eLearning 4 Life

World Book Day

2012-03-01T00:37:00.000-08:00

What is the book that you remember most from your childhood? What books do you recall your parents reading to you? What are the books of your teens? What books were you *encouraged* to read at high school? Here is my not-yet-exhausted list in honour of World Book Day!

My childhood:
My mum used to read us all of the Golden Books. My favourite ones were 'The Naughty Little Kittens' and 'Skippy The Bush Kangaroo'. She also read us a book about being adopted (my sister and I both are) called 'Mr Fairweather and His Family'. That has always stuck with me as a childhood memory.
My own reading choices extended to The Secret Seven (Enid Blyton), The Three Investigators (Alfred Hitchcock) and Trixie Beldon. I was a right old tomboy so the 'girly' books were nowhere near my bookshelves! I loved reading all of the C.S Lewis 'Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe' books too.

The Teenage Years:
The Halfmen of O (Maurice Gee), The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton), The Catcher In The Rye (J.D Salinger) were all books we read for school. Some goodies too!

The Adult Years:
Gotta say, my reading is so broad and so varied I would struggle to pick favourites, but some authors who have really inspired me are: JK Rowling (sorry but I LOVE that boy wizard and his stories!) Tom Clancy (pretty much every book he has written, it's the tomboy in me!) How To Train Your Dragon (Cressida Cowell) - my class just LOVE this series! The 'Twilight' series (sorry folks, got addicted to these too!)

I read so much online now that I wonder how often I actually read a whole book undisturbed these days...not so much! But I also wonder...if we ask our own children in ten year's time what THEIR favourite books/stories are from their childhood, will their memories be vastly different to ours? Will they celebrate World BOOK Day or will it become World READING Day?

The 2 C's

2012-02-29T23:28:00.001-08:00

Today we had our second class trip of the week...well, the second trip for me anyway! With a composite class, it means that our education outside the classroom is over 2 days with 2 different trips for the different year levels.

The focus for our learning was the 2 c's - communication and collaboration. We did activities that allowed opportunities for both and it was amazing to see them rise to the occasion. Even at this young age, leaders begin to shine through, children who are less confident become more obvious, and the group that works together best is always most successful!

Raft building, team games and camp cooking were the measure of the day. Each time, the children outdid themselves, overcoming their own fears, personal limitations and rising to the occasion. Their behaviour was exemplary, leading to comments as such from the outdoor education teachers. They made great choices, were considerate of one another, supported each other when someone was less confident, encouraged others in their teams and much more.

When we consider taking our classes out of the school to experience things such as outdoor education, there is so much more to consider than how many parents you need to take with you, risks involved, health and safety, buses to book, dates to organise and notices to send home. What we have to think about more than all of that, is the fact that there is a lot of learning to be done in outdoor education - there are many positives to the experience and it in an adventure that they will never forget.

As a teacher, I have spent quality time getting to know my class over the past 2 days. The relationship has changed and developed again, with the children gaining trust in me that cannot happen as easily or quickly in the 4 walls of a classroom. Their relationships with each other have changed and developed too - again, something that would often take the whole year to achieve. This is just one of the many benefits of working over 2 days in the close confines of a challenge and a series of new and exciting experiences.

Education Outside The Classroom

2012-02-29T01:07:00.000-08:00

We spent an awesome day out of the classroom today. Our class trip was to a leisure centre, purpose built for outdoor education. The children were excited, slightly nervous and downright anxious in some cases. Our challenge - to try something new, to try something that may be outside their comfort zone.'

The first part of the day was a walk to the bush where they were asked to work in teams to build a bush shelter or bivouac. They had to gather materials from around them and had some ropes and a piece of tarpaulin to use. There was some great teamwork, and a few over-eager parents who joined in a bit too much at time, but we got there in the end! They created a range of shelters and then went around and gave each other feedback on their shelters.

From there we headed of to rock-climbing. In most cases the children had experienced this before and were generally fairly confident. It is always amazing to see the children who are daring and leap up as fast as they can to try something new. In contrast, there are usually a handful of the reluctant - the children who have never learned to dare, be adventurous or even try the totally unknown.

We had lunch and a short break before embarking on our archery session and the session in the pool for kayaking. The kids just loved the day - so many new things to try and so many moments to overcome their fears and JUST DO IT!

When we got back to school the opinion was unanimous - a wonderful day filled with great memories and plenty of A-HA moments too! You cannot put a price on a day like this. A day where every child has a new and wonderful memory of an outdoor education gained through fun activities!

Getting It RIGHT

2012-02-27T00:25:00.001-08:00

After my disastrous start to last year, which one has to put down to over-eagerness and over-excitement wrapped into one, I have finally managed to get the year started (this time around) in a much better way!
No rushing in for me this time. No crashing head-first into the unknown and assuming it was known. Oh no, not this time.

THIS time I have taken it one step at a time, assumed nothing, missed nothing, planned for every eventuation (yeah right!), plotted a simple pathway of learning based on the known, and put the start of the year together bit by bit. THIS year, I have had a bundle of experts on tap - the 'known-nine' I call them - and I have utilised their skills and expertise to build the culture of learning in our classroom. THIS year, I am being patient, waiting for the growing to take place REGARDLESS of what I THINK I know, regardless of what I have hoped for. THIS year, I am letting it all happen at THEIR pace, not at my break-neck speed.

THIS year, I am getting it right! The devices have their place in our classroom but it's about the Key Competencies and building their learning through these first and foremost. THIS year, it is about the learning NOT the outcomes. THIS year is the year I am finally allowing each step to be driven by the children and the direction to be steered by their curiosity.

THIS year is exciting and amazing already. THIS year...well, who knows what will happen THIS year?!

Where TO From Here...?

2012-02-25T18:22:00.000-08:00

Speaking to some close friends who work in the private school sector today, they were trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade me to apply for a job in their school. We have danced this dance many, many times over the years, but I am still so utterly, disgustingly, nauseatingly HAPPY in my place of work, that to change would seem like 'fixing something that isn't broken' or looking for better when you already have the best.

Anyway, this led to a fascinating discussion about frustrations with change, leadership and reform. Not that I have anything to complain about since I am utterly blessed on all counts at my school! They were talking about their frustrations with forward thinking, children compressed into boxes, getting change to be the catalyst for reform, teaching as a part of learning but life being the reason to learn, and much more. We talked about the things that they wish they were seeing support with at their school and it really made me (a) count my blessings twice! and (b) wonder at how many other totally frustrated teachers are out there?!

In a bit of personal soul searching afterwards, I have come to realise that one of the main reasons I love where I work is that we have leadership who are not above us or ruling over us but are actually the wind beneath our wings. We have leadership who can't wait to see what we will do next - they audibly cheer at new ideas, happily go and fight for us to try new things, get the board of trustees behind every new innovation, drive us through their own passion and are the best sideline cheerleaders in the world! With leadership that believes in you, there is little a team can't achieve!

In opposition to that, my friends are both in an environment where rocking the boat is not a good plan, where sticking to the norm and the tried and trusted is the ONLY option, where people simply say yes or do as they always have because there is such misery and frustration at anything outside of that. When they ask me to apply for jobs there and tell me to file proposals etc. all I can see is my head, a brick wall and a lot of years of dire frustration. I do CHANGE. I DON'T do 'stuck in our ways'. Imagine how that would kill a young teacher's passion quickly?! And I am OLD! So it would be a much faster burn for me!

What do we have to do as educators then, to get these types of changes as 'the norm' instead of appearing to be new age, new stage, new phase, fly-by-night innovations that we will somehow 'get over' one day and go back to things 'the way they should be/have always been'?! Where do we go to from here? And how do we get other school leaders to realise once and for all, that learning does NOT only take place in schools - that learning is a lifetime adventure, as essential as breathing and growing?

A stronger, better, more resilient and blood-thirsty teacher will come along and make that happen for my friends' school one day. But it won't be me.

Maybe one day someone will come along and help them to realise that it isn't about fixing things but about starting over and creating new and better.

What's Changed?

2012-02-21T12:06:00.002-08:00

I was asked some pertinent questions recently about blogging which set me to reflecting about my journey with this - from the chalkface to the interface I guess.

Blogging is a platform for reflection for me, first and foremost. It is a means for plotting the journey that technology has taken me on, but even more than that, from the new (now well-worn) curriculum's beginnings, until now.

When we started to first look as a nation at 'authentic contexts for learning' I knew without a shadow of a doubt that in New Zealand we were finally on the right page in education. I believe that we finally have our learners at the centre of the learning, NOT a curriculum set in stone at the centre. I have often imagined (and if I were an artist I would've drawn) the sword in the stone scenario, where only the 'chosen one' can pull it out and use it. Education had become a lot like that 10-15 years ago - only the chosen ones who ticked all the boxes and jumped through the appropriately memorized hoops, could have the ultimate prize.

But now, as the years glide by since the introduction of the new (old) curriculum, we have schools where the walls have pushed back, the platforms for learning have not just expanded but out creativity has too. Our students have become the teachers and the teachers are firmly in place as the learners alongside them! Commonplace phrases heard in classrooms are, "I'm not sure, let's find out...what do you think?" which is the teachers speaking! Talk and chalk has given way to listen and learn, inquire and delve, dare and do. Self-management has superseded teacher direction, collaboration has usurped 'go and work silently', and thinking is now the highest prize for learning.

So why do I blog? Because this has been one journey that I would not have believed if I hadn't been able to record it and look back upon it. WOW is always on my lips and I talk about the WOW moments in our classroom all the time. The boundaries of possibility don't exist anymore - we are truly in an age where the only limits are the ones we set through fear or ignorance.

Carpe Diem

2012-02-18T01:34:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have made a powerful discovery about learning, particularly BOYS’ learning. You see, I have discovered that most boys have an ‘IT’. You know - a ‘something’ that they are into, driven by, passionate about and totally immersed in.

Now at the risk of this sounding extremely sexist, I would like to justify my cause by saying that girls talk about stuff, emotions, events, problems, solutions. Stuff. But boys seem to have an IT. They have to have something they love to do, to be able to talk about it. Girls are happy to talk about almost anything!

In our classroom last week, we had one of the boys bring his collection of rocks in. He is totally INTO rocks. He loves to look at them, describe them and find out all he can about them. It was therefore the perfect time for me to ‘carpe diem’ - seize the day. He and I set up a blog for him (he loves to write) and he started to take photos of the rocks and add details about them. This got the ball (or rock) rolling!

At our class campfire (meeting in a circle), we asked him questions and I began to notice some interest generating inside some other boys in the class. The following day, the iPod was quickly seized by the lads and the photos were quickly snapped, uploaded, downloaded and embedded on the blog. NOT by the original child, but by him and a group of the boys. SNAP! He had made new friends and was suddenly collaborating about the blog, how they could get access to more information about rocks and more.

Well, update as of yesterday, day 5 of the geology craze, and the wiki is revving up, they have found some great books in the library yesterday, set up a table with their growing collection and have now got the dyno-lite (microscope camera) set up for Monday so that they can check out the features of the rocks close-up.

My job now is to foster, nurture, plant and grow this passion in those learners. PHEW! Don’t you love curiosity and passion? The food of learning!

Building Relationships With Your Community

2012-02-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

One of the resources most useful yet poorly utilised is that of the local community. Sitting within the closest proximity is the broadest base of experts and practical guides - yet we often forget to tap into that wealth!

We grab books, we jump online, we strangle Google, we dive through Twitter and we drag out every photocopy we can find. We rifle through flipcharts, borrow DVDs and forget that human resources are the keystone to all that we know and learn.

Tick back thousands of years...the elders were treasured for the stories and histories that they talked of. Gathering around campfires, snuggled in caves, the people considered the greatest experts were those who told of the history of each clan or family. They were treasured by their communities. Even now, many cultures still value most the person who knows the most about their family or community's history and the stories from the past.

Let's remember to use the best resources we have - the families of our class children, the local elders, the experts who surround us and have the memories and knowledge to enhance the learning in our schools.

Building Relationships With Parents/Carers

2012-02-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

Teachers College gives our student teachers excellent advice about how to build relationships with our classes, but seems to give slim guidance on how to build relationships with staff, community and parents/carers. In reality, our relationships with our students is directly proportional at times to our relationships with those who know them best - their parents/carers. If we spend time establishing these relationships, we will allow ourselves the opportunity to get to know our students deeper and in a much richer sense - through the eyes of someone who knows them best.

So what advice would be best to give new teachers/student teachers about building relationships with parents?

Well, let's look at the 'typecast' parents we meet along the way - and remember that I, too, am a parent of school aged children so even I fall into one of these categories!

The OTT parent - sometimes known as panicus parentus - this is the parent who constantly calls the office worrying about their child not having enough morning tea to drink or forgetting to wear their hat at lunchtime.
The Intense Parent - also referred to as analus retenticus this parent is typically in the face of every teacher their child has, telling them about their dreadful health problems or issues with friends, and needs to e-mail 15x a day to let the teacher know about every event that may affect their child.
The Laid Back Parent - affectionately known as flatus parenticus - this is the parent who treats every event in their child's life as if it was a non-event. When their child is in any trouble, they blow it off as 'boys will be boys' or 'she does that at home too, never mind'...
The Disinterested Parent - named parenticus distancicus - this parent is the one whom we NEVER meet, in fact, we spend all year wondering if the child invented their parent!
The Balanced Parent - called parenticus realisticus - this parent is concerned when things go wrong but is generally realistic about it, supportive of the teacher and has the know-how to realise that most teachers are professionals who love kids, love learning and are genuinely interested in the best for their child.

There is certainly a mix of parents in every school and the majority are fabulously realistic people who well remember their years as a school child. They are passionate about their kids and truly want to support their child's teacher and school in helping their child to be the best that they possibly be. I am being extremely tongue-in-cheek when I type-cast parents - I actually spend all year building and growing my relationships with all of the parents in my class and can proudly say that I have taught many siblings over the years and had lots of happy - as well as some not-so-happy - professional relationships with the parents of the children at our school.

