Piggley's Adventure in Washington: Monday the 28th of June 2009

Another fascinating day in Washington!
Today we left the hotel at 6.45am. Myself and Ms. O Connell took part in a Panel Session talk with Dan from England, Andrew from Australia, Sarietjie from South Africa and Nathan from New Zealand.




David Walddon from Microsoft was the moderator.




Here you can see all the Microsoft Innovative Teachers together before the talk. I will post up a podcast of the talk later- Ms. O Connell needs my help to edit it!



We talked to a full room of teachers and administrators about the work that we did with all of the students in Kilvemnon over the past few years. They were so impressed that you were all working away and logging on to the blog over the summer holidays. You are all so dedicated!

Afterwards we visited the exhibits downstairs and guess what? LEGO had a stand. I learned how to data log colours on the new NXT. I can't wait to show you all when we get home.

Afterwards we visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum right here in Washington. Ms. O' Connell told me that you had emailed to make sure we visited the Wright Brothers Flyer.

Above you can see me sitting on a real piece of moon rock! It is just inside the door of the Smithsonian.


Next we visited the REAL Wright Brothers Flyer. This is the actual machine used in the first flight. in 1985 they changed the canvas on the Flyer it had become damaged. It had been built in 1903 after all!

The Red Baron would love to see this! Wouldn't he?

Check out this link to see inside the Air and Space Museum and around Washington in the new Night at the Museum Film: http://www.nightatthemuseummovie.com/ The Flyer has a huge part in it!

Rockets verywhere at the Smithsonian!



Find out more about the Smithsonian here.

This is me visiting the Korean War memorial. It is a really powerful memorial. America fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.


Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia is a military cemetery in the United States, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a descendant of Martha Washington. The cemetery is situated directly across the Potomac from Washington, DC and near The Pentagon.
More than 300,000 people are buried in an area of 624 acres.

What an exciting day! Is there anything else you woould like myself and Ms. O Connell to visit?
Tomorrow evening we have been invited to the Library of Congress for a reception. We are so excited. The Library of Congress is very famous and is not normally open to the public. I will wear a clean uniform for the night and will make sure to clean my trotters for the event!!
can you find out more about the Library of Congress for me before I go?

See you soon,
Piggley.

PS. Great to hear all the positive comments from Kilvemnon and beyond! Keep them coming!

Piggley's Adventure in Washington: Saturday 26th of June 2009

Hello everyone!


Well, I had such an interesting day today. Myself and Ms. O Connell were up early and left the hotel at 8.30am for the Microsoft Reston Campus. We had a lovely breakfast with all of our friends from Hong Kong. Here you can see me sitting up at the desk enjoying a juice.



It was hot today but the forecast for tomorrow is for it to be even hotter. It will be mostly sunny in the morning...then mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s.(F) Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
I don't understand the Farenheit temperature. Could someone please tell me what 80 degrees Farenheit is in Celcius? Thanks!!

After breakfast we all went to a meeting room upstairs where we spoke to Les Foltos, who works with the Puget Sound Centre. He helps teachers to peer coach; that is teachers are aided to teach teachers. Les met me in Hong Kong and he was very impressed with all that the Kilvemnon students are working on. Ms. O' Connell told me that he really likes my jumper! Here you can see me giving my thoughts on the subject of collaboration.



We know all about collaboration in Kilvemnon. Collaboration basically means working together and I know that all of you love being part of the Kilvemnon team that help each other in school. You have also collaborated when we work with other schools on different projects. Remember how you worked so hard to help Volkschule Uttendorf, Shoscombe Primary in Bath and Gurranaesig in Cork to learn about the area of Mullinahone? They also hepled us and we learned their own songs, dances, poetry and the history of their areas. Now that's what I call collaboration!! Click here to learn more about our project.

Here you can see some of our friends working on a 'silent chat' about collaboration. Remember this is where you create a mind map of your ideas as a group but you cannot talk.


These are the ideas our group came up with.


The second group had very similar ideas on what makes collaboration work. I like the colour in this one!!




On my way out I spotted this in the hall. I had to take a picture for all you wrestling fans in Kilvemnon. It is the WWE wrestling belt. You'll have to explain the difference between WWE and WWF to myself and Ms. O' Connell when we get home. I know that Lynx and Smiley will know the answer to that one!!



