Student Blogging Challenge

Over the next eight weeks, Room 24 is involved the global STUDENT BLOGGING CHALLENGE.  


It's a marvelous opportunity for us to become familiar with the many aspects of blogging and, we think most importantly, to connect with other classes around the world.


We are in the second week of the ten week challenge.  Week One focused on "About Us" and Week Two asks us to share "About My Place".  The amazing thing is that these two weeks are fitting perfectly into our inquiry question for CULTURE & IDENTITY, "what makes us us and what's unique about ourselves as Room 24, students of TIS, from Hawke's Bay, and as Kiwis (New Zealanders)?" ... whew, what a big question!


So far in the Challenge, we've had comments on our blog from Ohio and Maryland as well as new visitors from around the globe.  Yesterday, we connected with Room 6, St Mary's School in Mosgiel, NZ, and Mrs Jundef's Tech Class in New Jersey, USA.  One of our class goals this year is to be involved in a global project with other classes from around the world, so Room 24 sees this as the first step in achieving our goal.


The Student Blogging Challenge has been on the go since 2008 and runs biannually in March and September, so if you're not involved in the March challenge we really encourage you to enter the one beginning in September. 

Have you connected with other classes from within your country or around the world?

What global projects have you been involved in, if any?  And what are the benefits of global projects?

Have you any ideas or plans for future global connections?

Challenge - Our Inquiry concept for Camp

This year when head out to Opouahi for camp one our key focuses will be on the concept of CHALLENGE.  We will be caving, canoeing, hiking, tenting, cooking and more.  Room 24 are asking themselves the question, "how can we face and overcome challenges?"  


This was a good question to ask ourselves last week as it started pouring with rain part way through our training walk.  We have a 6km hike into camp (with only backpacks - not all our gear), so the rain was actually an opportunity for us to explore what we might do if it does rain while we're on our hike.  Obviously, we need to prepare and make sure we have all the gear.


Today, we looked at 'Challenge' from the perspective of teamwork and problem-solving.  We had to get balloons across the field using only our torsos.  The balloons couldn't touch the ground and the team members had to stay connected to each other.  If we dropped the balloons or became disconnected, we had to head back to the beginning and start again.

It was a good challenge as we all had fun and we were encouraged to work together.  Afterwards, we brainstormed the challenge skills and ideas in the Wordle below.  We also looked at the Habits of Mind we used.  We decided we'd used these ones:  thinking flexibly, persisting, working with others, seeing the funny side, using past knowledge, stop & think, trying new idea, listening to others, thinking about thinking (reflecting), make it right, innovate, and be clear.  

Congratulations Room 24 - Miss McLeod was super impressed with you!

Is your class facing any challenges in the near future?  What strategies will you use?

Do you have any wise words of advice that we can use to help us overcome the challenges at camp?