In terms of 'how to build relationships with parents', there are only a few wise ideas that I have to share.

favour honesty over ease - never take the easy way with neglecting to tell parents the whole story about their child. No future teacher wants to see shocked parents who never knew there was a problem. Honesty can be the hard blow to deliver but it is, without exception, always the right choice.
listen 90% of the time and ask questions the other 10% - it's pretty simple. Just do it. Parents feel valued and listened to when you listen. Let them be the ones to tell you things. Everyone is ready to hear when they have been listened to first.
create time to be available before and after school - parents get 2 opportunities to talk to you, relate to you and hear about how well you know their child - before school and after school. They are NOT an inconvenience and they are NOT only to be spoken to at interviews. If you have not met them and talked to them before you report to them, then you are not making yourself available as a teacher.
communicate in the methods of the time/area you teach in - if you are in a lower decile school where the internet is unavailable, find other ways to communicate. Get your class to write invitations, create posters for the windows or send interesting home-made brochures. If you are in a school where Facebook and Twitter are encouraged and used well by the staff and community, then use the language of the time and the methods of the time and communicate through these.
be open to what parents have to share about their children - parents, more than anything, want to know that you KNOW their child and that you VALUE them, the parents, as the experts on their children. Let them fill you with anecdotes and stories of the portrait of their child and you will be alive with the amazing knowledge of who these children are as people first and students next.

You will find that parents will be happy and positive if you are open to them - they are only wanting to know that the person who moulds their minds is actually aware of who lies within them.

What's A Treaty?

2012-02-07T00:46:00.000-08:00

Having celebrated Waitangi Day as a nation yesterday, I felt (as always) that there was a great deal of parallel learning to be gained from writing our own class treaty after it.

We talked through the big question: what is a treaty? Why would people need one? The class came up with 4 key ideas - a treaty is an agreement, a deal, it’s working together and it’s a promise.

The class then brainstormed what it would be key to include in our own class treaty. I explained that a treaty must focus on the positive side of things but also that it’s about agreed expectations rather than rules.

They decided that we should write a treaty that reflects our class as learners and teachers (the children) and us (my student teacher and I) as teachers AND learners too.

So our treaty looks a bit like this:

· We come to school to learn and concentrate
· We respect each other, our belongings and feelings
· We raise our hand to speak
· We use kind words and think before we speak
· We use our hands to help
· We use working voices

We have created a wall display depicting the treaty and how it looks in our classroom as we learn together.

What a great year we have ahead!

Visual Learners

2012-02-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

I learn by looking at pictures and sucking the juice out of pictures then combining them into words in my head and printing the words onto paper.

This is what one of my students wrote when asked to describe himself as a learner. Wow! What a powerful way to describe his learning!

Learning Spaces, Learning Styles

2012-02-03T11:25:00.001-08:00

So now that I have all of this information about my students and have started getting to know them, I have a responsibility to them as learners to use the information to inform the way that I teach them. I also need to use this information to inform the way I use spaces in the classroom, and that I ensure they have opportunities to work in spaces that suit their styles.

Already, they have started to drift to favourite areas to work - some of them are naturally drawn to the large, collaborative 'snake' table. This is laid out so that the children are constantly surrounded by lots of other learners, so they are interacting as they work quite naturally.

Others have headed to the 'quiet zone' - the children who are wired to work in a quieter or even solo environment. There were 6 children yesterday who kept heading back there to work, and they were certainly working quietly, although they were still interacting with one another.

As for my visual learners, I have made sure that I use icons on my boards and there are visual labels on book boxes and around the general classroom environment. That is something that I must ensure to do regularly.

My tactile bunch enjoyed creating using Lego yesterday. They had the challenge of working collaboratively to create a model of our classroom. There were two groups and they worked really well, although I think the resulting model looked more like something out of Star Wars than the classroom!

This week we are going to look at our multiple intelligences and use the colour wheel to explore whether we are more linguistic, athletic or so on. All of this helps me to gain a greater insight into how my students learn best and what their strengths are for me to draw on.

Another exciting week ahead!

So, how are YOU using and utilising spaces to support learning styles?

Day 1 - Learning Styles

2012-02-02T00:10:00.000-08:00

I was inspired by a series of tweet challenges (and blog post) that were bouncing around over the past few days and decided to take it up with my class. Being that they are 7 & 8 year olds, on their first day at school after the summer hols, it was to be a more of an oral adventure than a written one, as I needed them to articulate freely rather than being inhibited by the day-one-writing-blues!

We gathered around the campfire (class sharing circle) and verbalised the idea around the campfire theme. What we do around a campfire? Why do we have campfires when we camp? and so on. The ideas were great! Apart from the suggestion of marshmallows from my student teacher (which got us ALL giggling!) we had a great list of reasons for campfire time - we talk, we take turns, we tell stories, we tell about our histories and families around campfires etc.

From there, I embarked on the challenge - what is one thing I should know about them as a learner?

Deep? Challenging for them to articulate at that age?

Perhaps. But I had already planned my strategy for (hopefully!) getting this big question answered.

I talked about my own learning journey as a child at Primary School and how I wriggled and giggled. I talked to them about how I learn best by fiddling with objects (one of my students has a stress ball that he brings to the mat with him, so this instantly put him at ease). I gave examples of my own time at primary school where I loved to collaborate and talk and argue and lead. After my time of sharing, we tossed the ember (a small ball) to the next child (a volunteer) who shared his learning style.

The class were AMAZING. From talking about learning best with others to learning best alone, wanting to work in a quiet classroom, a busy classroom and a noisy classroom, to children explaining that they were tactile or visual, movers or still, happiest with computers/technology for communicating and so on. WOW. What a portrait of how different learners learn!

I now have the most incredible portrait of the range of learning styles in my classroom. As the year wears on, this knowledge is powerful in enabling me to make choices that allow the children to best be catered for as learners.

I dare you to try it! Share you OWN learning styles to your class, in kid-speak, and just see what they open up and share with you in return!

In Ten Hours

2012-02-01T01:35:00.000-08:00

In ten hours, my classroom will be bubbling and bursting with the cacophony of the first day excitement. The parents will be hovering and chatting nervously, still not quite assured of who this person is charged with leading their child through a year of learning.

In ten hours, I, the teacher in question, will be (also) nervously chatting, anxiously wondering what I have forgotten! After 23 years, there is still no recipe for confidence for me. There will be little rest tonight and I will toss and turn, making mental lists and reminders for myself until the alarm announces that the ten hours are almost past.

In ten hours, my class and I will begin the journey. Where we arrive, who knows? We only know that in just over 10 months, this day will be long forgotten by most of us, but hopefully the deep imprint from the learning with remain forever.

I can't wait. Ten hours to go...!

The Great Swimming Debate

2012-01-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

Suddenly, with a massively high number of drownings this summer, the press and many agencies have got on the band wagon for swimming and the responsibility of schools to teach all children to swim.

The primary school that I attended took us to swimming lessons once a year for a block of time, and it was then my parents' responsibility to teach me or take me to lessons. I have taught in schools with their own pools and schools without them. Wherever there was a school pool, we flogged the lessons for a short 6-8 weeks if you were lucky, one lesson every 2-3 days, too many children in the pool at one time to be effective or children sitting on the side waiting for you to stretch yourself 4 ways in the 30 minute sprint that was the session.

The schools who have pools struggle with the high costs of maintaining a piece of equipment which is only able to be fully utilised for a maximum of 3 months a year. They have the problem in many cases that the children who need to learn water safety the most urgently are the ones who don't bring togs or have parents who opt them out of the swimming.

As a parent, I have never left the responsibility to someone else. From the moment my kids were cleared to swim after their first vaccinations, they were water babies, dipping in and out of the pool in every season. Only ear infections or tummy bugs deterred us and we lived in the local pools during the winter and swam almost every day at the beach when the weather allowed in the summer. I paid for lessons from experts, even though I am a qualified swimming instructor. I wanted my children to be taught by professionals in a sequence that was considered correct for their age and stage. They did block lessons of 5x a week during the holidays, learning snorkelling skills and other water skills. They attended a school that took them to Waterwise and ensured that they experienced challenges in the water within the safe boundaries of a supported programme.

Do you imagine then, for one second, that I would ever consider the life of my child and their personal safety in the water to be the responsibility of their teacher or school?

The ONLY way to ensure that our children in New Zealand are safe in the water, as much as we can, is to look for ways to give access to swimming lessons to the children who are most at risk. The children whose parents cannot afford lessons. The children whose parents do not swim confidently themselves. Our local council gives every child in every local school free lessons - okay, it's only 8 lessons over 8 weeks, but this is a start. Our school community provides volunteers who go with our children to Waterwise for 4 days a year. We include water safety and water activities at our school camp. We take every child to swimming lessons at our local pool - again, our council has stepped up and bears the majority of the cost for this. Why? Because they see the lives of our children and their safety in the water as far more important than the cost of lessons. Our local pool is free which means everyone has free access to a safe place to swim and learn water confidence.

So here is my thinking - what if we simply stopped griping as a nation about the lack of pools in schools and the lack of help from teachers around the country, and actually put some pressure on all of the local councils to provide free lessons for every child? And how about getting some sponsorship for all children to have 4 days of Waterwise in Year 5 or 6? And what about all local pools being free so that families who cannot afford the cost of lessons have the chance to get their kids in the water, with no costs involved?

Biggest Staffroom In The World

2012-01-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

"Social media allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Social media is media for social interaction as a superset beyond social communication. Enabled by ubiquitously accessible and scalable communication techniques, social media has substantially changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate." (quote from Wikipedia)

So - if this is all available anywhere and at any time, why are there still so many teachers who haven't joined the biggest staffroom in the world?

Got a question about assessment/learning styles/class layout/student teachers/promotions etc. and want a frank, experienced or even fresh answer? Use social media! No need to look inside the 4 walls of your own school - step outside the walls and dive into social media to explore what others think, feel and know!

Quite honestly, I am blessed to teach with a large and incredibly inspiring staff and our staffroom is rich with conversation, challenge and discussions. But I also have a bigger staff in a staffroom without walls and they are my PLN - their opinions and ideas are thought-provoking, their advice is supportive, their experience adds up to decades (probably centuries collectively!) They collaborate naturally, think broadly and challenge deeply. They hold me accountable and also value my ideas and opinions.

Doesn't that sound like the perfect staffroom to you?!

The Things That I THINK I Want For This Year!

2012-01-24T01:55:00.000-08:00

This is doomed to be an epic failure.

Every year, I start with gusto, leap into a million projects and ideas and then, with every good intention in the world, I get all distracted and they fall by the way.

BUT NOT THIS YEAR.

This year, I am determined to iron out the past mistakes of old, learn from the failures and move into the school year one step ahead of myself. No promises or new year resolutions, no lists of things I have to do, but just a more realistic approach to the year ahead.

The things I WANT for this year are going be vastly different from what you discover has actually eventuated at the end of the year, but I am okay with that, really I am. I need to have goals, I need to dream and I need to have a purpose and design in my head, that's just the kind of the gal I am. But I am also blessed with a dreadful sense of discontent that plagues me continuously and means that there are so many holes in my ideas, that the kids control the momentum and direct the learning and I just allow the opportunities to shape themselves.

Notice I don't say PLAN although I do plenty of that. "The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry..." is a catch phrase that relates well to me and my teaching. I can make the most elaborate of plans and end the day smiling at the realisation that we ended up elsewhere!

So, the things that I THINK I want for this year have to be big, broad and generic. They have to encompass personal growth, change and challenges or else, why am I bothering?

To learn as much as I can from student teachers - let's be honest peeps, they are the freshest fruit in the basket and have plenty of rich, ripe ideas to steal!
To challenge anything that looks stale - okay, there is a food theme developing unwittingly here, but what I mean to say is that I am not going to just accept the norm or the directives without challenging HOW they will positively influence my teaching and learning.
To push every boundary and limitation in eLearning and tech - I want to give as many new things a try with my class, never be happy to rest back as if 'that is enough' but drive on in search of more to come.
To be as collaborative as I can be - my dream is to utilise the PLN I have to the fullest potential and I think that is only just starting to happen. How much more? Not sure, but willing to find out and explore!
To be able to see tangible change in my own practice - this is a constant and a given for me - if I am not constantly changing and adapting for my students and developing my personal learning, then I can never offer them the best of me.

Will 2012 end up looking like this? Who knows?! But the journey will certainly be fun - it always is with teaching and learning!

The Best Teacher Ever

2012-01-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

It's not about accolades. It isn't to do with notoriety or fame, acknowledgement of peers. It isn't to do with a well-known name or face. It has no connection to write-ups, books, articles or mentions. It isn't how many others can name you or talk about you. It has nothing to do with even being noticed within your own school or by your leaders.

It's not about being the best teacher in the school, town, city or nation. It's not about who votes or how many nominate you.

What is it judged by then? Who really can say that they are/were 'the best teacher ever'?

None or us and some of us and sometimes ALL of us.

How?

Because it's about 2 little words and a moment in time.

I remember.

It's about that moment in time when a person says - oh I remember when Ms. Smith made model ships with us and we journeyed across the classroom pretending to be sailors. I learnt all about the parts of a ship and it made me want to know more.

Oh I remember when we learning about Egyptians and Mr. Crowe helped us to make papier mache mummies and then we turned the classroom into an Egyptian tomb and spent 3 weeks pretending to live in Ancient Egypt with the Pharaohs.

I remember when my parents got divorced and my teacher was really kind to me and helped me to forget about the stuff going on at home by being busy with the stuff going on in school.

I remember when my teacher told me that I was going to be a doctor one day and then he helped me to find lots of interesting books about the things I was fascinated by about medicine.

I remember...

Two very simple words. But when you run into a past pupil you will hear them if you have got it right. They will not be able to resist recounting a wonderful moment in time that you were the reason for. They will have to tell you how you made a difference, how you impacted their life, how you changed something in them.

You may have to wait a while, perhaps a few years of teaching, but the words will come.

I remember...the BEST teacher ever...