We went to Paolo's Ristorante in Market Street in Reston. Here we are preparing to eat. I had a salad and Ms. O' Connell went for a fish dish. We will in bed early tonight as we are leaving the hotel at 7.30am tomorrow!!

We will travel to the NECC Conference. Click here to to learn more about it. From 7.00pm tp 9.00pm tomorrow evening myself and Ms. O' Connell will talk about 'Flying High: Exploring Aviation',your project from last year. We have to set up our posters for this session. We can't wait to tell everyone about all of your good work and also to learn new ideas for the classroom from other teachers and educators.

Goodnight from Piggley!!

Piggley's Adventure in Washington: Friday the 26th of June 2009

Hello boys and girls, I'm off on my travels again!

This time Microsoft have invited me out to Washington to take part in the NECC (The National Education and Computing Conference.)

I left Dublin with Ms. O' Connell at 12.30pm on Friday the 26th of June on Aer Lingus Flight EI119. We flew in an Airbus A330 called the St. Colmcille.


Here you can see me on the plane relaxing and listening to music.



Ms. O' Connell lent me her sunglasses so I could get some shut eye.



We arrived in Washington at 3.30pm (local time). Who knows what the time difference is between Ireland and Washington?

We are staying at the Sheraton Reston which is on 11810 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston. That's in the state of Virginia.
Here you can see me taking a well earned break after my long flight!





We met all of the other teachers that won at the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum in Hong Kong. They were all asking for you in Kilvemnon.

I went to bed early last night as we have an early start in the morning . We are visitng the local Microsoft offices at 8.30am on Saturday morning. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone there.



Stay tuned for more updates and don't forget to email me!!
Oink!
Piggley.

Oak Lake Manitoba

When I was in Hong Kong I met Mrs. Caldwell from Oak Lake School in Manitoba, in Canada. She teaches a kindergarten class there. After meeting me and learning about the blog I was keeping she thought that her students might like to have their own mascot. Read what they wrote below.



After attending the Worldwide Microsoft Innovative Teachers' Forum in Hong Kong last week, I was inspired to create a blog for my Kindergarten class. The Kilvemnon School blog and Piggley were the inspiration for this project. My Kindergarten students and I viewed their blog, and they were very excited to get our own class mascot and have our mascot write about his adventures on our own blog.

Today we made a graph on the Smart Board in an effort to decide on our mascot. We narrowed it down to Canadian animals such as a moose, chipmunk, beaver, buffalo, and wolf.

After we purchase our mascot, our first task will be to learn how to use the digital camera. My students are only five years old, and many have not used a camera independently. Once we are able to use the digital camera, we will take turns taking our mascot home and photographing his activities. As a class we will upload the pictures to our blog and write about the mascot's visit to a student's home.

Isn't that brilliant?! We hope that our students can keep in contact through myself, Piggley and Barkley Beaver! Check out Barkley below!



Log on to Oak Lake's Blog to find out more!!
See you soon,
Piggley. Oink!!

Microsoft and Helicopter Visit School

Click on the Posts link on the bottom right corner of the Player. Click on Helicopter Visit to hear a podcast about the visit of the Garda Air Support Unit and Captain Phillip O' Brien who came to visit us from Baldonnell.


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Yesterday Microsoft came to our school. But first at 9:30 2 guards called Sergeant Paul Duggan and Sergeant Tom Mansfield arrived. They showed us videos and told us about the radar and the gadgets that are in the helicopter. We saw different videos from car chases and people running from the police at night. They told us about the Garda Air Force and we asked them lots of questions. Then they showed us pictures of helicopters and at about 10:30 we heard a helicopter. I was on the camera and I took the camera off the tripod and everyone lined up outside in the hall. Ms O' Connell told us to stay on the school side of the wire that a helicopter was going to land in the pitch. The helicopter circled the school a few times and then hovered over the pitch before landing It was very loud and the rotor blades made the place very windy. It was raining and they took a long time to turn off the helicopter. Then Captain Philip O' Brien the driver of the helicopter came out with Carmel and the dog trainer with his English Springer Spaniel Deas. Captain O' Brien introduced us to everyone and then we went down to the helicopter. We split into 2 groups. 1 group stayed at the helicopter and the other group went to look at Deas the dog. Then we went for lunch and after lunch Captain O' Brien gave a speech about the history of flight. He then had to leave because it was raining and with too much rain the helicopter could get grounded.It only took them 35 minutes to come here from Baldonnell. Before they left they brought Ms O' Connell on a spin in the helicopter and we got even closer to the helicopter and it was even more windier. We had to go back inside and wait until Ms O' Connell came back and we got Roses sweets from Mrs. Brett and when they we about to land we went out again. Then they left after that.

