Friday, December 11, 2009

The End is Near

Well it has been a very busy, challengening and event filled year! I have truly enjoyed working with like-minded educators in the eastNet Cluster. I have learnt so many new things and have been able to take a lot of new ideas back to my classroom.
I am looking forward to working with 2 other great I.C.T Lead teachers next year to further develop eLearning in our school.
Now with the holidays approaching and the sun shining I am at a bit of a cross roads. My laptop has to go back for repairs and I am wondering if I am going to be lost without it or rather enjoy not having it. At least I will have an authentic excuse as to why I will have done no school work during the holidays!

Friday, October 30, 2009

Reflections

No not the kind you see in the mirror! I have spent quite a bit of time with the children who have not been making reflections on their goals for their ePort Folios the last couple of weeks. It made me realise that I didn't do a very good job at the beginnng of the year because these children didn't know how to write reflections!
We sat down and had a lot of discussion about what we could write. Using the templates that we got from AS the children were able to write what they had done but they were still having difficulity with what NEXT! More discussion and trying to get them to relate it back to their initial goal was a mission. But some children have got it and now hopefully there will be a ripple effect in my room.
Goal for myself next year: spend quite a bit of time on reflective writing and next steps!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Cluster Share

Last week we had our eastNet Cluster share afternoon. This was a chance for all 5 school to get up and show off the work that the amazing teachers and children have been doing. Lead Teachers at Elm Park were asked to show case the work that we have been doing. We decided on making a wiki where each team would have a page to upload examples of work. When I asked my team if they had any work that they would like to share they all looked at me with complete shock. I think they were a little bit apprehensive about putting their work up for display. In the end I just went and looked at their e-Port folios and took some work that their children had done.
This is the first time that I had ever worked with wiki's and I found it quite easy.
I was totally blown away by what schools had shared. It was great to see the journey that school were on. It was very exciting to see principal's also excitied about what their staff were doing.

Friday, September 18, 2009

1 to go!

I'm going to start off with a nice little song that I just can't seem to get out of my head! How to order McDonald's Pasifika style! NICE!
I am on the downward run! These last 2 weeks seem to have dragged on! I think because we had our rugby finals on a Tuesday the rest of the week seemed to take forever. After the last 2 very busy days we have had, I am quite looking forward to a nice cold drink!
We have some teachers from Tawa visiting this week. Had different groups showing keynote, slide.com, flickr, mathletics and wordle. Kids really enjoyed doing the various activities. The trouble was getting them off to begin literacy activities!
My lovely little JC is now gaining more confidence in loggin onto the computer. She now remembers where her username and password are hidden in my draw and when it is her turn, she is able to find it and log in. She is doing really well at Mathletics (although she needs to have a lot of the questions read to her!) Hope she remembers all this after spending 3 weeks in Malaysia.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

eastNet Cluster meeting.

My head is swimming!!! So much to take in.
We started off by completing a PinWheel. (Belinda, you need to put all of these onto our wiki so we can start using them in class.) The topic of the conversation was 1 Web2 tool or new idea that is being used in class. Picturetrail.com is one that I need to look at. Very similar to slide.com apparently. Peer Coaching was interesting. Very similar to Peer Mediation process. Found it difficult to discuss a scenario using the handout. We decided to put the handout down and use our initiative!
Presentation Zen. Might just have to borrow the book off you!
It was good to be able to discuss ideas with the team for our afternoon share.
Digistore was ok. Still need to sit down and have a go!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Half way there!

Look at that! The last time I updated my blog was Week 2! Yes my iCal alarm is stil working but I have been on holiday!!! Sitting in the pool drinking cocktails in Fiji! And now I'm back at work and its too cold to show off my tan! While we were in Fiji we managed to Skype our classes. Aaron wanted to show off in the swimming pool to his friends. But we had very bad lines and was not able to go on video!
My class are all up to date with their goals on their ePortfolios! Each child has done their literacy and their numeracy! I have started to post comments and am going to try and get more completed this weekend.
eastNet Cluster day next week so I will update blog then!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Busy Busy

Well it has been a very busy time at work. During the holidays we had out eastNet Cluster expo. It was on Thursday but help set up onWednesday. I didnt realise what a huge job BJ had on her hands. I'm glad that I was able to help. Im sure that if it were not for the helpers BJ would have been at school until late at night on Wednesday. In saying that she was at school very bright and early on Thursday morning. VA and I got there just before 7 and BJ was already there getting things orgainsed. Key note speaker was great. Rachel is always an inspiring presenter. It is amazing was she accomplishes with her littles ones and with the amount (or lack there of) of ICT she has in her room. Every time I listen to her I have all these great ideas of what to do in my room. Workshop 1 was Converting Assembly songs into Karaoke movies. I knew there had to be a way but my way was just very long and way too painful. Rochelle made it look so simple and it was! Thanks for making my assembly like a little less painful. Workshop 2 was Raenette and I. Skype to Singapore. This went off without a hitch. I hope people got something useful from this. I know of one DP who went straight to our Tech and said "I need Skype!" Workshop 3 was VoiceThread. Interesting Web2 tool. Presenters were great even when the technology failed them they carried on like pros. Well done to Kylee and Amy.
Final presenter was Suzie. Again an inspirational speaker. A lot of points to ponder.
Week 1 at school saw visitors from another school. One of the visitors was on the Apple bus tour and was so impressed with what she saw she brought back more of her staff to show case our work. Again my children where great. Just a pity that we had a clash of times with the Life Ed Caravan.
So it has been very busy and we are only into week 2!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Liking iCal