Citizen Journalism Returns

2012-01-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist re-visiting this concept - the idea that we, as everyday people, can affect the way news is reported and more than that, WHAT news is reported.

The first tool we take to a gun fight now is our mobile device! In this report, the people watching did the only thing they could to avoid being hurt - from a carpark, they used the most powerful tools available to them: their phone and the internet. As a result, the people involved in this altercation have been caught and charged. If we need a better deterrent for future criminals, then I really don't think we need look much further than citizen journalism.

How else do you think citizen journalism could affect our future?

Cookie Cutter Approaches

2012-01-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

The first time I visited the States, over 20 years ago, as a keen young traveler, I remember being astounded by the tour we took around Sacramento, California. We viewed a whole load of homes that were called 'cookie cutter houses'. It was to be the first, but my no means the last, time that I would hear this phrase.

What concerned me, was how on earth people recognised their own homes when they returned every night? If every house looked the same from the outside, how would they ever remember where they lived without checking the street name and number on the box?

Education tends to front up with a rather 'cookie cutter' approach to how we teach and how students learn. At times, our curricula around the world see to be determined to pump out a bunch of identicals who walk, talk and regurgitate information in the same way every time. I picture the conveyor belt entering a primary school with a whole range of shaped and sized individuals and then the end of the belt spitting out replicated, identical, cookie-cut graduates. Is this REALLY what we want for our future bankers, doctors, journalists, truck drivers, nurses, teachers, retailers??? ONE way of thinking, ONE way of learning, ONE answer???

Rather than cutting each child from the same mould, I believe it is about a different image. Imagine a piece of playdough arriving at school on the first day. Each teacher shapes something slightly differently about the dough. Each piece of dough is affected differently by everything it comes in contact with. Some of the dough picks up dirt and rubbish on it, which is lovingly cleared from it. Some of the dough even seems almost perfect, but the flaws are used to help it re-shape and re-form. The dough picks up different colours and different shapes as it journeys through the system.

Now I do not want to call our students playdough or even clay but let's be honest - using a cookie cutter approach to students and their learning journey is NEVER going to work. You only need to look at multiple intelligences for 10 minutes to know we are all meant to be shaped differently because of our contribution to the world then being different. If we churned out a whole generation of doctors, who would man the lifeboats? Who would drive the tractors and produce the crops? We are all hard-wired differently - and it is an educator's response to those differences that helps to shape - not cookie-cut - the learners they meet.

Language Experience

2011-12-30T13:14:00.003-08:00

One of the most important aspects of language acquisition has to be experience. When I first began teaching, we would only do our written language based on language experiences - we would invent an experience for our class and would base our talking and writing on this. For example, my new entrant class were learning about prepositions, so I found the book called 'Rosie's Walk' by Pat Hutchins to use as our starting point. We read the story, talked about the prepositions in it and then went on Room 1's walk around the school. We practiced going 'under, over, through, around' and so on. We went around the different parts of the school, to familiarise ourselves with the parts of the school (since they were all new to school). This way, we were able to learn about prepositions but also able to apply them to real life - an experience that could be recalled and recounted. This then formed the basis for their own writing - "We went for a walk today and I went under the swings, over the rope bridge and around the library" and so on.

Something that we have moved away from a lot is this element of language experience. The older the children get, the less importance we seem to place on what the children know and have experienced as well as what they haven't.

Step back for a moment then and consider this: when I was at high school, I studied Art History and also Classical Studies. One of my teachers (art history) took us to art galleries and talked and talked, asked question after question and drove the learning with what we could see and experience. The other teacher (classics) opened text books and told us to read. He expected us to make links with words, not with experiences. I did ok in the exams I guess, well, I scraped through anyway with classics but I did really well with Art History. Why? It's simple. I had made connections to authentic learning experiences.

However, if I was to sit that exam now for Classical Studies, I can assure you the result would be very different. I have been to Pompeii now. I have roamed its streets, smelt its smells and heard its sounds. I have walked through the Acropolis ruins in Greece. I have run around the Colosseum and wandered around the Pantheon. I have been and seen all of the places that the text told me about.

Don't think that I am suggesting that we take every teenager to Rome and Greece for a quick pitstop before exams, but what I am suggesting is that we use the tools of our time to 'take' them there instead. We can use google maps and google earth to take virtual tours. There are a million websites to utilise that can provide them with experiences which they won't find in a book. Although reading is an incredibly powerful tool, we have to make a connection with ideas for it to last in our memory and for synthesis to occur.

So, back to the classrooms of today. I teach year 3 & 4 children, some of whom have dyslexia and some who struggle to make new connections. The BEST way to ensure that they are able to learn, at their own level and own speed, is to give them genuine learning experiences which they can then talk about, think about, ask about, read about and write about. Then, the extension of this can be to ask new questions about and to create new ideas from.

Let's Play!

2011-12-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

These holidays, I have set myself the task of getting back to the 'why' and 'how' stuff on teaching and learning. We have the theme next year of 'colour my world' and some of the considerations we have had to make are around the 'so what?' part of learning. This is about authentic learning journeys and doing things for a reason.

So, I have been researching the changes in children as they enter school at 5 in 2012 compared to children in the past 5, 10+ years. What has changed and why? What skills are new to these children and which ones from the past are missing?

What I have discovered so far is this: children may enter school having been exposed to more technological tools - even those who do not have access to computers at home, have been used to phone technology, computers in daycare, DVD/bluray players, gaming consols and more. They have a different range of digital experiences compared to even my own 2 children when they were 5 (they are both 10 and 12 now). So the technological and digital knowledge that my own kids had at the point of school entry is vastly different to that of a 5 year old today.

The constant, however, is this: children have a skill set needed for life REGARDLESS of the tools needed to deliver knowledge or to communicate.

As I write, my own kids are sprawled across the lounge floor, playing, building and talking with Lego and Littlest Pet Shop toys. There is an adventure playing out in front of me, fully narrated and debated, negotiated and enjoyed. What is the same as 5, 10+ even 100 years ago?

PLAY.

Play has its own set of rules - none. It has its own language and conventions. 'Play' levels the playing field - ANYONE can do it, any ages can combine, anything can be used. My 78 year old dad talks to the kids often about the old can that used to provide a day's entertainment. Kicking it all the way to and from school, at lunchtime kicking it with friends (no soccer ball for them) and then after school, at the local pier, diving for the can with mates. A tin can? Yes indeed! ANYTHING can be used to play with!

The most important things that happen when we play are the talking and listening, as well as the collaboration and sharing involved. The thinking and communicating occur naturally!

So how can we, as educators, ensure that this happens in our classrooms? That we build time for learning through play? What do we need to do differently so that all of the learning through play doesn't happen at morning tea and lunchtime?

My Favourite Learning Moments This Year

2011-12-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

I heard a wonderful rendition of 'One Day At A Time' sung yesterday and it reminded me that I have rushed through this year, looking forward to each day but perhaps missing some of the wonderful things that happen when we take things more slowly. As I reflected on the year throughout, it has been really powerful to return to some of my past posts where I had managed to learn the most personally or where the children had learnt a lot through (often) unplanned outcomes or 'carp et diem' - that 'seize the day' moment!

So, to round off the year of blogging, I would like to take the opportunity to chart my own journey through my own personal favourite 10 learning moments, recollected and reflected on in my blogposts:

January - the journey began, and what a journey it has been!

February - we planted the seeds of learning as the year in the classroom began...

March - this post had almost the most comments of all and it was such a wonderful moment in the classroom, one that you carry with you forever as a teacher :)

April - ePortfolios got a big lift in my class as we started that part of the journey!

May - the art of the 'fairy tale' - definitely my most hilarious moment in the office this year!

June/July - fragile self-esteems and the humble teacher. This has been the most visited blogpost all year...what does that tell us about how teachers often feel - vulnerable, inadequate, anxious and FRAGILE.

August/September - what an awesome mystery trip around Auckland we had! The iPods/iPhones and iPads got a right old workout and we had heaps of fun using QR codes!

October - my busiest blogging month with 27 posts, phew! SO, from uLearn to the rugby world cup and back again, I had to put the WHOLE MONTH here as my faves! I had a great month with the class and my personal learning was immense!

November - Flat Stanley has been a major part of our learning this year and 'going global', pushing the boundaries and becoming the 'class without walls'. It will all begin again next year!

December - reflecting on my top ten of the year!

And what a year it has been! I must admit, that when I re-read the January/February posts that I have written, a smirk sits on my face as I realise that the 'best laid plans of mice and men' (thanks Will Shakespeare) is the best way to describe my year! I believed things were going to go one way but they ducked and dived everywhere else! Leaving space for learning to occur in myself as well as in my students has been imperative. Allowing the learning to be driven by my students as the drivers and me the navigator. Making sure the pathways were authentic learning journeys. Constantly pushing the perameters and shoving the norms aside. Ignoring what seemed impossible and allowing the a-ha moments to shine through.

This, yes THIS has been an awesome year :)

A Letter Of Thanks

2011-12-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

This is my letter written to the staff of the wonderful school that has been the hallowed place of learning for my children for the past 7 and a half years:

It is an extremely bittersweet day for me today, as I farewell the last of my 2 children out of Point View and off to Intermediate.

Each one of you in some small or large part, have been a piece of the journey that my children have taken while at primary school. Some of you I have been privileged to have teach my children and they were truly fortunate to have each person who taught them. Others have simply been a part of the fabric of the wider school where they interacted and learnt alongside you.

From the principal, deputies, office staff, XO, team leaders, class teachers, librarian, IT guru, music teacher, ancillary staff, cleaners, teacher aides, learning assistants to the students, this is a great place to learn and you are all part of the old adage that 'it takes a community to raise a child'.

On behalf of my departing child, Abi, and our family, we wish to thank you all for making this place what it is - a wonderful, friendly, warm and caring environment where children come first and learning comes with the territory.

You are a great bunch to work with but I have had the amazing great fortune of leaving the formative years of educating my children in all of your capable hands.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Last Day

2011-12-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the last day of school for 2011. Outside, I can hear the happy voices of the children waiting for the bell to ring, for the final time this year, to welcome them back into our classroom. The day will fly by - it always does.

But for me, this year is different. This year, the farewells and last day moments are personal. For today, my association with my wonderful school ends for me as a parent. Today, I farewell my last, youngest child from this hallowed and happy place of learning. Today, I see the last of my 3 children graduate from primary school and enter a much greater time of independence.

No more post-It notes in my office at the end of lunchtime, lovely notes from my daughter who enjoys writing me little messages.

No more knowing everything that is going on in her life.

No more coming to school with mum and running back to my room at 3pm.

Perhaps this is a very good thing. Apart from the post-It notes, those I will REALLY miss!

It is time for the last one to fly off to intermediate and find her place in the world outside of the safe and warm place that is primary school.

And it is time for me to shed a few tears, laugh a lot and smile proudly. Not just for my daughter as she leaves but also for my lovely class as we farewell one another for the year. Bittersweet is the best way to describe it all, really.

Planting The Seeds

2011-12-14T00:32:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, our school decided to take a different tack with new classes. We had spent many years letting the children (and parents) stew all of January about which class they were in with which friends and which teacher. A week before school began, the lists were posted and the office staff fled the premises or locked the doors and ignored the banging from miserable parents or disgruntled families. We faced the onslaught on day one instead - parents coming to debate the placements of their children, unhappy faces and worried children. For most part, everyone was happy, but it was hard going for those who were not.

More often than not, it was lack of knowledge of the 'new' teacher. Or the fact that one child was in a class without their mates from last year. Or there could be a clash of personality or the fact that one child preferred to have a break from someone they had been with for years and didn't really get along with. All schools at some time or another, no matter what system they have used, have faced these issues.

I have worked in schools where we called out names on the first day of school, with all of the kids in the hall waiting to hear their name. This was great for the first class called, nerve-wracking for the last class and disastrous for the children left sitting in the hall with no assigned class at the end. I have worked in schools where the class lists were handed out on the last day with reports. (Shut the door and let them worry about it next year.)

But we have such a great system in place now! The children all have buddies who go with them to their new classes to meet their new teacher for half an hour, 3 days before school ends. We get the chance to allay their fears, introduce them to each other, amp them up about their new class, teacher and room as well as their new year of learning.

Today my new class rocked in to meet me - 9 of my pupils from this year are being retained and they were very excited about this! I also have 4 children from the class next door who I have been teaching all year for maths, so they are well know to me too (that's half the class now!) We have been doing some buddy activities (strategic of me...) with the class that is feeding 6 children to me and that means they also knew me and my classroom. As for the rest, they were all children who I have made a point of introducing myself to and also talking to when on duty so they were thrilled that I knew them when they came to our classroom today to meet their new class for 2012.

I decided that I wanted to leave with a challenge since this year has been a year of challenge as our 'big idea'. Next year, our big idea is 'colour my world' and the first term is all around growing things - growing ideas, planting the seeds of learning and so on. So today, my new class of 2012 left our room with a planter pot with 3 sunflower seeds inside it, charged with the challenge of growing these over the summer and either planting them in their own garden or bringing them back to school ready to plant in our class garden. The idea is for them to take something home and think about their learning for next year and also have something exciting to focus on over the summer which helps them to be excited about next year.

Whatever happens to those seeds over the summer, the idea has been planted that we are a class and hopefully they will end up looking forward to the excitement of learning next year!

Prizegiving!

2011-12-13T00:52:00.000-08:00

We had our wonderful senior school prizegiving tonight. What a fantastic evening it was too - a total celebration of 6+ years at primary school, academic achievements, sports accolades, speech/drama celebrations and more.

This prizegiving was a little bit special for me this year though - it officially signals the end of the era of primary school for my own children. It also marks the final passage through of children that I taught as New Entrants. Plus it means the end of my role as a parent in my school where I work. Next year, for the first time in 8 years, I will rock up to school as a teacher only. No longer will I have the same heart connection because of my own children, it will be back to being connected through other people's children.

