tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73184104208913948482024-03-05T17:07:45.828+13:00Confession of a TeacherLishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-71390650871795538362015-09-24T10:16:00.000+12:002015-09-24T10:16:31.788+12:00The Mind Lab/Post Graduate Course<b id="docs-internal-guid-4c4a3ebb-fc43-9807-de7c-86d1695103e2" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Check each week media files check homework tasks.</span>Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-91882461316710600072015-03-25T18:33:00.000+13:002015-09-24T13:02:49.574+12:00Welcome to the beginning of my Reflective Journal.Welcome to the beginning of my reflective journal for the Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) at The Mindlab by Unitech (2015)<br />
These entries are a record of my learnings, notes, and findings. I will be reflecting on these and how this course has changed my teaching practice.<br />
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Confessions of a Teachers. Sounds a bit naughty to me. Not sure what I was thinking when I first started this blog way back in January 2009.<br />
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A lot has changed since then.<br />
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I have celebrated my 20th year in the teaching profession since then. I joined a group of friends from those days teaching in Mangere and we celebrated with food, and conversation.<br />
I remember those days teaching in Mangere with fondness and horror.<br />
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How could I let a child and parents threaten me and physically hit me? Gosh how times have changed! A court case would have ensued if it had happened in this time but back in those days it was restorative care.<br />
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I have been in a position of management, changed the platform from P.C to Apple in one school, ICT lead teacher, P.E specialist, Maori mentor, sports coordinator, classroom teacher, and reliever.<br />
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I have had the opportunity to present at various ULearns, South Cluster and Eastnet Cluster networking seminars. I have throughly enjoyed my teaching career.<br />
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After 20 years though, I found that I needed something else....<br />
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I have been teaching at Elm Park School for quite some time I started off as a reliever, and then was asked to open a new entrant class in Term 3. Thus began my journey here. I taught Y1 and 2, then moved to Y4, then on to Y5 and this year a job shared position in a Y6 class. <br />
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I have often thought about how I go about teaching my students. If I sit down and really think about this, I can honestly say that over the years my approach to teaching students has changed. I am sure my approach will continue to change as well.<br />
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With a colleague we were given an amazing opportunity to begin a MLE (with 25 students) using two different areas as our learning environment. We were also lucky enough to be able to teach one week in class and one week as a P.E specialist and my colleague as a music specialist. This gave me some flexibility with my personal time. Because of this extra time I have decided to enrol in the Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) at The Mindlab by Unitech (2015).<br />
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I am looking forward to the year ahead and being able to reflect on my learnings.<br />
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References<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Elm Park School. (2015). Retrieved September 23, 2015, from Elm Park School:</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><a href="http://www.elmpark.school.nz/">http://www.elmpark.school.nz/</a></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The Mindlab by Unitec. (2015). Postgrad studies. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from The Mindlab by Unitec: <a href="http://themindlab.com/postgrad-studies/">http://themindlab.com/postgrad-studies/</a></span>Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-66049982185419173612012-11-30T09:38:00.000+13:002015-09-24T10:00:21.858+12:00Another year passed<br />
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Another very busy year.<br />
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Moving from Y4 to Y5 was great for the students who were with me the previous year. As there was already a relationship there, we were able to get straight into the learning from the beginning of the year.<br />
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I did find being 'removed' from the team hard. I found that I was left out of many team situations, meetings, group gatherings. This was because we were downstairs and in another part of the school.<br />