Then we did our presentation that we have been practising for ages. We went up when we had too and everyone talked about their pieces. Mary Healy {Captain Philip O' Brien's cousin} Siobhan Moore from Microsoft, Cathal O' Connell{NCTE}, Deirdre Butler from Tech Net and St. Patricks Drumcondra and Fr. Mcgrath was here when we were doing our speech. Captain O' Brien, Carmel, the dog trainer sand the dog Deas weren't there because they had left before it. Mary Healy also made chocolate chip muffins for us aswell. Thanks Mary!!

At the end of the day we played games and sixth class got footballs from Cathal because we won't be here next year and that was probably the last time we will see him. Microsoft's Siobhan Moore also gave us a goodie bag with pens, PC mouse mats, calculators, highlighter pens and mints. Today {Thursday 19 June} we will be looking at some of the footage that we took yesterday. We had a really good and exciting day yesterday.
By: Danan.

Yesterday on 18th of June it was the best day of the eight years I was in school so far .At the start of the day there were Guards in our classroom to congratulate us for our Microsoft award. They were called Sergeant Tom and Sergeant Paul. They weren’t normal guards, they were helicopter guards and they rescue people aswell as arrest people. G**** was terrified that he would be arrested. Garda Paul was showing us ideos of car chases, motorbike chases and much more. Some of the videos were very dangerous like a motorbike crash and a video of a fight. We could see a video from a helicopter looking at a man during the night and it was pitch black but with the thermal imaging you can see a black shape moving and it is the person on the run, you can see the black because of his body heat. After a while at 11 O’ clock Miss O’ Connell brought us outside for a surprise and a Garda helicopter landed in the football pitch, the wind from the rotor blades is unreal, it makes you take a few steps back. Captain Philip and Carmel who is the navigator showed us all the controls of the helicopter and then to our surprise a small dog called Deas that was a Springer Spaniel(a sniffer dog)came out of the helicopter and got a lot of attention from everyone, mostly the girls! Now it was breaktime and everyone went and got their lunch and went into the shed and were talking about the helicopter . After break we went into our classroom and Philip started talking to us about helicopters and flight. He showed us a powerpoint of pictures of planes and helicopters that look unusual. Philip, Carmel, Deas and the dog trainer were leaving, but first they took Miss O’ Connell up for a spin and we got to closer to the helicopter for take-off and the amount of grass that flew back into our faces was horrible but the wind was lovely. The helicopter flew for around five minutes and it came back down to ground. They took off for real then to go back to Baldonnel and we all waved them off.

It was now time for our own presentation. ***** introduced us and I was first and I talked about the Wright Brothers and showed my LEGO model to everyone. In the audience were Sergeant Paul Duggan and Tom Mansfield, Siobhan Moore from Microsoft, Cathal O’ Connell(NCTE) and Deirde Butler(Teach net St. Patricks Drumcondra), Father McGrath and Mary Healy. The teachers and the junior room were looking too. Siobhan Moore made a presentation to mark our achievement as the best school in Europe, she also gave every student pens, calculators, highlighters and mints. Garda Paul put the handcuffs on ***** and the bulletproof vest . Cathal gave everyone in sixth class a football because it was probably the last time he would ever see us. As I said before it was the best day ever.
By: The Red Baron.

Visit from Microsoft Ireland

On Wednesday the academic program manager of Microsoft Ireland Dr. Kevin Marshall, will be coming to our school to give us our prize for the Microsoft Innovative teacher forum.Dr. Deirde Butler of St.Patricks College will be coming also. She set up the Empowering minds in Ireland,this is the group that co-ordinate the LEGO project in Ireland. We have invited our old friend Cathal of the NCTE to come down to celebrate our win.

Today a few of us, including me will be staying in school until six o' clock to prepare for the day. Nine hours is a long time to be in school but I'm sure it will be worth it. Everyone will be talking about something that happened in school this year. I will be talking about the research we have done on the Wright brothers and the model of the 1903 flyer that I made out of LEGO. You will hear all about Wednesday soon enough.
By:THE RED BARON