Amita Patel – ECE & Primary Staff Blog

Author: Amita Patel (page 1 of 2)

Hour of Code – ECE teachers

December 3, 2019 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

International Computer Science week is from the 9th to 13th of December. From the 9th to 20th December, please find some time in your class to do an Hour of Code activity with your students.

Amita has shortlisted 3 simple activities and placed all the resources on the server here:

smb://10.3.1.1/Teachers/@Teachers Pub/@ECE/ECE SHARED FOLDER/2019~20/Hour of Code

She is happy to have discussions with you if you would like, or if you would like her to come into your class to do the activity. She is also happy to work with you should you want to do something besides the shortlisted activities. BeeBots are also available to be borrow out.

Veronica, Michelle & Amita

ECE & Primary – Technology Skills Audit and Digital citizenship Self Reflection

October 10, 2017 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

Dear Teachers,

We would like to ask all ECE & Primary staff to fill out the following questionnaire by following the link. This is a skills audit which will help us gauge the technology skills of the staff. We will use this information to plan technology training during in-service days and other staff meetings.

Please take the time to honestly answer the survey. It contains 45 questions and shouldn’t take more than 15 – 25 minutes.

Skills audit link

We would very much appreciate if this can be completed by Monday 23rd October 2017.

Kind Regards,

Technology PLC

ECE & Primary – Back up drives

September 1, 2017 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

We would like to encourage all staff to take back up of their computer at regular intervals. The best way to do this is using time machine with an external drive (for more information on how to use this please click here)

To help staff who are interested in purchasing a backup drive, ITD will help order these. You have 2 choices:

Seagate 1TB external hard drive – RMB 410
Seagate 2TB external hard drive – RMB 600
If you are interested in purchasing one please hand in the exact amount to either Alex or Amita by the end of the school day on Monday 11th September.

Yearbook – 1st draft

May 16, 2017 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

The first draft of the yearbook has been proofread. We will be coming around to give you your copies. Please note the following:

Carefully look through all the pages returned as there have been 3 proofreaders working on them.
Changes need to be made on the server here: smb://10.3.1.1/Yearbook/Year Book 2016-17/Pages/ USE THIS – 2nd draft. Please do not make changes anywhere else.
Look for pictures that are too dark, they can be either edited on the server or replaced. If you are replacing/adding any pictures, you will need to add them in the links folder too.
Photos need to be clear, please replace with better quality images if they are blurry. Do not have large group of students in small frames.
Cross check your students names. Check for missing students.

All changes need to be completed by the end of the day on Monday 22nd May.

Mac OS upgrade

December 9, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

ITD will upgrade Mac OS to the latest version (10.12) during the Christmas holidays.

For the school Mac devices: Except for the iMac in the music classroom at CP, ITD will upgrade all the school iMacs and laptops to the latest version. Please take a backup of the iMac in your classroom to avoid data being lost.

For your self purchased laptops: ITD has created an upgrade package in the Casper self-service system so that teachers can upgrade their Mac on return (please see guide here). Please take a back up of your laptop before you upgrade.

For the school laptops which teachers are using: Teachers are recommended to go to IT support for them to re-image their laptops with the new upgrade (this will help create more space for the new upgrade to work a little faster). Please take a back up of your laptop before you go to IT support.

Hour of Code – Primary

December 2, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

Read on for an exciting free technology opportunity which you can explore with your students.

The key website with details of this activity is https://hourofcode.com/cn/en. The website is also available in Chinese, Korean and several other languages.

What is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code is an initiative that takes place during CSEd Week (5th – 11th of December) where everyone is encouraged to try programming/coding for at least one hour. There are activities for all year groups, with minimal teacher expertise and preparation required, which introduce children to the logical thinking required for programming.

How do I participate in the Hour of Code?

This is an optional activity.

You can set this activity as an optional homework or if you have time in your ICT class, you might want to try it then. You can also introduce it to your kids in class and then give them the links for them to try at home. We will be adding a post to the Year Level blog’s which explains the Hour of Code.

There are dozens of activities available at HourofCode.com, including art with Anna and Elsa, JavaScript for beginners.

Here is an example of a minecraft coding activity on code.org: https://code.org/minecraft

While the activities on the Hour of Code site have been tried and tested to make sure that they are fun, free, and foundational, you are by no means limited to those examples. The goal is to spread the programming experience far and wide, in an entertaining and non-threatening way.

What if I want to go beyond an hour?

Fantastic! There are several free resources for classroom teachers. Many of those resources are linked here.

The objective of Hour of Code is not to turn everyone into a computer scientist. Its urgency is tied much more to the need for the citizens of the future to understand problem solving and logic, as well as to cultivate the ability for people to create 21st century tools that combat complicated issues.

You don’t need to commit to a life of programming. Just try one hour of coding with your students and see where it leads. Who knows, you just might like it!

Primary Photos – saving them on the yearbook server

October 19, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

I have created folders on the yearbook server for all school events and class folders here:

smb://10.3.1.1/Yearbook/Year Book 2016-17/Photos

Please note the following:

Please use this as the place to store all photos including class event photos, ASAs, field trips etc. This makes it easier for the office or anybody else to look for photos (and of course – yearbook)
Events photos should be placed in the events folder – for e.g.
- Founder’s Day photos are placed here by Leo – smb://10.3.1.1/Yearbook/YearBook 2016-17/Photos/Founders Day (thanks Leo!)
- charity week is coming up, please place the photos for the events under the charity week folder
You can make sub folders for your specific class events inside your class folder.

ECE & Primary – Back up drives

September 5, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

To help staff who are interested in purchasing a backup drive, ITD will help order these. You have 2 choices:

Seagate 1TB external hard drive – RMB 445
Seagate 2TB external hard drive – RMB 655

If you are interested in purchasing one please hand in the exact amount to either Alex or Amita by the end of the school day on Monday 12th September.

Yearbook edits

May 16, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

We have received the first proof for the yearbook. It is in the process of being proofread, once complete I will be handing out your pages to you (by tomorrow)

Please make the edits to your pages on the yearbook server here:

smb://10.3.1.1/Yearbook/Year Book 2015-16/Primary/ Pages – 2nd proof

smb://10.5.1.1/Yearbook/Year Book 2015-16/Primary/ Pages – 2nd proof

As we are working on a very tight schedule, please make sure your pages are completed before Monday morning – 23rd May.

Thank you.

Primary Yearbook Cover Competition Winners

May 3, 2016 / Amita Patel / Comments Off

We have informed the parents of the winners for the yearbook cover competition via the parent news blog, listed below:

Winner

(artwork will feature on the front cover of the yearbook)

MeJo Liao

(Year 4C) – Digital entry

Runner Up

(artwork will feature on the back cover of the yearbook)

Abigail Tan

(Year 3E)

Special Mentions

(artwork will appear inside the yearbook)

All parents will have the opportunity to order one or more Year Books; a letter will be sent to all Primary parents on Monday, May 9th, detailing how to order them.