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Next year I am taking of the responsibility of Sports Coordinator for the school. This means that I will have release to take the GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) programme with the Y5 and Y6 students. I will also be in charge of the school sports programme as well as begin responsible for all the HPPA Sporting events.<br />
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<iframe height="560" src="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OxJkXdOnY1pNAEz32GsB9A2UHPOFgzbD_pJ7S6CL9kc/pub?embedded=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<br />Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-13589350229834251152012-03-23T18:34:00.000+13:002015-09-23T18:40:06.053+12:00A whole year later!Its been a year since I posted last!<br />
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2011 was a difficult year for me. Enough said!<br />
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And now we are through the beginning of the new year. What a new year it has been.<br />
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New team, new class, same kids. I have moved from Y4 to Y5, Room 12 to Room 28 and have kept most of my 2011 students.<br />
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The rest of my Y5 team are in a completely different building to me so I am interested to see how the dynamics go with being so <i>far </i>away from the rest of the Y5 classes.<br />
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Its been busy again at the beginning of the year. This year I am looking forward to moving more into the senior sector of the school and being part of a <i>team. </i><br />
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<br />Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-7954119092797690172010-12-08T10:36:00.000+13:002015-09-23T18:23:12.438+12:00End of 20 102010! Our post code, and the end of a great year.<br />
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ULearn, Eastnet Cluster days, ICT Lead teacher, classroom teacher, wife and mother!<br />
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BUSY, BUSY, BUSY year.<br />
You can probably tell this by the great span of time that goes in between each post. <br />
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Prioritising my time has been key this year. <br />
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My class have been amazing. They have put up with different relievers at random times and been great.<br />
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Next year is going to be another new challenge. WATCH THIS SPACE.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-73626718331385418212010-10-07T09:19:00.004+13:002010-10-07T10:08:30.902+13:00uLearn10:33rd day. Although it is only day 2 of the conference. Sitting in a really uncomfortable seat in the Christchurch Convention Centre listening to <a href="http://www.laneclark-ideasys.com/index_new.htm">Lane Clark</a>.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMHbwgsOSF4h8QDOjzPvPMkZIOGhrFOfvTtI1BkhDgsECpCUlRVRI9-NuJaPNow0V2lLmwd1iX0kg2IQKfP-nHEUQQSBA_rC9Cylxg1B2EnCWFjHMstc8mkjfQ72WwH1PxRkZc1rVCL8/s1600/IMG_4076.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMHbwgsOSF4h8QDOjzPvPMkZIOGhrFOfvTtI1BkhDgsECpCUlRVRI9-NuJaPNow0V2lLmwd1iX0kg2IQKfP-nHEUQQSBA_rC9Cylxg1B2EnCWFjHMstc8mkjfQ72WwH1PxRkZc1rVCL8/s320/IMG_4076.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525041749014456850" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Workshop 3 today is with Stuart Hale. OSX The new Cat - making it Purrr.<br />I am hoping to share some of my new found skills with collegues at work. If I miss anything Im sure Veronica will have my back!<br />Workshop 4 today is with Mark Buckland. 37 free tools on the net. Sounds interesting. Wonder if he is going to share the 4 tools that we are presenting about tomorrow?? Hmmmmm!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-10551491898047681812010-10-06T15:02:00.005+13:002010-10-07T09:58:05.415+13:00uLearn10:2Breakout 1 was a bit of a disappointment. I guess not getting any wireless didnt help either. Time went by so fast. Only used 2 of the 7ish apps that I downloaded so will have to have a tutu with the apps in my own time. Used Strip Design, Instant Poetry and a piano app. Strip Design is a bit like Comic Life. I was hoping to learn how to put my design online but we didnt get to that as the network kept dropping off. So I emailed it from my iPhone to my laptop and here it is.