Yes it worked again. Lucky it did because I was just packing up to leave.
Last week we had 14 teachers from various school come to our school on the RED Bus Tour. As a lead teacher there was no escaping a visit. I decided not to totally change my plan as I was behind with my art work. (Art exhibition on, thats another story!) What I did was to base ICT activities around my art unit.

We used 2 different programs to make slide shows of our art photos.

Key Note - There were children working on 2 laptops. This was a relatively new program for them. There was 1 expert who assisted the children. (I worked with this child and showed him some basics of KeyNote the day before.)

Slide.com - This is a Web2.0 tool. My class have been using this for quite some time practicing making slides. On this day they maked a slide and uploaded it to their e-portfolio.

Using the camera.

We have 2 class photographers. Each child in the class needed to have a photo taken to upload to their ‘Artist Profile’
The photographers then imported them into iPhoto for the class to use.

Wallwisher

This is another Web2.0 tool. The class have used this on different occasions. It is a site where children can go to to add notes about a given topic. I set the topic and the children had to add notes to the topic of art.

Pages
The children used pages to complete their ‘Artist Profiles’

KnowledgeNet
Children were updating their profiles on their e-portfolio.

I was very proud of my children who really showed off their skills.

Friday, June 12, 2009

IT WORKED!!!

I was wondering what the ringing was on my laptop!!! Then I got it. BLOG BLOG BLOG! It works. My timer went off to remind me to make a post.
Wednesday afternoon during our team meeting I showed my team how effective vocaroo could be when making reflections in e-portfolios. I was totally blown away by how enthusiastic my whole team was. One particular team member was so excited that she requested my support during my e-learning release! I will need to fit her in asap as I dont offten get to work with her class. One of the classes in my team started using Vocaroo today!! The children had a few teething problems but after 5 minutes they were away! I am so proud of this teacher! At the beginning of the year she was terrified at using ict in her room!

This morning I set up a new wall using wallwisher. The question that was posted was "What do you like about School?" I showed 3 boys how to make a note and they were off. It took the class about 15 mins for everyone to make a post. In the end we ended up with 39 posts. We then looked at the wall and discussed some points that we need to remember next time. We decided that the next time we made a wall we would put only our initials. We also said that we would explain our answers a bit more indepth and we would make sure that our spelling is all correct. The class were really excited about using WallWisher that they wanted me to make another wall then and there. I told them that I will have one set up for them on Monday.
I am going to show my team how to use Wallwisher. Hopefully it will be a success like vocaroo!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

EastNet Lead Teacher P.D

Look at me!!! 2 post in a week! (Only because we have to make a post today) haha.
Had a great day today looking at different Web2 tools. Have been using WallWisher today and see that it will be a great tool to use in my class. It is basically a tool that you can use to brainstorm ideas individually but then have a collaborative wall with other posts.
Looked at a lot of different Wikis and got lots of information. There was a lot of reading in some of them.
Still find Lenva's wiki very helpful. Cool Tools for School is very helpful to find a variety of Web2 tools.
Have now set iCal to beep at me every fortnight to remind me to post a comment to my Blog. Hopefully there will be another post this Friday!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Arrrgh

Well so much for my commitment to post on my blog fortnightly! By the time Friday arrives all I want to do is get my planning finished and head out the gates to begin my weekend.
We have had our first collaborative conferences at school using our e-portfolios. There was a lot of head aches and heart aches leading up to this point! In my block the AirPort service was not very good at the best of times. So I had the problems of children spending time making reflections or adding work to their e-portfolios only to find that when they went to save their work we had dropped off the network and all their work was lost! I had a few children who actually ended up in tears. :( I think we have managed to sort this problem out now as we have changed the location of the base station. Since this has happened we have had no problems. (Fingers crossed!) By the time the conferences came about the children and I were all very nervous and hoping that we were all up to date and that the conferences would run smoothly. The parents were all amazed at their childs e-portfolio. I know that some of my parents were very nervous to see the amout of ICT savvy their children have. The children ran their conferences. They showed their parents their e-portfolios and I was there to make comments about the feed back that I had posted on their goals. It was great to see some parents who were very unsure about e-portfolio take delight in the fact that the children were leading the show. I have been showing the children some Web 2 tools. Vocaroo and Slide.com seem to be the hits at the moment. Vocoaroo means the boys dont have to type their reflections they can record and do it so easily. The girls are loving slide.com. It will be great when we have finished our art photos and they can put this up onto their e-portfolio.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

More testing!