There were some wonderful celebratory moments for me tonight. Firstly, my daughter winning a cup for drama has to be central to my joy. A true 'mummy moment' for me! But there were also some other moments that cement themselves in my mind because of what the children have overcome as learners. One recipient of a very special award is an autistic child who was an absolute joy to teach as a new entrant, and I felt thrilled to see him receive a very special prize for excellence in effort.

Prizegiving is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how far these children have come over the past 6 years - their whole lives so far as school-goers. There may be highs and lows throughout their time at primary school but there is one thing we can guarantee - if we get it right in the foundation years, then we have set our students up to move through intermediate and secondary school with some key skills firmly in place. And we can also be certain that we will have embedded some amazing memories of a special time of learning. They may never remember us as teachers, they may have a hazy recall of their days with us, but we always hope that they will recall the highlights that punctuated their first 6 years of school. And maybe, just maybe, a night of celebrating their time at primary school.

Top Ten Images From 2011

2011-12-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

My class have had a great time using flickr365 with me this year and have taken some great photos as the year went on.

The images here have just come out of the plain old classroom learning...

Top Ten New Things To Try

2011-12-10T22:19:00.001-08:00

Looking at all of the changes that my class and I have made this year around eLearning, I have decided to make a commitment to myself to give some new things a try as well as to do some things completely differently next year.

10. Geo-caching - with all of us becoming more proficient at using iPads and iPods, and the fact that I am retaining 9 children from this year, I think it's time to stretch ourselves and have some fun with using geo-caching to learn about using directions and giving instructions.

9. Evernote - although I have used this myself almost everyday since discovering it, I have not yet utilised it effectively in my classroom. It is time! The children will be able to save photos and add text as well as voiceover all using one easy form, so we will be able to explore this more as a way to blog.

8. Keynote presentations through the iPods - this year, we did have a go at using the iPods as our 'telly-prompters' but never quite got a handle on this. My challenge is to build this skill as part of the presentation skills.

7. Scoop-It - there have been some great articles and blogs that I have found through Scoop-It but I have yet to move into automatically using it myself as a place to store great ideas and share sites. A great personal challenge for me!

6. ePortfolios - this is something that has been on the go and developing all year. I have yet to find the right way to easily manage them and the students needs to develop their understanding more of how this works to enhance their focus and partner their learning. There are lots of different places to store the info and lots of ways to explore how to do this well so that's definitely a class and personal challenge for me! Googlesites is going to be part of our management system for my class so we will keep you posted!

5. Blogs and wikis - these are working so well as an extension of the classroom and an authentic learning space, but my next challenge is to have the children self-managing through them. The wikis have started to become a much loved choice for presenting learning outcomes such as through inquiry learning, or for posting instructional videos of how to perform maths tasks or strategise.

4. Photography - we had a great time this year experimenting with using the iPods to take photos and posting them on our flickr account as a 365days with our class. We have also looked at different types of photos and messed around using different photo programmes online. But my class challenge for next year is to let them control the flickr account and manage it themselves. I also want to be really intentional about teaching the skills involved with making photos into art - Rachel Boyd's site is awesome for being able to 'unpack' the skills and then teach them specifically.

3. iPads - we have had a lot of training as a staff on many different eLearning concepts and skills but we have really only explored how to use them effectively as a teaching and learning tool. Our syndicate have loaded apps and decided on the best ones to use for now. We have some plans in place for Techie Brekkies next year to get everyone involved in developing the use of these tools so that we are integrating the skills and embedding them into our classroom programmes.

2. Communicating with parents - let's be honest, most parents are very busy nowadays and although their children are having amazing learning experiences and recording them in an exciting variety of ways, many parents are still missing this. It would be great to explore a range of ways to do this effectively - Facebook has been great for my parents to communicate through but it would be awesome to get the parents on board and fully committed to commenting on the blog and wikis. It is the act of intentional feedback from parents that many of the students look forward to, so next year this has to be a real focus.

1. Global learning - we began the concept of 'the class without walls' (Dave Beehre's idea!) this year and really opened the doors and pushed the walls over when we went global! The challenge next year is to really integrate this into all of our daily life at school so that the class become more globally aware and develop their understanding of neti-quette. Edmodo, the Flat Stanley Project, the Global-Classroom and much more. What fun we have in store! (oh and lots of learning along the way as a bonus!!!)

Preparing Children For Change

2011-12-09T01:39:00.000-08:00

It has been a tough year for a few of the children in my class. They have weathered some storms within their lives and it serves to remind me of how fragile our students can be.

They, too, can have a bad day. They can come to school, just like we do sometimes, crushed beneath the weight of 'stuff' going on in their lives. They come for distraction sometimes. They come sad, angry, frustrated, tired, disappointed with the adults in their lives, upset with siblings, mad at the cards they are dealt, hungry or hurt. Children carry their baggage in different ways and they demonstrate their frustration or anger in different ways too.

The best thing that I have found for dealing with this and helping them to deal with it, is to listen. Many times, all a child needs is to feel that someone, anyone, is listening to them. Sometimes we have to ask the right questions or be available at the right moment. Sometimes we have to help to find the right adult for them to talk to or the right friend to share with. But listening is the first and best thing to do in all cases.

One of the special needs children in my class this year, needs some reassurance this week as we approach the end of year. He knows that his time as a student in my class has almost ended and he is already worrying about the new changes for him next year. I am so fortunate to work in a school where the security and care of the students is the most important thing to everyone. My leader is going to take my student down to meet his new teacher while the current class are in there. She will introduce him, show him around, talk through his worries with him and LISTEN. How do I know that she will do this? Because that's what she did for him last year when he came to meet me. And the year before that, and the one before that.

The way that we prepare all of our students for next year, is to 'meet their teacher' in the last week of school. It is lovely to spend half an hour with your new class for the following year. We get to show the students around their new room, have them meet their new class and see which of their friends they have with them. It is amazing how well this serves to settle the nerves of the students! As for their first day at school next year - well, they simply walk into their classroom confidently knowing where they are going, who they are with and who their teacher is! My special needs student will have already met his teacher and seen his new classroom when he then joins his peers to go to the room together, ensuring that he will be much happier with the new changes.

Preparing children for change is a huge responsibility. We hold power in our words - the power to encourage and reassure, or the power to create stress and fear if we don't get it right.

Confessions of a crazy teacher!

2011-12-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it. Really I can't.

The year of 2011 isn't even over yet in my classroom and I am already excited about next year.

In fact, if I am honest, I have been thinking about next year all year. I really have! I have been thinking about what I would do differently and what I will do the same. It's a case of still trying to put things into perspective that have been learnt this year. So if I really think about it, I am feeling excited by the prospect of doing things better and trying new things that I have only dipped my toes into!

So far, I have made some big decisions about the classroom. I have decided to put backing on the walls and have a general area for the class library, but the first few days are going to be us, as a class, working together to decide where the spaces will be in the classroom. There is so much research that shows how children, particularly boys, need to feel ownership of their classroom, so this is a way to ensure that the have investment in their learning zone, right from the first day.

We are trialling the idea of 'so what?' next year with all that we teach. It is a strategic way to ensure purpose in what we do, so we are following some of the Lane Clark principles. We have the schoolwide big idea of 'Colour My World' and we are going to explore that through the concept of improving the school 'hive' which is our huge garden and growing area. This is in need of some colour and some improvement and development, so we have decided to look at plants, living things, growing and how colour improves our world. We are going to create some artwork to improve the area, as well as design seed packets and then eventually have a market garden to sell what we grow. There are many different directions that this may end up going in, so it is very exciting!

Still, there are 8 days of school left with this class. There are smiles and laughter, memories to create and fun to be had, as well as learning to be done and a year to end together. It is always so bittersweet when the year ends, but the great thing is when the seeds are planted for another exciting year to come. What a great way to end a great year!

Nominations Time!

2011-12-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

I am really excited that my blog made it to the finals of the best education blog for Edublogs Awards - wow! How humbling and how cool!

Funny how a random string of someone's thoughts can end up being read by others and actually enjoyed by some of them! It's kind of like, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' isn't it?!

When I first started blogging I found that I seldom had writer's block - it was literally just a series of thoughts and reflections. Now, when I write, I always simply take what is sitting at the front of my head bothering me or needing some discussion with the page, and then out it tumbles.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to vote for me then click the link here:

edublogs and vote for 'best teacher blog' and the title is 'elearning 2011'.

Thanks everyone - I hope that the next year of blogging is as good as this one has been! The great thing is that it was only ever for an audience of one, so if anyone other than me is actually reading it, I guess that's a bonus!!!

Kids Teaching Kids

2011-12-05T01:31:00.000-08:00

We have 2 great buddy classes at school, one class of Year 6s and the other class of new entrant children. We get to be the older children to one class and the mentors, then with the Year 6 class we do a bit of 'you teach us this, we teach you that'!

The year 6 class took us under their wing today to teach us some new ways to use Pages to create magazine covers. We have looked at famous people this year, such as Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers, and their class have been learning about the challenges of being an astronaut, so they decided to teach us how to create a TIME magazine cover page showcasing the famous person.

It was interesting as we moved around the classroom, looking at what the children were doing together. As the afternoon wore on, the older children settled back more and allowed my students to control the devices and create while they simply instructed. There were fantastic discussions and debates going on, plenty of negotiating, lots of teaching and learning.

When the class reflected on the experience, there were a lot of comments to one another about how well their buddy was able to communicate to them. When we talked about what we would do differently or better next time, it was amazing to hear the children discuss how they would work with their younger buddies and how they need to think about doing too much for someone who is younger than you - they have certainly 'learnt' from the experience.

We are off to our younger buddies later in the week, so we will see how that takes shape. Perhaps our reflections after that session will show more of they learned from today!

Top Ten Tweeps

2011-12-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

SO, my next top ten for the year has to be the top 10 tweeps that I have discovered this year. It has been so hard to reduce it to only ten, there are so many amazing tweeps in my PLN. But reduce it I have, so here goes...

Firstly, my fave NEW tweep @marissatou - now I have put Marissa in here because I met her at uLearn and between me and Dave (@dbeehre), we managed to get her into twitter! She is LOVING making connections and has been awesome to follow as she BEGINS her journey on twitter and also as an eLearning teacher in a great school. Her passion is just awesome!

I also HAVE to mention @sharpjacqui, since she is the ONLY reason I got tweeting to start with. Jacqui has an answer to every question and an idea for me on anything I am working on.

10. @virtuallykaren - gotta say, it is refreshing to follow someone who 'calls it as it is' and also asks the tough questions and answers with honesty too. Highly recommend!

9. @KathrynTrask - I get lots of inspiration from following teachers who talk the talk and walk the walk every day in their classroom. Kathryn is amazing at giving critical feedback to what she is doing and I really gain a lot from her conversations around literacy especially.

8. @justadandak - I met DK at uLearn and attended several sessions that he led. This guy works for Core-Ed and by gum, he has some great links, connections, ideas and more around social media and learning especially! He is definitely someone that I follow carefully and watch everything he recommends.

7. @stefgalvin - another fabo person to follow, full of cool ideas and lots of things that are going on for me to relate to.

6. @DeputyMitchell - David founded Quadblogging and he has been great to follow too because of the edchats that he leads and the great blogposts he writes, as well as the challenging questions and comments!

5. @dragon09 - love the video posts that Simon makes! He has great connections and also cool comments, lots of relevant info and basically, he's cool! Finally met up with him in the flesh at uLearn!!! :)

4. @whatedsaid - Edna makes me laugh, smile, grimace, think, and her blog is one of the very best! It is always good to find tweachers who make you challenge everything that you do and are thinking of doing - Ed, you keep me accountable!

3. @mgraffin - Michael is the brains and the braun behind the global classroom initiative and it was through following him that my class and I finally pushed out the classroom walls and became the class without walls (thanks @dbeehre!)

2. @ianaddison - UK based teacher and somewhat awesome guru of all things tech and teach. Just love reading about the successes in his borough and school...either a work-a-holic or the best time-manager the world has ever known!

1. Sorry tweeps and tweachers, I could not separate ALL of my faves for my rave! So here are my number one choices, all 5 of them (cheating a bit here, I know!)

@mrkempnz - awesomeness from the South - the stuff he does with his class is incredible and he inspires me to dare to try new things!

@judykmck - Judy has so much great advice especially around edchats and the daily5 - I'm learning lots everyday!

@dragonsinger57 - Jo is keeping it real, a million pearls of wisdom (and a LOT of laughter!)

@tombarrett - Tom is my guru, the first port of call when I want new idea for 'how to' with devices and tech stuff.

@traintheteacher - what an incredible personal journey Steph has taken me on with her as she transitioned from trainee to teacher this year. I look forward to the ride through her first year of teaching. An incredibly gifted blogger too!

These tweeps are just legendary, and practically all of the new learning that I have done this year has come from them in one way or another. Some of them are bloggers and some are just keeping it real in the classroom, or people like Tom are getting out there and selling eLearning on the frontline. I cannot more highly recommend any group of people more - thank you, thank you, thank you, to these awesome people who have made me dare and dream. My classroom has been directly affected by the learning I have done with them, my teaching has been dramatically affected by the ideas they have streamed through. Get following them and get learning!

More on those QRs

2011-12-03T00:58:00.000-08:00

My class have been busy creating and inventing vehicles for the future. Their brief was that they had to consider what the problems may be in the future that don't exist at the moment so we had a big collaborative brainstorming session in small groups. Each group had a different problem to consider...we called them the 'what ifs?' One group looked at 'what if we ran out of room on the land?' another was considering 'what if we could travel easier in space?' Then 2 other groups looked at 'what if we had to use what already exists (recycling)?' and 'what if we ran out of oil?' so they were exploring creative ways to fuel a vehicle.

The outcome was a mishmash of fantastic ideas, from banana-powered cars to self-charging people carriers and more. We then designed our own vehicle and since we are focussing on non-fiction texts this term, we used what we know about labeling and captions to add more information to the ideas.