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Bw5FPWxE1QA4FzKX2L71qGrVh5aPg6mxUxcizsiJZeBz0KkxXYuUq8ptBkFTCM484JRPaDl1_8i0XcXNlAlTwr6daGEy5X8jxCn9Gu-Qitgr8KiJogFP-nLs3Uwl25x_vcYxbmcFE-U/s1600/StripDesigner_Strip_1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 247px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Bw5FPWxE1QA4FzKX2L71qGrVh5aPg6mxUxcizsiJZeBz0KkxXYuUq8ptBkFTCM484JRPaDl1_8i0XcXNlAlTwr6daGEy5X8jxCn9Gu-Qitgr8KiJogFP-nLs3Uwl25x_vcYxbmcFE-U/s320/StripDesigner_Strip_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525036778354713394" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Instant Poetry is a bit like the magnetic poetry that you get for your fridge. You type out a whole lot of individual words (give a time limit) based on a topic. Our topic was ANZAC. So here it is.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAjBriBCR9RStsdXyYMCq9ejnb3WDvnP4vvMY7u_6LJtRLf4OAjnBJNSSFsvLkAQztyOg_YTDcjyBIVr4yv3-yi-XlfKFaVb20OHzWzAj62JFNP6tgdbq3VkCXYqIgni_kY61lwqjWa0U/s1600/poem.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAjBriBCR9RStsdXyYMCq9ejnb3WDvnP4vvMY7u_6LJtRLf4OAjnBJNSSFsvLkAQztyOg_YTDcjyBIVr4yv3-yi-XlfKFaVb20OHzWzAj62JFNP6tgdbq3VkCXYqIgni_kY61lwqjWa0U/s320/poem.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525039285342981666" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Googlefest was cool. There is so much more out there! Dorothy was ever the professional. Presenting in an art room and every time you moved in your seat it scraped along the ground and made an awful noise. The discussion and collabarative discussion that was going on was great. <a href="http://sites.google.com/a/ptengland.school.nz/googlefest/home">Googlefest</a>.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-24896141985926078052010-10-06T09:26:00.002+13:002010-10-06T09:50:43.263+13:00uLearn10:1Here we go again. 10 years ago I was sitting in the same spot having the same feelings about presenting. This time I got a jar of chutney instead of a coffee cup. Nice to see the thank you gifts haven't changed that much!<br />Yesterday a very interesting day of digital citizenship with Tessa Gray. Was aked to write down 3 'wonderings' that I had and that I may like to get some support with during the day. <br />1. Strategies for teaching digital citizenship to teachers, students, parents<br />2. Resources for teaching - parents, teachers, students<br />3. Safe blogging etiquite.<br />After unpacking each wondering I realised that this was not going to happen overnight but it will happen.<br />Lots of work personally for me in this huge area.<br />Today I am looking forward to workshop 1 with Megan Iemma. <br />Looking at apps for the iPod touch, iPad or iPhone which are applicable for a variey of subject areas using animation, comic tools, voice recording, blogging, picture editing, using sharing tools (whiteboard) and then sharing it to the computer/web all without cables!<br />VERY EXCITED about this!<br />2nd workshop for the day is with Dorothy looking at using g-docs!<br />Dorothy always does an amazing job so I am looking forward to once again taping into the knowledge that she hasLishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-61438619020682805652010-05-19T11:57:00.002+12:002010-05-19T12:00:13.724+12:00Action ResearchMy Action Research has finally started!!! It has taken my 14 weeks to clear the fog and now I can finally see where this blog is going to. I started my class <a href="http://room12eps.blogspot.com">blog</a> to show how we can incorporate e-Learning tools into our literacy program. I hope that we will be able to show this through our blog.<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";" lang="EN-US"></span><!--EndFragment-->Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-53995854849941794062010-05-05T20:03:00.002+12:002010-05-05T20:35:17.207+12:00eastNet cluster Lead teacher day.Another big day today. Starting off with our old favourite Donut. Spoke to M about Mathletics. Her school has just started using Mathletics and she was wondering how she could use it more in her y2 class. Suggested a whole class activity similar to what I do. Using the data projector I load Mathletics and we play 'Live'. I use the wireless keyboard and mouse and have a 'driver' who uses the keyboard. The rest of the class then have to yell out the answers. My class love this activity. She thought this would be great but she would be the driver for now. spoke to L about her blog and how she felt as though she needed to get something uploaded about the camp which her senior class has just been on. She used Movie maker but found that she did a lot of the work. Asked me what I use in my classroom to make movies using images. I suggested using either slide.com or animoto. L has never used animoto and she was very interested in this. Then spoke to L about who to effectively use the computers in a y3 class. L's senior teacher has come up with this idea of allocating 1 computer to a table and setting tasks. The children have a week to complete these tasks (for e-ports) and at other times when the computers are not in use she is beginning to use them in her literacy and numeracy program. This is great as this senior teacher was not very confident in using the equipment in class. Hopefully T keeps up with this idea.