques one can implement in any environment. “Good” learning stories have – as I believe – always a touch of “internal evaluation”, their authority comes from a feeling that the person telling the story was there and was involved in a deep transactional process, not only looking at an event from the outside. Looking at some examples from Germany I feel that the narration is turning into “external evaluation” (Some kind of “Dear Clara, as I watched you carefully last Friday I saw that you enjoyed doing …, and I was very impressed by …), and with that change in position the stories lose much of their power. This is not to say that external evaluation has no value - outsiders can see a lot and make valuable contributions, but stories must be told by insiders. 

So these were some thoughts about my “half-full” glass - from some processes of “dealing with difficulties and uncertainties” I’m involved in at the moment. I’m looking forward to further 2010 discussions about examples of narrative assessment, with colleagues here in Berlin and with you, ELP colleagues (welcome in Berlin in July!!!), as well. 

Hartmut

Fun in the sun

Greetings from Lorraine Sands...... I am stunned by the sight of children, snowmen and bicycles in the snow! I saw the satellite picture of Britain gripped in blizzard conditions and the wow factor was right up there because I was just heading off to the surf beach at Mount Maunganui, for a walk around Mauao and a swim in the ocean. Seeing Margy’s granddaughter rugged up so snugly, it struck me how differently children experience their very first encounters with the people, places and things in their world. Just from this one perspective, weather, let alone anything else, they begin to engage with papatuanuku (Maori, for earth mother), building those working theories that will take them further into an understanding of their world. I am so looking forward to exploring this further with two of Margy’s team from Pen Green, Felicity and Tracy when they come to New Zealand in February for a series of work shops in Auckland and Tauranga. We will be interested to find out more about Pen Green’s philosophy around partnerships with parents and the research that led to their pedagogic strategies Parents Involved in their Children's Learning (PICL) and explore the theories wrapped around their Baby Nest. The teachers at Greerton Early Childhood Centre will be collaborating in these workshops so it will be interesting to engage with our view via Te Whāriki (the New Zealand National Curriculum) and consider the things we have in common and the diversity! Some thought provoking conversations will ensue I’m sure. In the mean time these pictures of life for children in the Tauranga sunshine and the walk around Mauao, might just entice a few more visitors out of the bitter northern winter into the southern warmth. In NZ we are stripping off, slip, slop, slapping the suncream and wading into water!

Winter in Berlin, the big snow!

Over the last few years ELP has built up some very lovely relationships with early childhood colleagues working in Germany. There has, for sometime now been a tremendous interest in the work of learning stories in Germany. Margaret Carr and I went to Germany in the early part of the decade and we along with several of the ELP project facilitator team have been back several times over that period. A number of fabulous Germans have been to visit us in NZ, spurred by their interest in both our curriculum Te Whāriki and learning stories.

Sibylle Haas, is one of our wonderful colleagues from Berlin and she has sent us these photos for our blog, they give us a lovely window into life in Berlin this winter.

Sibylle’s photos

This is me rugged up and warm for the very big snowfalls that we have been experiencing in Berlin.

Children love the wonderful snow in Berlin at the moment. They are busy sledging in the snow and building snow men and women often out of three balls. The longer you roll a small ball in the snow the bigger the body of the snowman will be!! So you can imagine how many snowmen and women are currently standing around Berlin! This is a photo of my husband Roland, he feels as happy as the snowman standing in the snow. Berlin has very few hills for skiing and sledging, most of them are artificial, built from the remains of bombed houses after world war two. The snow has meant that these areas have been recreated into fabulous sledging and snowman building spaces for peaceful fun in the parks.

The parks and lakes change their appearance in winter; they look so beautiful in the snow.

As you can see, to go by bicycle is not a good idea in these times.

Post from Margy Whalley

Many of you will have seen images of Britain and Europe as they have faced unprecedented snow falls across the lands. The satellite images of Britain entirely blanketed in snow were extraordinary. Thousands of schools and early childhood settings have been closed for days as people struggled to make their way each day. Margy Whalley from Pen Green in Corby, England has sent us this delightful image of her grand daughter playing in the snow and a blog to attach!

Margy writes

We are all so jealous that you are basking in the sunshine while we are suffering in the cold!

My Gorgeous 22 month Grand daughter

Molly was only induced to leave her snowman by the promise that we’d be sure to throw snowballs at her window and dance in the snow before he left. In fact days later he’s still there so no problem!

Love

Margy

Resolutions....

I loved reading Kaths last post-Kath-if you tick enable comments at the end of your message under post options your fans can leave you a note! ;-)
I think Kath's description about her interaction with her grandbaby is just delicious, and her reflections-soooo cool!
There is another R word that's quite popular at this time of the year-RESOLUTIONS!!!!! I walked into the Piha store and there was a message from the owners on the blackboard "Good luck with your New Years resolutions of giving up smoking and losing weight!" OMG how did he know that I want to shed those kilos that crept on my middle last year and have left me feeling like the Dunlop Tyre woman??? I have never been a smoker so at least I don't have to worry about that one!
Ah well, more carrots and less chocolate and hot chips.......I HAVE to, my riding jacket has become so tight the buttons are threatening strike action and if I don't watch it they might just ping off and smack someone in the eye-imagine that ACC claim!