Hellooooo

Hi I'm Sharon and I'm lucky enough to be spending some time during my Microsoft Innovative Teachers scholarship this year working alongside the efellows at CORE education.  My MINTS project with CORE involves me working in conjunction with Weta Workshop to develop the Knight School website for students and teachers, that is a spin off from the highly successful animated television series 'Jane and the Dragon.'

The focus of the partnership between Weta Productions and CORE Education has been the development of a website, Knight School, that is a platform for creative participation by students in New Zealand. Regular educational activities are provided for schools, groups of students, and individual students, with an Animation Competition, the major competition for the first school term of 2008, now underway.

The ongoing development of the website is focused on maximising student participation, providing educational opportunities for all age groups, but with a primary focus on school-aged children. The website supports literary based projects, with CORE educators designing and promoting competitions and activities around the New Zealand curriculum.

A key objective is to provide a range of opportunities for the submission of user produced material, based on stimulating educational activities. The website is being developed as a starting point for classroom based learning opportunities, such as the composition and recording of music appropriate to the middle ages, or the creation of animations based on story-based scenarios. It is also developing as a repository of user-generated resources such as story submissions, recipes for Pepper, Jester jokes, fashion for various characters, and cartoon strips.