<br />We then put all these ideas of how we are using e-Learning onto <a href="http://www.scribblar.com/rooms/index.cfm?r=k3kmscu">scribblar</a>. Some great ideas here.<br />We then discussed our Action Research! (that is all I am going to say on that topic!)<br />uLearn was next on the agenda. My big dilemma was if I was to present what would it be??? I had been thinking about this quite a bit and had not come up with any WOW ideas!! It was great to talk to L, V and B about different ideas on what we could possible do. SO . . . we have kind of got some ideas on what to do. Now we just need some time to get this organised. Along with the Cluster Expo!<br />The exciting part was getting to play on B's new iPad! WOW how cool!!!<br />I still think that I would prefer to use iPod touches in my classroom but I so want an iPad for ME!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-86157993367557797122010-03-09T14:29:00.002+13:002010-03-09T14:51:25.044+13:00eastnet Lead Teachers Metting 1Started off this morning with a round of sharing experiences of L@S. 3 Lead teachers went and all shared positive experiences of their time in Rotorua.<br />We then moved onto a discussion about Action Research. As a team we (EPS Lead Teachers) have decided that we are going to work collabratively on "Incorporating e-Learning tools into a Literacy Program". Watch this space for more!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-49276118378090417852010-02-28T19:46:00.002+13:002010-02-28T19:55:26.634+13:003 days off to do my own eLearning! a$$$Woop Woop I thought. 3 days release. Imagine what things I could do in this time. Spend more than 30 mins with the digikids, maybe re-design our Y4 home page, go visit a couple of schools. . . ohh the possibilities!! The reality . . . spend 3 days visiting lots of classes to get most of them started on their ePortfolios!<br />Most teachers had at least STARTED updating their ePorts and were updating them to the set requirements. But there were some who must have been at the staff meeting only in body as their minds must have been off dreaming because Im not sure what they were doing!<br />It was good to go and visit the classes and see what they had been up to and to see the huge imporvements in confidence and abitily with the teachers.<br />I am glad though, that it is over and now I can sit back and concentrate on my own classes needs for now.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-75032117550169436032010-02-17T16:27:00.002+13:002010-02-17T16:41:06.928+13:00The beginning!!Well it is week 3 and I am back into the swing of things. It took my body of couple of weeks to realise that there was no nana naps in the afternoon or snack food when ever I wanted!!<br />My class is interesting. I forget that you have to go back to the beginning and start all over again. I had one parent come in after day 2 and ask me if I was going to be grumpy all year! lol. I said "No not all year. Just until they remember what my expectations are in class!" Ha and I thought I was being nice!! WAIT till they see me really GRUMPY!<br />We started of this year (day 1) with reflections. I have set one of my homework note books up as a reflective journal. Each day (at the moment) the children have to write a reflection on what they enjoyed today, what they have learned today, and how they felt about this new learning. Most of the children got the language right after 3 days. Some children as always needed that extra support. Now that most of the class are able to do this we have moved onto writing a reflection, what are the next steps with our learning and what are two possible success indicators. I know that I will have to continually go over this with the children but hopefull it will make e-Portfolio reflections a lot more meaningful!<br />Today was the first of some release.<br />I worked with the Y4, Y5 & Y6 DigiKids. <br />We went over our Archives page, was this linked, did it have a table on the page and were our 2009 photos on it. We worked together on how to do all of this and the children went away feeling confident that they would be able to hlep their peers with this.<br />30 minutes went so fast!!!<br />Hopefully the Y6 children are going to come back with some ideas on what they want to cover during DigiKids time.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-6902615213875558842009-12-11T11:15:00.002+13:002009-12-11T11:23:04.037+13:00The End is NearWell 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.<br />I am looking forward to working with 2 other great I.C.T Lead teachers next year to further develop eLearning in our school.<br />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!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-35757570387671997182009-10-30T15:19:00.002+13:002009-10-30T15:25:18.147+13:00ReflectionsNo 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!<br />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.<br />Goal for myself next year: spend quite a bit of time on reflective writing and next steps!