Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Stepping UP Graduation in September

Well we have acheived our final graduation for Term 3 of this year, with the presentation of ten more Stepping UP participants. This group have gone well beyond the required four steps, with most of them completing the full sixteen steps. It was great to celebrate with such a dedicated group of people. We even had a mother and daughter team, who completed the course together. Celine had to accompany her mum Karen to the classes as she had noone to watch her. They asked if they could both participate and sixteen weeks later both received their certificates together. What a great example of family learning alongside each other. Check out the photos and see how pleased they are with themselves. Stepping UP Graduation September 2012 on PhotoPeach

Carisbrook Celebrate at Their CiH Graduation

Well we got to do it all over again last night. We celebrated with seven more families graduating from their Computers in Homes classes. This school is very supportive of our programme, very much in large to their forward thinking Principal Ben Sincock. He has hosted many classes through this school and continues to try and reach all his school families who remain digitally disconnected. We had a number of very excited children who were chomping at the bit to get their new machines home and take them for a test run and were extremely disappointed when invited to share a light supper. After all if you were eight and had to select an asparagus roll or a computer, what would you pick? Well done to all graduates and to the new members who are ready to take on the challenge of Stepping UP tonight. Carisbrook Graduation September 2012 on PhotoPeach

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Graduations Begin Again in Dunedin

Well its that time of the term again to celebrate the acheivements of another school of people. Last night was no different with the graduation of ten families from Queens High School. However this one was a little out of the norm with all the graduating families having the opportunity to be some of the first families in New Zealand to have access to an Ultra Fast Broadband connection. This is a vision of The Digital Office in Dunedin, who want to see an affordable, reliable connection for all families to the UFB cabling. It has been discussed and planned for the past year or so. Principal Julie Anderson was brave enough to put her hand up and give her school families this chance. Meetings were held and problems solved and with help of numerous companies and individuals it has finally come to fruition with all ten families due to get their connections live next week. We did need to get some families up to speed with the hardware, and some digital knowledge and this all started eight weeks ago when they signed up for a CiH course. They have been a very dedicated and committed pair of classes. All participants were very happy to receive their machines last night and are eagerly awaiting their Internet. Once more thanks to the CiH tutors Liz & Tony Hayward and Rebecca South who gave their classes the confidence to take on this project. To Julie thanks for opening your school to the community and we look forward to undertaking one more class here next term. We were honoured by one participant Dan speaking on the groups behalf, and I can only endorse his views on just how amazing it was to see the school community joining together at the school for the betterment of their families. How true are those words. Queens Graduation September 2012 on PhotoPeach