From there, it was writing a description of the vehicle considering what we had been thinking about - who is it for, how does it move (fuel), where can it travel (on, under, space etc.) and the cost to build it. We used some ideas from our future travel wiki and watched some cool movies about different prototypes and other people's ideas.

It then became obvious that we wanted to put the descriptions together with the collage pictures that the children created depicting their invented future car, so we discussed the various ways of displaying them. One of the children suggested using QR codes on our artwork to hide the text in, so we have now hung them on the wall. The class had a lot of fun racing around the room as a reading tumble activity and using the iPods and iPads to scan and then read each QR code.

A unique way to display! And it certainly got the kids reading!

Top Ten

2011-12-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

I have decided that since I my class and I are fully into the reflections from the year that (almost) was, it is time for me to really dig deep and think strategically about the highlights (and low-lights) of the year that was!

So, the first of my 'top ten' start here and now. This is my personal list of the top 10 websites that I have found and used this year!

10. Edmodo - a fantastic social networking site for students and schools. We have been using this almost daily as we communicated with our ePals in America. It is safe and a super way to teach basic net-iquette.

9. Quadblogging - this has also been a wonderful way to communicate with other schools globally. We joined and had 3 schools from the UK who we read the blogs of (in turn) and then wrote comments to one another. The class checked their blogposts every day and loved the feedback.

8. TedTalks - this has been the most amazing site for relevant, up-to-date thinking on education from around the globe. There is always something cool to read and think about - I find that I am constantly challenged and even entertained by the incredible speakers.

7. Evernote - with the death of Delicious (where I could seldom relocate anything that I had found!) it was time to find a new and more user-friendly way to organise my bits and bobs. Enter Evernote! I love this because I can record voice, add tags, save websites, take photos directly on it and even sync it with my Android phone. Add to this the fact that it is cloud-based AND an app, it means I have my notes anywhere, on any device and can even share my notebooks with others and access theirs when they allow permission too.

6. Sites4Primary - cool site that does all of the hard work for you! Teaching websites are already reviewed and written about in detail so that you can decide if they are relevant without even having to locate it yourself. Some fantastic sites listed on here.

5. TES - an unbelievably huge network of teachers and resources from the UK. It boasts almost 120,000 online resources which are downloadable and regularly reviewed. The resources range from worksheets, flipcharts, docs, Powerpoint presentations to ideas for activities including lesson plans.

4. Facebook - okay, so I discovered Facebook a long ago, not actually THIS year, but this is the first year that I have used it as a tool to communicate with parents. I set up a class account (my kids don't have access to it) and the parents can view all of our updates to the blogs, wikis and flickr accounts. They can comment and I am able to send a reminder about mufti-day or trips at the touch of a button and they can view it when they are already online communicating to friends through Facebook. They have no access to my personal account and I set the boundaries from the beginning - "don't invite me to be a friend on FB and don't be insulted if I don't ask you." They have all respected this as they, too, want privacy. It has been utilised really well by 95% of the parents and something I will certainly retain next year.

3. Flat Stanley Project - as part of the global classroom project, we joined the Flat Stanley group and haven't looked back. This has been the most fun of all - communicating with our ePals in America. We found each other through the project and have made some awesome connections. We are going to continue the relationship into next year as my class changes over to a new group of children and the aim is to Skype one another also. We have uploaded videos and photos, written to one another through the wiki and more. It is a great project and there are thousands of teachers and schools communicating on the project who are waiting for other classes to connect with.

2. Kidipede - my own class love this as part of their reading activities but it has also been fantastic for my own 2 children who are older. It is full of fun and information and has loads of links to other sites to boost the references for kids, and help them to verify info.

1. Twitter - yes, this was the year that my peeps became my tweeps and I became a tweacher. My life is now filled with tweets and twits and I am a better learner for it. The very shape of my teaching is impacted on daily as I build my PLN and read, inquire, research, listen, talk, tap and type. Again, I already KNEW about twitter last year, but it has become an extension of my classroom for me this year.

How about you? What are your favourite sites for the year?

The Joy of a Humble Book

2011-11-29T22:55:00.000-08:00

My class have many, many favourite books that we love to share. From big books to picture books, non-fiction or topic books, books on CD, sing-a-long books, short story books, poetry books or novels, it is always something that my classes have long looked forward to...sharing a delightful, delicious book and devouring its rich language together!

Over the years, I have enjoyed reading some individual stand-alone novels that have been loved by all. I have never been tempted to repeat a class novel twice - only because that particular class seem to form a place in my memory which is attached to that particular book. I have read many Joy Cowley novels such as 'The Wild West Gang' (we read that series) and 'The Pirate's Mixed Up Voyage' by Margaret Mahy. I spent a whole year reading a Year 8 class 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' series by C.S. Lewis and another year reading the Harry Potter novels to a Year 6 class (we never quite finished past the 3rd one!)

But last year, my class kind of got caught up in the fantastic series of books by Cressida Cowell, all about a wonderfully 'normal' Viking boy who defies all of the odds by becoming the most unusual hero that ever was! My class last year became totally enthralled by every word on every page and hung to the very syllable of each word as I read aloud to them. We even did a film/book comparison between the first book of 'How To Train Your Dragon' and they did character studies and blogged madly about the books.

So this year, for the first time ever, I did the unthinkable...I repeated the series of books. But this time, my class have been a group of children who really struggle to concentrate, yet they have sat, wriggling giggling, as I shared the stories all over again. My class have just thought that this was the most wonderful thing - our day is not complete without the story continuing. We have just had the final, 9th book delivered to us and we are endeavouring to finish it before the year ends!

I cannot rave enough about the power of a silly story, a funny story, a powerful or spooky story, a thriller, a mystery or romance...the power of a story can never be underestimated.

Do YOUR class have any faves? Are there any books that you just read every year because of how much children love them?

QR codes for Christmas

2011-11-29T00:52:00.000-08:00

Have you thought about some different to use QR codes with your class for Christmas activities?
Here are a few ideas to get you started!

1. QR Santa hunt - get a child to hide a picture of Santa somewhere in the classroom and then give clues and hints through QR codes.

2. Who is Santa? Create a short description of Santa and embed it as a QR code, then print it to attach to a drawing/picture of Santa by the student.

3. Maths QR - leave a series of maths problems to do with Christmas (money is a great one to use, e.g. how many chocolate Santas can we buy for a dollar if one costs 20c? the solution leads them to the next clue.)

4. Acrostic poems - write an acrostic poem and embed it as a QR code. Publish on the class blog or wiki.

5. Book review - ask the children to sell a favourite Christmas story to someone else - create a code out of it and get them to read each others' ones to find which they would like to read!

Ask your class for ideas...my class decided that doing a character assassination for Santa would be a great idea...they also want to create QR codes that link to their favourite Christmas websites and our class Christmas wiki!

Get creating, and don't forget to leave a comment of any ideas that YOU have!

Check out our class Christmas wiki too!

Postcards

2011-11-27T21:14:00.001-08:00

Today we received postcards from China. They were from one of our students who is currently there visiting a sick relative and will be away until next year now. She has sent us lots of e-mails and we have even managed several Skype sessions including a video tour of the apartment where they are staying and the view from there. The class were spell-bound, and the lovely part was that many of my Chinese students became extremely animated about what they saw.

The postcards were a fantastic look at the life around our other classmate. There was talking and talking and talking about them! The children took turns sharing their postcard and talking about the pictures on them, developing ideas about the similarities and differences of life there and here. One of my quite quiet boys decided to become extremely chatty and was keen to share his knowledge of the Great Wall, regaling us with incredible facts and information. He answered questions about Tiennman Square, surprising many of us with how many places he has travelled to and learnt about. The class are now calling him their 'go to' person for facts on China!

As a personal challenge, the class decided to research the place in their postcard. They sought information and other images, producing some interesting facts and presenting them in a method of their choice. They have used what they have found out to form a part of their postcard back to our student in China. They also wrote questions to her about her school-life there and her life in comparison to New Zealand. It has certainly made the children happy to be at school in NZ as several other students recounted how much homework they had in China, how many hours they spent in school every day and how many textbooks they studied from.

Our next steps are to use the inquiry model to form questions about school in China and then to look at the best way to locate answers. I am working hard to embed into my students the knowledge of how vital HUMAN resources are when it comes to sourcing information. The fact that our personal experiences, such as those of my own students who have studied and lived in China, surpass the internet and even books when it comes to knowledge at times.

To Love the ICT Suite...or Not

2011-11-25T01:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the dilemma...has the humble ICT suite become obselete, worked itself out of a job and become 'yesterday's' learning, or does it still hold a place in our hearts?

I have been considering both sides of this debate carefully. On one hand, we have the die-hards, who killed themselves 10+ years ago to GET an ICT suite. It was in a time when having one desktop in the classroom was considered to be amazing. Many school leaders are still sure that there is a need for a school to have a place designated for ICT teaching and learning, with a projector and a way to teach the whole class at one time, the same skills, using the same website/tools, completing the same activity and ticking the box.

Now don't get me wrong - in many, many schools the humble ICT suite has been fought for long and hard. It has a place there because there is no chance (at this present time) that there will be 5-10 devices per classroom (or group of classes) for integrating eLearning seamlessly into the daily classroom programme. Those schools and teachers are fortunate to have access to tools and devices at all and moving forward is tortoise-paced rather than hare.

If I could, then, work on an 'ideal', then THAT would decide - for me - once and for all, what the ICT suite's future should be.

MY ideal is this: 8-10 fully functional devices (iPods/iPads/laptops/desktops) per class (optimum of course), eLearning skills as the focus, integrated into the classroom programme seamlessly. Nice ideal, I know. It is a ratio of 1:3 devices per child.

The problems are NOT simple with this ideal - 1. money, 2. money and 3. money. (Oh ok, you could probably add the fact that people need to be trained and have attended PD so that they are on board fully with the paradigm shift that they need to work in this type of environment.) But the reality, the cold hard facts, are that there is a LOT of money needed to fund this.

So on the other side of this argument, we have the humble ICT suite. It is there, sitting daily, available for use and conveniently timetabled in for us. It is a place that the class look forward to going to and it is a part of the weekly teaching time. On the downside, it means that some teachers use it for word-processing only or for games and simple activities that have little value in terms of eLearning.

What is the answer then? I believe that this can only be decided by each school on an individual basis. What I think will differ from what others think, even within my own school. We have access to devices at our school which enables a 1:3 ratio for MOST classes (on a shared basis though), so many teachers still believe that the ICT suite is the perfect place for them to work, once a week to teach ICT skills. For me, I have an eLearning class, so I have my own class set of devices and we only use the ICT suite because we are timetabled in to use it. But we use it to have 1:1 with devices (we take all the others from our classroom there!) and this enables everyone to blog or access Edmodo at the same time, or to all learn one new skill at the same time. It is usually a continuation of something that we are already doing or something completely new that everyone can try and then transfer.

But for me, next year, I will be surrendering my time slot in the ICT suite. As a teacher, I have moved past the humble suite as a need within my programme. I no longer wish for my class to see ICT/eLearning as a separate entity, I actually need for them to understand that it is woven into the very fabric of our classroom and NOT a 'stand-alone', so we will be using, thinking, creating and learning WITH (and without!) devices, not BECAUSE of a room with computers.

Right or wrong, that is where I am at with the ICT suite. I would really value the thoughts and musings of others around this idea - how do you use it in your school? What would your IDEAL be with eLearning?

IPads

2011-11-22T22:30:00.000-08:00

Have had a really productive and inspiring week with iPads. We made the decision as a school to have them set up with 3 accounts for the 3 levels in our school so that we could differentiate apps and activities. We gave the responsibility to everyone when it comes to sourcing new great apps as well as finding great ways to utilise the learning through this device.

Over the past week, we have therefore gone through the apps we already have, checked their uses and purposes, decided if that fits with how we are teaching and what we are using them to learn, and then downloaded more apps while culling those that were outside of our requirements.

Fortunately for our school, we have great support from consultants such as Jacqui Sharp, who have been able to keep us informed and up to date with changes, as well as providing us with sound advice on how to use the iPads effectively.

Today we spent time working alongside Jacqui, and it was awesome to see so many teachers excited by the prospect of using the iPads in their classes. We talked through organising the pages on the iPads so that the students have what they need easily. We looked at the practicalities of how to use them during writing specifically but then went on to looking at which apps can be used for draft writing, publishing and brainstorming.

So far, we have grouped our apps according to these ideas. The next steps for us, are to get the iPads into our classes in real and tangible ways before the end of the year, and create opportunities for the children to try the different ideas and experiment with choices. We also need to look at how we can use 5 iPads effectively as PART of the programme rather than BEING the programme. There is definitely a good understanding within our staff of how the iPads are a tool NOT a programme.

It is exciting to have the opportunity for professional develoment as well as the actual devices to utilise this amazing resource! The children enjoy learning through a variety of tools and this is no exception! What is most important though, is the fact that our staff are also getting on board and getting educated too so that they can support the new learning and new skills for their students.

Watch this space!

The Stanleys Arrive Home!

2011-11-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

Yay! The Stanleys came back to us today! They have been travelling far afield in Pennsylvania, USA and have finally returned to us in Room 14.

We have now prepared our cards and a few gifts for our ePals to be returned to them next week.

We love going global!

10 things I have learned this year #9

2011-11-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

Number 9 - I am most effective when I am learning too

This year has been all about personal learning for me. Every day, I have set myself the challenge that I want to be able to say, "I have learnt something new!" at least once a day. It has come in so many forms that it seems crazy to admit that I have learnt more than one new thing, every day, without exception!

Twitter was a salvation for me - so many amazing educators to follow, to question, to seek answers from. A PLN was a foreign idea to me last year and I thought people on twitter were...well...TWITS. But now! Revelation! I know better than that! The twits on twitter are MY tweeps and I love my PLN to bits!

Blogging has been a wonderful way to reflect but also a great way to seek ideas - reading OTHER blogs through googlereader has essentially formed the basis for my professional reading! As for developing my own blog, both personal and class, as a form of ePortfolio, well, that has been the most invaluable tool indeed.