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-58534686412503639132009-10-27T15:09:00.003+13:002009-10-27T15:24:41.819+13:00Cluster ShareLast 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.<br />This is the first time that I had ever worked with wiki's and I found it quite easy.<br />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.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-77171988650817701122009-09-18T15:30:00.002+12:002009-09-18T15:38:04.089+12:001 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 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz31qzhswO0">McDonald's</a> Pasifika style! NICE!<br />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!<br />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! <br />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.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-71014912417643942642009-08-26T14:42:00.002+12:002009-08-26T15:11:19.636+12:00eastNet Cluster meeting.My head is swimming!!! So much to take in.<br />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!<br />Presentation Zen. Might just have to borrow the book off you!<br />It was good to be able to discuss ideas with the team for our afternoon share.<br />Digistore was ok. Still need to sit down and have a go!<span style=""></span> <!--EndFragment-->Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-56357652856488000452009-08-21T15:19:00.002+12:002009-08-21T15:27:14.290+12:00Half 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! <br />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. <br />eastNet Cluster day next week so I will update blog then!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-74997669928042783082009-07-28T17:26:00.002+12:002009-07-28T17:41:03.496+12:00Busy BusyWell 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.<br />Final presenter was Suzie. Again an inspirational speaker. A lot of points to ponder.<br />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. <br />So it has been very busy and we are only into week 2!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-80327265364326683662009-06-26T15:38:00.002+12:002009-06-26T16:20:48.558+12:00Liking iCalYes it worked again. Lucky it did because I was just packing up to leave.<br />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. <br /><br />We used 2 different programs to make slide shows of our art photos.<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Using the camera.<br /><br />We have 2 class photographers. Each child in the class needed to have a photo taken to upload to their ‘Artist Profile’<br />The photographers then imported them into iPhoto for the class to use.<br /><br />Wallwisher<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/term2art">topic</a> and the children had to add notes to the topic of art.<br /><br />Pages<br />The children used pages to complete their ‘Artist Profiles’<br /><br />KnowledgeNet<br />Children were updating their profiles on their e-portfolio.<br /><br />I was very proud of my children who really showed off their skills.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-87195043457175632372009-06-12T15:16:00.002+12:002009-06-12T15:30:03.533+12:00IT 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.<br />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!<br /><br />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.<br />I am going to show my team how to use Wallwisher. Hopefully it will be a success like vocaroo!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-5194945386830309722009-06-10T14:24:00.002+12:002009-06-10T14:40:52.758+12:00EastNet Lead Teacher P.DLook at me!!! 2 post in a week! (Only because we have to make a post today) haha.<br />Had a great day today looking at different Web2 tools. Have been using <a href="http://www.wallwisher.com/build">WallWisher</a> 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.<br />Looked at a lot of different Wikis and got lots of information. There was a lot of reading in some of them.<br />Still find Lenva's wiki very helpful. <a href="http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/">Cool Tools for School</a> is very helpful to find a variety of Web2 tools.<br />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!Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-85588110626204971502009-06-09T13:44:00.004+12:002009-06-09T15:12:02.766+12:00ArrrghWell 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. <br />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. <a href="http://www.vocaroo.com">Vocaroo</a> and <a href="http://www.slide.com">Slide.com</a> 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.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7318410420891394848.post-84116339067356866572009-03-11T19:10:00.003+13:002009-03-11T19:22:08.302+13:00More 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.Lishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07850815047197178069noreply@blogger.com3