Well I actually thought I had finished. hooray! but no! I have found that there is a big difference between P.M and Probe so I am having to go back and retest children at a lower level using Probe. (but that is another story) . My idea of voice recording quickly changed to video recording and giving the responsibility (and excitment) to the children. This is coming along rquite nicely. A couple of children in my class picked up the recording, downloading and saving to the server quite quickly so they have become the "experts" in my room. It is nice to get children from the year below who have some ICT savy and are not shy to explore. By the end of the term I am hoping to have 95% of my class capable in using the digital camera to take video and then importing it and saving it to the server. My next step in this journey is to upload the children's video into their e-portfolios for their parents to see and hear. Will update this later.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Finshed! The End! C U lata folks!

All I can say is im not sure how i ended up the front during our little "jig" What was that about???? My last break out was on digital photography. Nothing really new that wowed me but it did remind me of some of the things I used to do and have forgotten.
Was looking forward to hearing Wes speak and he did not let me down. It was great to listen to him and twitter with new twits. Am at home now and I can hear my bed calling me so am off to see if my bed needs a cuddle.

L@S dinner

I am so glad that I had the most entertaining/interesting company at our table. The dinner had seen better days so I was very happy with the company. We had Waimokoia and some Botany Downs staff at our table. I "networked" amongst various tables and even managed to get some business cards! (not sure how that happened and now not sure who was who!) The band was great playing some old favourites although they did stuff up ABBA's WaterLoo song so Belinda thought. I am now home and bugger me on my blog at 12.47am thinking either I am smart not going out because I have to drive back to Auckland 2morrow or really old, borning and crusty coz I am at home?? You decide!!! (Please no comments regarding this) lol

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Day 2 L@S

As always Pam Hook was an outstanding presenter. She managed to get the word "tits and nipples" into her Keynote. A lot of interesting points were made which can be seen on the wiki.

Ian Fox and Lenva Shearing shared their e-Portfolios from Bucklands Beach Intermediate. Some awesome examples of what chn have produced! I'm sure that with practice our school e-Portfolios can be as exciting and as informative and what I saw today. It was interesting the amount of discussion that went on with pros and cons. Lenva shares some great sites on her wiki.

Learning@Schools

Expectations were running high after attending ULearn 08 so was looking forward to Rotorua. My first breakout was great. Podcasting with Steven Doyle. He knows his stuff! He went a bit fast for the people that were not used to using iWork but was very helpful. Picked up some great tips for recording in GarageBand. I was really looking forward to my next breakout about Solo. Was disappointed that the session was more on a life journey rather than on Solo. 3rd Breakout was Literacy through photography. Anne was a first time presenter and she did a great job. She reminded me just what a powerfull tool the digital camera can be.!!! I think I am going to change my idea of recording my children doing their reading to getting them to video each other and then uploading the video to their e-Portfolio. Am now sitting here waiting for Pam Hook to speak who we spent a whole day intensive course wtih her.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Testing . . . Testing . . . Testing . . .

Well it's week 4 of Term 1 and the buzz word is testing testing testing. I have completed my asTTle reading and maths, Whew! Next up was Numeracy Gloss testing. It makes a huge difference when the children come up from the previous year with the stages that they are at. So the Gloss didn't take very long. P.M and Probes were next on my agenda! I had this brilliant idea (I think shooting myself in the foot is going to be less painful) I thought I would record the chn reading onto garageband and then upload their reading onto their e-portfolio. Great in theory! It has taken me nearly a week to complete 5 records! I found that using the in built microphone was just not cutting it so I went and borrowed the school lapel microphone. Once the children got over the excitment of their voices being recorded and of wearing a microphone we were away. Now i just need to complete these and then upload them to their e-portfolio pages. I am hoping to do this again at the end of the year so the children and the parents have a record of the improvements being made in literacy. If you see me limping its because i have thrown the towel in and have shoot myself in the foot! :)

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Welcome

Please excuse all spelling and grammatical errors.  My thoughts are faster than my fingers and my fingers can only type so fast.  I am only human!!


Kia ora,

My name is Lis and it seems as though I have been in school ALL my life!!  To be honest I kind of have.  I left school at 16, went straight to Auckland College of Education for 3 years and then straight into a classroom.  It has been a 'hell of a ride'.  I have been punched, kicked, spat at, sworn at and spewed on!  AND I still love my job!

I started my love of teaching in Mangere in a decile 1 school.  Although it was a hard beginning to teaching I was often told if I could make it there I would have no problems in teaching.
I loved it!  I was 20 and in a full time position.  I ended up staying at that school for 8 years!

I moved from Mangere to Otara where I taught secondary P.E.  During this time I had my first son and was very lucky to be able to take him to school with me.  I remember getting to school with a new baby and boys from my class (who were all in gangs) were waiting to help with the pram and baby bags.

I then made another move from Otara to Clendon.  Three areas three low decile schools.  I spent another 8 years at this school.  During this time I changed the school technological platform from PC to Mac.  A huge time in this school which set me on my path of e-Learning.
During this time I gave birth to our second son and my husband and I made a shift from South Auckland to East Auckland.  It was during during maternity leave that I began doing some relieving at my current school.

This blog is a bit of diary into my "teaching life."

It is for me to look back on and reflect on the path that I have taken.  The corners I take and the UTurns I make.