LI: To use our smart searching skills to help us explore the Ancient Olympic games

LI: To work collaboratively in groups as an active participant and contributor

Did you know that the Olympics dates back to over a thousand years ago? For the 2024 Olympics we learnt about the ancient Olympics. We had to answer questions about the ancient Olympics, and we got our information source from different websites and videos.  We found out that the Olympics started in 776BC and that it was originally a religious festival to honour the Greek God Zeus. Women were not allowed to participate in the ancient Olympics like they are today, but because of this the women made a similar event called the Heraen games. We compared the ancient Olympics, and the Heraen games by using a venn diagram. While we did all of this,  we collaborated with our group and made sure  that everybody was included, we did this by communicating and sharing our ideas and opinions with our group.

I enjoyed doing this activity because I find interest in the Olympics and history.

For the Olympics we made a presentation about the modern Olympics. First we had to find a partner, then we had to find another pair and that was how we made our group. After that we answered questions by reading info texts and watching videos that could help us answer the questions. We also made DLO’s about certain athletes that fought well, and athletes with good sportsmanship, we also learnt about the Olympics motto, and values, we added things like how the Olympics have evolved over the decades and a controversy that happened in the history of the Olympics.

Paris hosted the 2024 Olympics, we found out that they spent over 10B+ euros to host the Olympics, they used this money to build new stadiums, villages, and to clean the Seine. We also saw the stadiums and villages of the past Olympics. We noticed that most of them were  abandoned shortly after the Olympics. We looked at reasons why it was a good idea for Paris to host the Olympics, and we also looked at reasons why it was a bad idea for Paris to host the Olympics. We learnt about everything that Paris struggles with today, we found out that Paris struggles with homelessness, cleanliness, and the high crime rates. We then thought about what they could have done with the money, then after that, we formed  our own opinion in partners, and we thought of what other people would think about the topic.   

What was the big message?

Today, LS1 and LS2 were paid a visit from the team of Google Education(Caro, Teyha, Simon, Steve). We were given an introduction and we got to learn a bit about them, we also got to learn about their positions and how they are associated with Google. These Google creators had roles, Teyha’s role was a Digital strategy- ads for business, how to help businesses grow. Caro’s role was Lead Google Business in NZ – Google, YouTube etc to NZ from govt to digital creators and schools. Simon’s was a NZ business to break into markets – 80 staff in NZ – technology focus and how you could use it. We asked the Google team many questions, which were all answered and taught us a lot more about Google. The Google team also gave us advice to help us in the future and how we could work at Google if we wanted to.

Google got its name from a misspelt “Googol” and the number followed by 100 zero. And also the colours we got from legos. Google translate language base created by mapping word similarities that caused confusion, manual mapping uses AI now. Comparisons are now made and aligned across the large number of texts, and the different languages and pronunciation actually used real humans.

The Google team told us about large language models/LLM and its database that reads information that we feed it so that it will be able to answer our questions. LLM doesn’t just really look at a photo of a cat and is able to identify a cat, it takes a bunch of information about what is being asked so it will be able to inform us about our questions. Example: if someone reads every single book in the library they would be able to give you a bunch of different information about questions you asked.

As I said in the beginning, the Google team gave us pieces of advice that could help in the future and tips to get to their level as we get older. The words of advice that stood out to me was from Tehya, she told us that if we are doing a job, make sure you are doing it 110%, because people remember you for doing a good job.

Overall, I think the big message was them telling us how lucky we are to have the internet and technology today. Thank you Google.

LI: Understand how culture connects with your name

Our class created our own Taniwha names. We made this by making our own Taniwha’s and we had to somehow fit our names on or around our Taniwha. My Taniwha is green becuase the mythical creature is mostly coloured at the colour green, I gave my Taniwha a tongue becuase it is doing the pukana, and as you can see, I managed to fit my name in.

I found this activity fun becuase I enjoy digital art.

Our class went on a trip to the AUT Milennium. We did activities that involved healthy food choices, rock climbing, and water safety. After we did this trip we made animations or a DLO about water safety. Me and my group chose to make an animation about water safety. We learnt many skills on how to be safer on water we practice many things like huddle doggy paddling, and floating backwards. We put these water skills  into our animation, we also explained many things in our animation, like how to use a life jacket, and water safety tips. I think that our animation can help many people  and it could cause less tradgedies in the water if everybody learns about water safety.

I think this  activity was fun because I feel more confident when in water.

We went on a trip to the Howick Historical village. We were all separated into 3 groups and we looked around the village. There were 2 instructors who helped us do activities like butter churning, and trolley building, which were 2 activities commonly done in the 1800s. We also had a tour, we saw how differently the homes and locations looked in the past compared to the present day.

I really liked this trip because I enjoy learning about history .

For inquiry our class is currently learning about catapults. We learnt about the history of catapuls, there are 4 types of catapults that we learnt about; Onager, Ballista, Trebuchet, and Mangonel. We found out how they are different and how they were used.

I liked this activity because before this lesson I thought that a catapult was just a toy, I found out the history behind them, how they were used, and what their original purpose was.

LI: To explore sentence structure

Today, room 6 came to our class. We got to partner up with a person in room 6. Once we had our partner or group of  3 our teacher taught us about the different types of sentences: Compound, simple, and complex.  We learnt about these types of sentences and we had our younger partner come up with a compound sentence, a simple sentence, and a complex sentence, once we had a sentence written we went around and showed others our sentences. After we did all of this, we helped room 6 make a DLO explaining sentences and how 3 of them all have a different context.

I found this activity fun because I found my partner’s sentences interesting, I also liked collaborating with the room 6 students and I thought their ideas were creative.

At the beginning of the year, our teacher took our pictures. We recently took these pictures of us and we put them on a Google draw. Then tracing them and making self portraits of ourselfs digitally. We tried to make it look like us by finding and matching the many different shades on our faces, hair, and uniform. I personally used a colour finder as it helped me match my skin shade, my hair shade, and I found the colour of my uniform. I did this by adding my photo on the website, I got to move my mouse around the picture and if I wanted to find the colour of something, I would click on it then I would copy the HEX code link and add it on the colour editor on Google drawings. This made things much easier for me and I would recommend it if you were to do the same thing as our class.

I found this activity fun because I enjoyed expirimenting and I got to help my friends.