Quick Comment

Janetta Tupara from Te Wharau school has sent in a quick comment to Jade Smith the schools Project Champion.
" I am really glad I joined the computer class and I can not wait until graduation. Thank you for giving me the chance to learn more about computers"

Thanks for the comment Janetta and thanks for your work Jade.

CIH Rejuvenation Afternoons

Tena koutou katoa

Merry Christmas!

Starting at the beginning of next term (term 1 2008) we will be holding at your school a series of what we call "Computers in Homes Rejuvenation " days.
If you have had your computer for at least 6months we want you to participate.

This is where we organise an afternoon/early evening day at your school to give your computer a warrant of fitness - so to speak. The WOF will be a way where we can have Kris and the gang from Awapuni Computers check over your computer for problems and make sure all over the hardware is working properly.

During this ime we will also ask you to complete a brief survey to see how the project has worked for you and your whanau.

We will provide nibbles, lucky whanau prize and computer use advice.
It will take about 60 minutes at a time that best suits you on the day.

Computers in Homes and your school will contact you some time in 2008 for your rejuvenation day.

Ivan

Awapuni School Graduation - Ka mau te wehi!

AWESOME - was the graduation that was held at Awapuni School recently with a massive 53 whanau taking their computers home.
It was a fantastic night with big thanks to Catherine Birt, Cheyl Torrie and the Awapun team for staging just a choice night. Thanks to supporters fr0m the Gisborne District Council, Deputy Mayor Nona Aston, and Douglas Birt.
But most of all, a big congratulations to all of you who went through the training and came out so positive about the experience.
Thanks for the Pics!!

Great Comments from a Great Trainer

Viv Bell (pictured in the middle) has completed another whanau training group, this time at Te Wharau School. Viv has been a fantastic asset to our project and has now helped out at three schools.

Comments from Viv on her just concluded group:

The Te Wharau group was enthusiastic and hard working.I thoroughly

enjoyed the challenge of keeping them pumping along. They covered emails

weekly, word processing, report writing, powerpoint presentation, excel,

CD-roms, net safety, practical troubleshooting, internet search engines,

links , cutting and pasting pictures and photos, use of USB flashdrive

and safe removal, rules for use of computer in the home. Every session

was related to their school age child and what teachers might do with

them in the classroom.

Thanks Viv for all of your hard work.

Community Partnership Fund - Gisborne Launch

Awapuni school was the site for the official launch of the round 2 "Community Partnership Fund" successful projects.
Computers in Homes was once again successful in a number of bids throughout the country.
Gisborne Rural, East Coast and Wairoa schools were amongst the biggest winners.
Citizens Advice Bureau was also a big recipient and took an active part in the project launch celebrations.

The Gisborne Herald was on hand to file the following report.

Te Hapara School Graduation

Te Hapara School had a great graduation ceremony at the end of term 3 for all of their Computers in Homes whanau.

The evening started off with a BBQ as we all shared a kai. It was a great opportunity for me to get to meet some of the participants.

David Langford was present to congratulate whanau and hand out completion certificates and their computer packages were all presented.

A big thanks to all of the staff and trainers at Te Hapara who made this project such a success.

Plus a huge thanks to Katrina Dekker for acting as the school Project Champion.

A selection of graduation photos below along with some PodCasts comments from parents involved.

Awapuni School - Massive

Awapuni School have started training for their their project roll out next term.
they have had a fantastic response and we are looking at 50 plus whanau graduating from Awapuni.

It was great to see so many faces at the whanau introduction hui a couple of weeks ago. Everyone was so positive at the hui and some whanau have both parents wanting to attend the training sessions.

Thanks to the staff led by Catherine Birt and Cheryl Torrie who where there helping out and encouraging whanau along the way.

Also thanks to the trainers during this massive roll out:
Viv Bell
Taina Leach
Caroline Butland
Kris Gunawardana
Naveed Khan

Tino pai Awapuni mo to tautoko o te kaupap nei.

Kaiti School Training

Thanks to Viv Bell our trainer at Kaiti school for taking a daytime class.
Kaiti school has been hard at it training for the last six weeks and will be looking forward to their graduation at 10.00am on Thursday 20th September.

Viv is pictured with a couple of parents who have been attending the daytime classes.

Rural Bid Success

Yahoo!

We have been successful in a second round bid to Government to extend the project to 150 Gisborne rural whanau through 10 Gisborne rural schools over 2 years. This is fantastic news for our region.

Te Runanga o Ngati Porou through their E Tipu E Rea education partnership has also been successful in an East Coast project for 250 whanau through East Coast schools. Ka mau te wehi!

But wait there's more.
Wairoa District Council has also been granted funding for 250 whanau through Wairoa schools.

Te Tairawhiti is right at the forefront of whanau - school technology initiatives.

New Schools Start Project

Te Hapara and Kaiti schools are kicking off their training sessions this week.
Thanks to the schools project champion and trainers for making it happen within your kura.
Ka pai koutou!

Will keep you all informed of their happenings.

Elgin - St mary's - Makaraka

Elgin, St Mary's and Makaraka Schools have recently graduated.

All graduation evenings were a choice event with a combined total of 41 whanau graduating in the three schools.

I will tender my apologies now for having major technical hitches with my digital camera and losing photos from your graduation evenings. I do have a video below from St Mary's and Makaraka to make up for the loss of some neat photos. If any of you managed to take some photos I would love to have a copy. Once again my humble apologies.
I have also managed to save all of the audio files from the Elgin graduation thanks to those parents who spoke to me.

Raina.mp3

Kelly.mp3

Wainui Beach School Graduation

Thanks to all of the participants who attended the graduation ceremony.