In my classroom, we have developed the use of learning spaces and this has essentially meant that the room became ours and not just mine. We have moved around, got new furniture, utilised the online spaces and become a truly global classroom as we developed our online relationships with other learners around the world. The Flat Stanley Project brought a new set of friends into our classroom, Skype delivered one of our students (who has moved to China) back into our room, Edmodo has enabled us to communicate and ask questions of our ePals, the Quadblog taught us how to respond to others online, neti-quette and much, much, more.

The laptops and iPads, as well as other devices, became so neatly embedded into the framework of our learning that the children simply utilise them well at all times with very little time taken for me to monitor their use. They form a part of the choices that the students make throughout the day with their learning, and eLearning has finally had its 'E' turned into 'ME'-learning.

I have stopped counting how many A-HA! moments I experience or observe. I only know that I am most effective as I continue to grow, change and develop as a learner first, and a teacher after that.

10 things I have learned this year

2011-11-19T22:53:00.000-08:00

As I start to reflect in a much deeper way about the personal learning journey that I have had this year, I have decided to write a top 10 of what I have learnt so far, and then also my top ten highlights.

In terms of learning and experiences, they go a bit like this:

Number 10

Teaching and learning are one and the same

'I cannot teach effectively if I do not learn, and if I am learning, then there is always something of value to share.'

The students have become empowered in my class this year as learners and teachers. A huge change has been the way the learning and teaching have melded themselves seamlessly - my students have shared, collaborated, debated, discussed, reviewed, reflected, assessed, evaluated, self-managed, coached and much, much more because they had opportunities to do so.

As a teacher, I have become a 'creator of opportunities' for my students, a maker of chance! And they have embraced these moments and run with them, however they felt they wanted to. The learning and teaching process has become so interwoven that they are now much more capable when it comes to deciding on what their next learning steps need to be and how they can achieve them. 'Pass it on...' became our class mantra last year and it has continued on into this year - if I taught a new skill to one, then it was their responsibility to pass that new knowledge on to someone else. This created a wonderful class culture of sharing and shared teaching, meaning that the children quickly realised that they, too, are teachers and have the responsibility to teach others what they know.

I have discovered that the challenge for me is this: I must ensure that there is a true balance of teaching and learning in my classroom, opportunities must be presented at all junctions so that children buy into the learning process and genuinely own the learning.

Citizen Journalism

2011-11-15T01:35:00.000-08:00

Twitterati...have you heard of them?

The famous on twitter? Those who follow lots of others and are well known?

Well, the future of much of journalism seems to be in the hands of these peeps (or should I say 'tweeps'!)

If you watch this clip, you will come to see that actually, the everyday blogger/tweeter/facebook-er are able to impact on how something is reported and WHAT is being reported - especially if there is reason to question the truth to the story.

Imagine laying witness first-hand to a death on board a plane or on the street and reading a completely inaccurate account the following day in the newspaper? That type of distortion of the truth often occurs, perhaps not necessarily in something as extreme as a death or murder, but inaccurate in its report none-the-less. This clip shows how the twitterati are able to influence those reports and actually change the course of justice. What a great concept that social networking can genuinely work for good - to find witnesses, to locate actual footage of an event and more.

Changing Attitudes

2011-11-13T23:30:00.000-08:00

I have a dilemma. Many of the parents of this generation of learners STILL fear the eLearning classroom as a less-than-hallowed place of learning for their children. Some parents, administrators AND teachers still think it is all about playing, games, devices and no literacy or numeracy teaching. Well, you know, not REAL teaching.

I have a few ideas about how to change this perception. My thoughts are just rambling and rattling around my head at the moment, but there are some things that need to be said and done to change those perceptions.

Idea #1 = stage an "eLearning Caravan" or showcase of some kind early on in the year. In other words, get the kids to sell the concept of their own learning to their parents. Include things such as cyber-safety, wikis and blogs but also focus on what self-management looks like, inquiry processes, authentic learning contexts, ePortfolios, key competencies and how we work on those specifically. It would be using graphic organisers and how to brainstorm as well as using post-ITs, paper planners and so on. The 'big idea' would be to remove the 'e' from the eLearning so that parents realise that their children can learn concepts and skills THROUGH digital tools, but REGARDLESS of whether they have digital tools or not.

Idea #2 = develop a more structured ePortfolio system early on in the year and utilise this to communicate the learning - especially in the sense that the students lead the learning AND the reflections online. That way, their parents are able to see the transparency to their learning, goals and personal challenges.

Idea #3 = use the 'meet the teacher' evening to really inform the parents about how our classroom operates. Get the students to be a part of this, to talk about their learning and the expectations around self-management, collaboration, inquiry and thinking skills in our classroom and school.

My challenge is to keep things simple enough to have 'parent speak' going successfully, to ensure that parents gain a real, deeper understanding of eLearning and our classroom, to answer their concerns and questions in a simple yet informative way. I guess the really big question that they have is whether their children will (a) be taught the basics as they see them, and (b) be disadvantaged (!) by being in an eLearning class.

As long as the parents can understand how their child's learning is supported and challenged, then I am figuring their will be little or no complaints! This year, I have made a huge effort to keep things transparent so that the parents are always able to ask anything, come and visit, view their children's work online and through many different means, as well as ensuring that they are constantly informed of their progress.

Hmmm, anyone sense that it sounds just like any classroom? Yup. Take that 'e' out of the eLearning and I think we have just changed how things look and sound when we present them. It's all learning.

Less Work?

2011-11-12T20:19:00.000-08:00

It's like a new Tui beer ad...just waiting to come to a billboard near YOU! All of my teaching colleagues are talking about how revolutionary it must be to teach in an eLearning classroom, filled in every nook and cranny with the latest and greatest gizmos and gadgets...they keep telling me how EASY it is, how CRUISY my job must be, how LITTLE prep I need to do and how LIGHT the workload is. Well, peeps, let me say it like a Tui beer ad would say it...YEAH RIGHT.

I read more than I ever have. I connect in ways that I didn't know were possible 5 years ago. My PLN has become more regular and reliable than my PMT. Frankly, I spend so much time planning and reflecting, blogging and creating, reviewing and reposting, renewing and revising, that some days my head spins from the sheer volume of activity that is going on!

My classroom has changed. My pedagogy has changed. My students have changed their approach to thinking and learning, responsibility for their own learning, and much, much more. The language of learning has changed, the mode for delivering learning has changed. The methods for teaching has changed. All in all, there is not a day or even an hour that passes anymore at school where lightbulbs aren't visibly appearing above the heads of teachers and pupils alike.

Do I use less paper? Why yes I do. Do the students record less in their books and more online or on the computer? Indeed that is true. Do we learn less, plan less, assess less and prepare yes? Definitely not! There has never been such a time where I put this amount of time and energy into virtual places and ideas rather than concrete production of paper and ink. I have never been so well prepared and busy yet left so much to the students. That seems like a contradiction of terms but in reality, I have never shared the learning process in quite this way before either, so that the classroom has become one big collaborative space.

eLearning...less work?

YEAH RIGHT.

More rewarding and exciting?

FOR SURE!!!

10 things you should know about...

2011-11-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

...creating learning spaces!

1. Spaces are just that - a space. They can be turned into whatever you want them to be!

2. Spaces are fun in the classroom when everyone has an input into their design. My classes of the past have always been involved in decisions about where we have things and how we organise space.

3. Sometimes the smallest spaces have the biggest impact! Years ago I had a big class of children in the tiniest of classrooms. Boy, were we creative about how we used the (lack of) space in that room! We had tiered seating even so that they could all be a part of our presenting area (where they showed plays/dramas and rehearsed their poems or speeches). You just have to be very adaptable!

4. If you have too much space, it can end up being wasted! I have also had big classrooms where we had 'dead' areas of the room that were just a hive of inactivity. It is not ideal to 'fill' every space but to create many different areas for the class.

5. Work backwards - decide what spaces you couldn't live without (shared space, secret space etc.) and go from there. My class this year love their secret spaces best of all and so I have tried to build in many of these but also allow for them to find their own secret spaces and be ok with that.

6. Be in control of the 'online shared spaces' - but always allow the children to feel trusted AND secure when they are using them. Being intentional about teaching net-iquette and blogging techniques is essential to these spaces being safe and effective.

7. Get creative and LET GO. My class always love it when I give them a publishing space on the classroom wall and allow them to plan it and collaborate around how it will look and what they are wanting to create. The older the children are, the better this works as you can actually totally yield those spaces to them and allow the class the freedom to 'own' their 4 walls. This is why kids love the internet - the blogs and wikis can LOOK the way they want them to and they can create a space that is all about their own choices and taste.

8. Always seek new ways to create spaces - we didn't have a class garden or even an area for it and I just got a large planter made for us and we have had a class garden ever since. Children LOVE to tend to plants and learn about growing things, it is part of their makeup to want to 'make' something from scratch. The garden allows them to experiment with looking after a living thing independently.

9. Let them utilise spaces the way they want to. Sometimes we look at an area of a learning centre or a group space and decide how WE want it to look or how WE want to use it and the class have a very different idea around it. Children feed back to this without ever saying a word - they simply never go there or use it. Let the class be a part of the choices and they will be a part of using the space.

10. Have fun! Try to create some different spaces that you have never had before. Use online spaces in new ways and explore different areas and layouts for your room. Change things around and work together to do that. Buy in from children comes when they are the investor not just the consumer.

My How Time Does Fly!

2011-11-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

We had a great class trip today to the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). The focus was transport from the past to the present, especially for us to consider the transport of the future. It certainly held my class spell-bound!

The funniest part was the fact that my girls were 'bored' by the time we had been roving the museum for an hour and the boys were absolutely impossible to distract! The boys were charging around the museum, propelling me from one aircraft to another, bombarding me with questions and wonderings, solving their own questions by finding the answers and then rushing off to look at the next plane! They were utterly miserable when we had to leave and the majority of the girls were happy to board the bus again! I wished that the boys had been able to spend the whole day at the 2nd part of the museum (which housed the war planes and the old planes) and the girls had gotten a lot longer at the first part of the museum (the historical houses, telecommunications and Kiwiana sections).

Had to laugh though at MANY different parts of the telecommunications section...most of the children didn't recognise the original decadic phones which ran through the exchange via a series of clicks. They held them upsidedown and I was giggling to myself when we took turns phoning each other on them. One of my boys looked all around when his phone rang, picked it up and said, "Hello?" to which I replied, "Hi Terry!" He then leaned around the corner to me on my phone and whispered, "Someone just called me and they know my name!" I replied (into the phone piece), "Yes Terry, it's Mrs R!" and his face was priceless! Obviously this 'old' technology had him quite baffled!

The learning was amazing all day - so many times the parent helpers commented on how much they were learning too!

New Furniture

2011-11-08T00:31:00.001-08:00

We have our new furniture in the classroom now, it has officially been 2 weeks now. The children have adjusted brilliantly - that mean seem strange, considering it's table instead of desks and that may not seem like much of a change. But it has been a HUGE change. To move from having all of your books and belongings in one desk, one place that belongs to you, is a rather enormous difference compared to having tables where things are changeable, movable, unfixed, fluid.

There have been problems. I would be less than truthful if I said that wasn't the case. We had to solve where we were storing their books (tote trays and plastic crates), where their pencil cases would go (too big for their tote tray), who would sit where (anywhere!) when they could choose who to sit with and with to sit and so on. My autistic student has struggled - he is most comfortable when he has a fixed place, so we have had to fix one seat as his to keep him feeling happy and safe. The rest of the class have quickly adjusted to being hobos - they are flitting around easily and are much more comfortable with moving around depending on their needs, tasks and so on.

The big 'moon' tables have been a hit. During writing, we curve them into an S shape and use them for our conferencing table. During reading and maths we use them as two C shaped moons and have the teacher group there. Their shape really invites collaboration and the shared space.

The other tables, when split, provide many paired spaces and individual spaces. The children have quickly adjusted to when to work with others, when to be working alone and when to choose a different place to work.

It will be great to see how the spaces develop and how the problems get ironed out. For now, we are just enjoying experimenting with the new furniture!

What my kids think of me

2011-11-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

It was my birthday last week, and several of my pupils from last year popped up to bring me cards and various dodgy-looking cupcakes lovingly made by them. Among my goodies, a little book was hiding, made with care and time by three of my pupils from last year. One of the girls gave me a medal that she had made for me, insisting that I wore it all day.

It read: WORLD'S BEST TEACHER.

The little book read:

Once, there were 3 best friends: Grace (very smart), Jessica (very cheeky) and Catherine...well, let's just say that she is very girly!

They had this great teacher named Mrs R. When their year ended, they were VERY sad. But we all know that she is a very good teacher and is very cool too. Here are 10 reasons why:

She read us great stories
She read us great stories with great voices!
She is very kind and cool
She teaches people great things while they are still having fun!
She can even make the boringest things seem fun
She is great at organising things
She has a great sense of humour
We did really cool things in her class
She believes we are unique
She is FANTASTIC!

This list could go on and on. Let's just say, these 3 girls were very lucky to be in her class.

Now honestly, apart from having the most enormous lump in my throat as I read that, I have got to confess to feeling really lucky to have had those lovely ladies in my class. Maybe they have shown me that at times, I manage to get a few things right! It was certainly great to read such nice comments...makes it even more worthwhile when you know you are really impacting on how some children learn!

Making A Difference

2011-11-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

We have been thinking about our end of the year celebrations as our Year 6 children get set to graduate from Primary School and move into the next phase of their school journey. This song was part of the documentary on 20/20 last night and it resounded with me - 'I want to do something that matters, do something better, set the world on its ear, leave nothing less than something that says "I was here". '

Imagine if we could instill in our children in our schools a deep sense of social justice and a core believe in their very soul that they could make a difference? But more than that, not just COULD make a difference, but WILL make a difference.

It should stir our souls as teachers to believe that every day, in some small way, we too make a difference. We are spending our days creating an imprint that says in many, many lives "I was here"...

Flat Stanley returns...

2011-11-02T17:11:00.001-07:00

We may come from New Zealand but it would appear the 'boomerang effect' actually works down here as well as in Australia!

Several weeks ago, we made and posted Flat Stanleys to our ePals in America. They went with our stories on the back of them, our questions hanging on their very arms. Our curiosity was piqued...what was it like to live and go to school half of the world away from us? What did they sound like, look like? What were their homes like, their schools like? Would they eat the same things as us? Would they know about our country? These were all of the questions that my class brainstormed - the big question was: 'What is it like to be a student in a school somewhere else in the world?'

For us, we already have students from other countries - Korea, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Australia, England - New Zealand is a diversely multi-cultural country. Many of the children in the school may LOOK like they are from another country, yet their speech, accent and life is very much of a second or third generation New Zealander. Their identities are multi-layered, they have many of the traditions of their parents and their origins, as well as being - well - Kiwi kids! My 'wonderings' were based around this then - how multicultural was the school we were contacting? Is their state like our country - a cross section of the globe already on our doorstep?

My class have messaged through Edmodo.com, written blogposts, written stories and drawn pictures, made cards and investigated madly. They want to find answers for themselves. They want to be informed. They desire a deeper understanding of our global village - not just the one that we have to travel overseas for, but the one that we have on our doorsteps and in our own classrooms. The biggest gain for us as a class (apart from the global connections) has been the realisation that they all have a piece of the wider world in them - they have become curious about each other.

Process vs. Product

2011-11-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

We have had a lot of questions over the past few years about digital classrooms and eLearning. Many suggest that we simply take the 'e' out of it so that it's just 'learning' but I think we have be clear that this is definitely a different style of teaching and learning, therefore, it really needs its own identity. As for the 'digital' side of things, well, I think there has been a complete shift in our perception of all of that digital stuff too!

For me, the realisation dawned about a year ago that I was getting myself tangled up in the PRODUCT. Everything I did in the ICT suite or with the laptops seemed to be immersed in the 'final product' - how it looked, what the kids had made or completed. I seemed somewhat distracted by the 'what' instead of the 'how'.

For someone who has certainly done enough Inquiry Learning to know the difference, I seemed to still be bound up in this whole 'product' issue. One day at a school assembly however, after watching all of the beautifully presented Inquiry Learning Keynote presentations, listened to the Wordles, seen the iPods used to present their 'products' and so on...well, I just had the big lightbulb moment.

What were we doing? What was I doing?

I felt like screaming that we were getting it wrong - couldn't they all see it? We were setting our goal as a final production! All that we 'taught' was ICT and digital goodies packaged up to look fantastic! It's no wonder the parents quivered nervously when told their children were in the 'digital' class, wasn't that the class that sat on laptops all day producing fun stuff?

Oh now don't get me wrong, the fun stuff is part of the bigger picture, but somehow we were forgetting that learning is a journey and NOT a destination, so eLearning is a process and NOT a product. This was what we needed to come back to, and come back we have. We now look at the skills to be taught and developed first, then the 'how to' and the 'what if', and the product is a side effect if even that. My class have a wiki as a learning space but it will never be 'complete' or perfect, it is a work in progress. The blog is their reflective space and that too will never be finished - we don't even care how it looks! It's about the PROCESS of reflection and development of our learning journey NOT about how people feel when they read it! Oh, we love to have responses and comments but that is PART of the process, not the whole process and certainly NOT the product of our reflections.

We have many, many devices, apps and websites that we use but they are just the tools, the methods for delivery. May I never get distracted by the hearts and flowers of the product ever again!

However, if I really wanted to measure whether my class actually 'get' the process vs. product, then it was seen in their reflections of this year of learning. Not ONE child commented about the wiki, blog, apps, iPods, iPads, laptops, digital cameras, websites. Not ONE. They ALL talked about and reflected on the bigger picture - their experiences as learners, topics, Inquiry Learning, trips that we did, cooking in the classroom, student teachers, swimming, athletics days and so on. When I asked the class why they hadn't mentioned anything about being in an eLearning class and what we had done that was different to some of the other classes, the response was breath-taking -'because that's HOW we learn, not WHAT we learn.'

Process vs. product, from the mouths of babes.

Teachers?

2011-11-01T01:13:00.000-07:00

My class had the fantastic challenge of becoming the 'teacher' today. We are lucky enough to have 2 buddy classes this year - one group of year 6 children who play teacher to us, and one group of New Entrant children, whom we play teacher to!

So, the 5 year olds have only used KidPix this past term and apart from using the ActivBoard, they have no actual digital or eLearning skills on board so far. We did a class brainstorm to decide what skills would be (a) easy to teach, and (b) easy to complete in an afternoon, as well as (c) really fun! There were some great ideas, so we ordered them from most popular and then voted on our top 3. The class think nothing of making these decisions - it's such a 'normal' process for them to make the decisions on learning now that this was just easy for them.

So, having decided that the most important skills to be taught were how to create an avatar and use that to introduce themselves as well as teaching their buddies how to upload and download photos, we had a wee problem. My class LOVE this most of all - problem creating. This is what they thrive on! The problem was that they had nowhere to put the work that they did together.

Five of my boys grabbed laptops and within 2 minutes had apportioned tasks to one another to create a wiki for them and their buddies. About 5 minutes after that, we were up and going. They are SO fast at creating now!

The buddies came this afternoon and there was collaboration, self-management, thinking, questioning, problem-creating, problem-solving, using language symbols and text and much, much, more! Teaching and learning at its finest. Children as learners teaching children as learners. An authentic context and authentic learning!

The vokis are great, the photos are loaded and have comments recorded. But it was more than that. It's not about the pretty images or the avatars. Its about letting the learners lead the learning AND the teaching.

And that's EXACTLY what happened!

An Idiot's Guide To Writing...REPORTS

2011-10-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, so perhaps I am not exactly an 'idiot' but here is my list of ten essential things to know or remember when it comes to dreaded report writing...

1. Report writing takes time - no matter how experienced you are, no matter how many years you have written reports for, no amount of practice or preparation makes it any better - reports take a long time to write. And so they should! It took the kids a whole year to provide the data and information for you to write about!

2. Report writing is as much for the teacher as the student - if one of your professional goals (I hope) is to reflect upon the teaching and learning, then here is the best evaluative tool you could ever have.

3. Reports are easy if you know your students well - you have shared a learning journey with these little peeps for a whole year! Reports are a reflection of how well you know them, how they learn, their strengths and weaknesses. As a parent, I want to read a report and be assured, more than anything else, that the teacher has really 'got' my children!

4. Reports need to be readable - parents, in most cases, did NOT go to teachers' college. They don't get all of the teacher-speak jargon. They really have no idea about asTTle and they usually can't work out what AfL is either. So keep it simple - they know you have a Degree and they often don't, so they just want it - in plain, simple language.

5. Report writing is a product - the work we do during the year is the process and the reports at the end of the year are essentially the product of what has been learnt. You have been painting the portrait all year, and now you can present the final, completed canvas to their parents for viewing.

6. Be proud of what you write - this is as much a reflection of who you are as teacher as it is a reflection of who the learner is. Wrapped in the report should be a piece of you - your professional persona - and your ability to represent a learner and their learning on paper. Be proud of the content - would YOU want to read this if YOU were the parent? How would you feel if your own child presented this report to YOU?

7. What about the 'tricky reports'? Sometimes there are very difficult children and it is hard to find a positive spin on them. Start with all of the other children's reports first - this will put you in the right space to write about the more difficult learners.

8. No surprises - there should NEVER be any surprises for parents. The reports should simply confirm what you have communicated about their child all year. If there are surprises, then you may want to take a SERIOUS look at your communication skills. A report is NOT the place to 'break the bad news' to a parent!

9. Be accountable - make sure you have a buddy teacher on staff, whose opinion and professional advice you value, who can support you with any 'tricky' report comments, and someone who can proof read your reports for you before they are sent for checking.

10. Be honest - this is the most important advice of all - be brave. Sometimes there are hard things to say. Say them. Sometimes there are tricky comments that you worry about. Seek advice. You are not doing anyone any favours if you dress it up as something that it isn't. At all times, be perfectly honest.

Reporting In

2011-10-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

So it's that time of the year again, reports.

Collective groans, weekend plans for many weeks canceled. Life on hold, all balance ceases...it's that time of the year...

Christmas becomes a distant vein of hope...FAR in the distance...

Endless pages of data stretch ahead of us...numbers...comments...observations...assessments...details...

But there is hope. A light dawns in the darkness of the world of report writing. A dim glow at the end of the loooooooong tunnel.

Why are we doing this?

Who are we doing this for?

I talk to my classes all year about it - PURPOSE and AUDIENCE. Why are we learning about something? What is our 'takeaway'? What authentic life context does it fit?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's the hope! The true reason behind reports is not to make us have a mad, crazy, no-life 4-6 weeks while we plough through writing reports! The reality is that we owe it to these students, and their parents, who have placed their faith in us all year, to report on what they have learnt and what their next learning steps are. We must report honestly and with great integrity. Those parents have loaned us their precious children for a whole year, trusting that we will nurture and grow them and guide them through this year of their life. One day, one child may talk of you like a special memory and tell their own child about the tremendous impact you had on their learning journey. Imagine if no-one ever did though - are you okay with that?

Reports may seem like a grind to some teachers, honestly, no-one claps their hands with glee at the hours of work involved. But if I do my reporting well, then I am able to paint a portrait of text that describes a journey of one child, their special qualities, strengths and areas for development, their impact on others, their ability to enter my classroom as a stranger and to leave OUR classroom with a small piece of my heart.

I challenge myself every year with just that - to honour the learning that has taken place in our classroom over a year and most importantly, to honour each of the learners who journeyed together.

Report well my fellow teachers, we owe them that.

Global Connections

2011-10-26T01:39:00.000-07:00

On the news tonight, some children in schools badly affected by the Christchurch quakes and Brisbane floods had decided to Skype a school in Fukushima, Japan who had also suffered terrible loss through the Japan tsunami and the nuclear plant disaster.

It was amazing to see these children connecting with one another. They had many basic things in common and yet the power of social networking had connected them in the most powerful way - we know historically that it is a great healing process when we can share our experiences with someone who empathises, someone who really understands, someone who has walked in our shoes.

"A chance to compare notes...a chance to make friends...time to unite in a song..." says the reporter.

How wonderful that these children are able to connect with others around the globe to share their experiences and talk through their feelings and fears as well as make some new friends. Who knows how this will affect them as they continue to heal, but we can only hope that it will be a part of that process. And now they have decided to become penpals!

Christchurch

2011-10-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

In many ways, the Christchurch of my childhood is seen here, many Christmas holidays with my grandparents, 2 years living there in Bishopdale and many, many visits as an adult. What an amazing piece of cinematography - spectacular and tragic all at once.

Flat Stanley Arrives!

2011-10-25T13:07:00.001-07:00

Flat Stanley came to visit our school today! We had read the book, made our own Flat Stanleys and posted them to Pennsylvania, USA. We had even created a wiki for our buddy class and us to use as a shared space. We had joined Edmodo, creating groups for us to communicate through.

But when those gorgeous little Flat Stanleys arrived in a huge envelope with letters full of curiosity about our lives, suddenly, the world became a lot smaller and the term ‘going global’ had come to our classroom.

The children shared their Stanleys, showed them around the room, compared letters and questions and then dived onto Edmodo, full of more questions and lots of things to comment on and say. We have watched videos from each other, we have recorded voicethreads and vocaroos which were very funny for us all to listen to – comparing accents and colloquialisms as well as contrasting differences in school uniforms and other things they observed in the background.

There can be no value placed on these experiences. Who knows how far into the future it will impact? My class talk of nothing else and look forward to each message and comment, racing into the classroom each morning to check on the websites. Many of them are spending time at home going onto Edmodo and showing their parents what they are doing. There are photos everywhere and intentional learning about online spaces, communication, collaboration, curiosity, friendship and much, much more.

In our school, we talk about the importance of ‘a class without walls’, and this certainly illustrates how true that is in the digital age. The passion my class have shown through just a little Flat Stanley from Pennsylvania, really shows how much our global context impacts on children. They have become interested in the history of our area – a subject formally ‘boring’ to them. But now, because it has an authentic learning context, the children realise that the history of where they live and come from is a part of who they are and of immense interest to others.

The American Stanleys are off having adventures with my class at the moment and the NZ Stanleys are in Pennsylvania having fun with their ePals there. Their journeys will come full circle when they return to us in a month or so, but the learning from this experience will continue for far longer than that.

The NEW Look!

2011-10-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Don't panic - this is not an interior design blogpost! My class had all new furniture delivered today. Out with the old desks and in with the new tables and tote trays. Now, having lived among both, I have no preference really, but the tables allow us the fluidity of change - we can move and change the classroom as our needs change. The children have no 'fixed abode' - no 'one place' to call their own. Some of the children were a bit in awe of this. "Do you mean I can sit where I want?" said one of them. They were very keen to sit at every table for a wee spell! We did a PMI of which we think is better and why, what are the 'interesting' things about having tables instead of desks and so on.

I was really impressed by how they responded to the changes today. This is not a class who like change really and I was ready for them to be completely thrown. Although they were a bit loud to begin with (we had no furniture until after 11.30am) they were really onto the tasks and have achieved a lot. Our first task of the day involved using edmodo to reply to our ePals (Flat Stanley Project) and they were really pleased to do this as they returned from holidays and received their very own snail-mail letters and Flat Stanleys!

Also, we are having a '3 day challenge' as we look at the challenges of being a superhero. Today we unpacked the qualities of a superhero and then created a wordle of which qualities they thought were the most important. Apparently a costume and a cape are pretty important for some while others thought that being brave or heroic was paramount. We started by looking at the controversy of whether a sportsperson can be called a hero, which was very topical since the All Blacks had just won the World Cup! There was a lot of discussion and I am pleased to say that the children decided that if you are brave, do good things for others, rescue people and have enemies (as well as a great uniform!) then you are DEFINITELY a hero. They thought though that there is certainly a difference between a sporting hero and a hero in the comic books or a real life hero, like someone who rescues you from a fire.

Of course, the silly person in me HAD to ask the children, "But how can the All Blacks be heroes if they haven't rescued anyone?" One child decided that they had rescued New Zealand from being sad after all of the stuff that has happened with the earthquakes and the Pike Mine Disaster. One of little cherubs chirped back, "Oh they definitely rescue people! If they had lost the rugby I think my dad would've needed rescuing!" Kind of sweet, really!

This Made Me Happy All Over Again!

2011-10-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

Our World Champion All Blacks! from Jared Brandon Productions on Vimeo.

Very Proud To Be A Kiwi

2011-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am proud to be a Kiwi. I was proud before last night, well before the bells tolled for the victory in the Rugby World Cup. Well before the America's Cup was won. Well before the 1987 victory. Well before I understood rowing or the Olympics, well before I knew the difference between netball and kiwifruit, well before I truly understood much, I was proud to be a Kiwi.

My parents are made of stern stuff. They raised us to suck it up, roll with the punches and laugh your way through a disaster. When I traveled all over the world over a ten-year period I was extremely proud to be a Kiwi when people asked. I smiled when American tourists asked, "Where's that in London?" when I mentioned I was from New Zealand. I giggled when Turkish girls asked me whether Kiwi was a language or just a fruit. I rolled my eyes when asked at rugby league matches why I was cheering for Australia instead of England! I was proud to be an Antipodean, proud of our strong heritage of patriotism and laid-back attitudes.

This past year, I have been brought to tears with pride at how our small nation in the South Pacific united under the banner of triple catastrophes and dreadful tragedies. As the earth groaned last September, we wondered in awe at how lucky we were that Canterbury still stood with no fatalities after a magnitude 7.1 rocked the area, creating a brand new fault line. I stood proudly, with tears streaming down my cheeks, at school for 2 minutes' silence as our nation reeled from the devastating collapse of the Pike Mine in November, near Greymouth. As our country united in prayer and hope for the safe rescue of those 29 men, I was proud of the strength and determination of the small town as it finally realised that all hope was gone. But the incredible stories of community and resilience stand out, a town resolute that its loved-ones' deaths will not be forgotten. I wept with those families and I was proud to be a Kiwi whose heart broke with theirs.

Then, in February when the unthinkable happened and another 6.3 magnitude quake devastated Christchurch, almost completely demolishing the main centre, and affecting most of the outlying areas, I stood proudly as my husband flew to Christchurch to serve with the Salvation Army to assist with the disaster relief team. I worried as I watched the aftershocks live on TV - I worried for Kiwis trapped there, I worried for my husband's safety, I worried for the children and families whose lives could never be the same again. But I stood proudly as a Kiwi, as the nation again united in hope and stood alongside the people of Canterbury, helping in every way that we could, from school mufti days to church fundraisers.

So last night, when the Rugby World Cup was held aloft by a very deserving Richie McCaw and his team of mighty All Blacks, you would be wondering if I was proud that we won. Yes, in part I was. But you are mistaken if you think that's all that I was proud of. I was proud of how we played host to tens of thousands of visitors from around the world. I was proud of how New Zealand has gotten in behind even the least likely of the teams, dressing in their colours and cheering in the stands, filling the smaller stadiums and making it a rich feast of Kiwi hospitality for those visiting players. I am proud of the hundreds of thousands who lined the streets over the past 7 weeks, enjoying the celebrations and cheering on their teams in (mostly) great spirit and support.

And I am immensely proud, that as a nation, we have risen above the adversity of the past year - we have not forgotten, nor even healed - but we have found opportunities to focus on a silly little game with an oval ball, to band together as a proud nation and pull together to show the world that we are a mighty nation of people.

And yes, I am VERY proud that the All Blacks won the World Cup!

World Cup Winners

2011-10-23T03:59:00.000-07:00

Gotta dedicate this post to the mighty All Blacks and a nation united beneath the banner of the New Zealand flag. A fantastic world cup extravaganza, an amazing 6 weeks of rugby and luckily for us, a wonderful result. Great leadership, dedication and guts have been shown. Bruises, broken bones, torn ligaments and aching muscles are all that many have to show for it but for Richie McCaw and his team of All Blacks tonight, this is what it was all about.

Kia Kaha, standing strong for Christchurch, the Pike River families and the nation. True champions.

The Impact Of Social Networking in Education

2011-10-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

DK was the presenter for this breakout @justadandak

He started of by discussing the human element to the web and our communication through it. We looked at a clip from 'Winky dink' which was the first interactive broadcast over 50 years ago. Children held an acetate up to their TV screen and saw the features and layovers in colour. This was an incredibly innovative idea - that an audience was able to participate from a lounge!

DK then showed us the future of this interaction by viewing the youtube clip of motion control gaming. He claimed that it would freak us out and he was right! It was pretty real and I could imagine there being a lot of terrified and excited kids playing this!

@fwong @brandonjla for more information

DK talked about the fabulous Spike Milligan quote - 'chopsticks are one of the reasons why the Chinese never invented custard'. It is about the need we have within our own society and the tools we have to serve that need.

Tools - are we enabling our schools to 'play' with stuff, invent things?

Ever heard of 'Angry Birds'? Well, a young teenager invented 'Bubble ball' - made for his physics class - and totally disrupted the mainstream by knocking Angry Birds off its perch as number 1 app!

Technology is becoming devisive. Amazon are now selling more eBooks than real books. Social media has to disrupt and divide education (in a positive way).

We then took a look at booktrack.com - iPhone, iPad - free app - which is totally multimodal. One idea is that kids create background music (compose on iPad) and provide background to their own writing. This is like having your own backing track as you read, like a movie experience but the movie plays in your head while the music plays in your ears.

So, some questions and things to ponder from DK:

How do we separate the professional from the personal? A single track, a blurring or totally separate tracks.
Who does social media within our schools? It's not 100% one person's job it's 1% all persons jobs.

I learnt a few new words for my technical vocab...neotony - retaining juvenile traits in adulthood. This is also known as hiding learning in play. It's a barrier of entry if you are not into the gaming ideas, playing. Clicktivism - activism thru a click! Emberrorist - like a terrorist who embarrasses people online. Foodoir - food critic online!

Where's the fun in the context of social media?

www.seriousplay.com

Sour - advert for water - playing around with webcams! Use that model with your students to re-create their own.

iBend

technology changes, humans don't

We looked then at what is called the internet of things - where things are connected to the internet - iPads for example. But the future of internet things are ideas such as fridges that order milk for you when you run out, Rambler shoes that tweet when you walk.

Transitional - join a FB group when you join a new school, extend it further to the wider world

Spaces - social spaces - 6 spaces of social media - Matt Locke

Education is a very badly designed game, you level up, get grades, do really well and get more stuff, but it has been badly designed for the user!

Creators, critics, joiners - this is what our kids online are.

My big takeaway from this session is that LEARNING IS LIKE ROWING UPSTREAM - not to advance is to drop back - Chinese proverb - that's where the learning happens! We need to meet our learners where they are, not where we want them to be or think they should be. We have to use the tools of the time to teach the skills of the time and then hope this is enough for their future building.

Blogging Masterclass

2011-10-21T15:23:00.001-07:00

We had a fantastic session with DK aka @justadandak, which was about blogging for experts.

Here are the takeaways from that session: (notes care of Rachel Boyd @rachelboyd and myself)

The golden rule is that blogging is being in a real room with real people - treat it that way!
Remember - people don’t want you to just talk about yourself all the time! Blogging is a conversation between you and the world.
Feature other people - it's always about connections.
Try to constantly come back to “what is the purpose of this blog/post?”

Forget the numbers - don’t worry about how many people are reading your blog.
Find your voice first in blogging.
Your blog is an intersection not a destination - get people to come through your blog and off. They will always come back! eg Google, Mashable

4 Tips that Drive Quality, Content, Conversation

Commenting - you have to be part of the conversation. Leave comments, start conversing. You do this in real life - don’t always lurk!
Content: Not just talk about yourself, tell other people’s story. Create unique content for your site that no one else has. Feature people on your blog and enjoy the links back through their reputation. Talking to people and videoing or podcasting their info forges deeper connection - create content around their story. How could you also make use of this at school level?
Control: “Re Work” - Reimaging work, By Seth Godin Book. Some bloggers try to create viral amazing content all the time - “the hit”, don’t focus on this. Try and be a ‘good community’ agent and focus on sharing.
Question: Always leave the reader with a question. This pulls in the reader & opens up a potential conversation.

Barriers to blogging

Time
Content Originality
New Ideas

The bottom line is - just get writing! Everyone has something of value to share about their journey. And remember, it is just that - a journey, not a destination.

What I Heard and Learnt At uLearn

2011-10-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ramblings and thoughts from two of the sessions I attended:

Dr Jack Bacon: Keynote

There has been a creative explosion - knowledge acquisition - changes from generation to generation.

'My Grandfathers' Clock' has been written by Dr Jack Bacon to show his patriarchal lineage and how they were affected by a single day in their life. He chose one defining day such as the Lunar Landing and wrote about that day in the life of his grandfather. He has traced back 1,000 years of his family and has written this book to show (in part) how they contributed to him being who he is.

We pass on good ideas and they continue to be built onto.

We try to linearize everything!

Futurists - physical limits of chemistry/physics - but creativity is exponential!

Teaching 'on the shoulders of giants' quote from Isaac Newton.

Unity of thought.

Future skills for our kids of today mean that they will have to be able to reinvent themselves.

The accumulation of knowledge has happened over the (approx) 13.7bn yrs that the universe has existed.

ePortfolios with Nick Rate: breakout

You need to define the PURPOSE first - why do we need them?

Then DEFINE them - clarify the vision and beliefs of the school and the audience - what are the benefits? Who is this for?

www.ian.fox.co.nz - learning to learn portfolio model - development of independent learner

Decide - is this part of a process? Or is it for showcasing good work? Or accountability? Or a combination of these things?

The benefits - reflecting, student voice - should not be underestimated. Social networking - connections, people as resources, feedback. Lifelong learning!

Consult - students, parents, BoT, teachers, HODs, leadership teams, providers

Framework - collect, select, reflect, project. PLF - inquiry process

Criteria http://bit.ly/eportfolioscelebtainglearning; Jamin Lietz lietze.org; Mahara, Spike@school, edublogs, googlesites, blogger, wordpress, hapara (join with googlesites) myportfolio - free til the end of Jan 2014, twitter, evernote

Educate - setting goals, technical how to's, giving feedback, pedagogy, reflecting and self-assessing.

I had lots of questions and thoughts about ePortfolios and found this session really informative. It clarified for me that it is firstly ab0ut purpose and then about audience. We need to decide the why and who for before we can clearly decide on the how.

Takeaways

2011-10-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

What a conference! It has just been one high after another for me really. From inspiring keynotes, inspiring colleagues, inspiring teachers, inspiring tweachers, inspiring speakers, inspiring learning to just plain inspiring people, it has been an unbelievable 3 days of learning.

I came with expectations. My plan was thus: network, connect, share, challenge.

First, network with those who I have discovered and hooked in with on my PLN. And they are outstanding educators and now I discover, outstanding people too! WOW!

Then, connect with like-minded teachers and educators. Well there were a lot of new connections made and it has my brain spinning. This world is full of incredible educators and we grow lots of them in good old God-Zone, New Zealand!

Share...ideas, thoughts, questions, knowledge. I presented at a session (40mins) and it was so cool to be able to do that - overcoming the fear of public speaking and all that! It was cool to share ideas through twitter throughout the conference and the googledocs ripping around for each session meant true collaboration on a grand scale was always going off!

Lastly, challenge. Well, I have definitely been challenged by the concepts and innovative thinking, theoretical boundaries that are pushing back and challenged by the thoughts of 'how do we apply this new learning to OUR teachers, to OUR community of learners?'

I feel all abuzz with new schools of thought. It is inspiring to be able to go away and focus solely on personal learning, change and growth but also have your own peeps and tweeps to then chuck those ideas around with. So much of the learning has come from the discussions with the people who were there, the people who impact on my journey the most (other than my class, of course!)

So now the big challenge is to find a way to apply all of this to my life. Oh! Lightbulb moment! I think that might be what it's all about...new thinking, new knowledge (theory) put into real life contexts (practical) = learning!

uLearn

2011-10-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's all about getting connected. Sharing. Talking and thinking with like-minded people. Some are ahead of the game, some are barely on board the bus. But we are all at uLearn as agents of change. We are here for one reason, and one reason alone - to learn, to broaden our knowledge so that we can bring the best, most innovative ideas and teaching to our schools.

I heard a lot of talk about 'innovation' yesterday. Personally, I am not at uLearn because of any desire to get ideas or talk about innovations. I am here to connect, both with people and with ideas. I have some dots lurking around in my head and they need to be connected. I have some people in my PLN and I want to connect with them.

It's about the rich learning conversations for me. It's about the deep thinking and processing. The computers, iPads, iPods, devices - they are just the tools for delivery. I know how to use them (not as an expert) but they could be turned off, discharged or removed from my room and I would still be an eLearning teacher. It is about creating change in the way we teach and the we learn. It's about bringing about change in thinking and questioning, it's about connecting those dots in real and deep ways that I can relate to my life. That's what it's like for me and that's what my children are searching for.

We were reminded yesterday by Dr. Jack Baker that we have always, throughout history, been part of fast-moving change. But he also demonstrated for us how rapidly changing our world is now - the rate of thinking and the way that we think, problem-solve and process, has changed exponentially, but it will never stop changing. That's why we can't possibly keep up with it because it becomes the past within a moment. We cannot equip our children to simply read, write and compute any more and hope that the rest will come through osmosis. It might for some, but they will be ill-equipped to cope in the future, especially compared to others. The idea is to level the playing field and that's what we are charged with as our task as teachers.

I look forward to the rich conversations continuing and there have been many already.

I look forward to the new connections being made, and they have been many too.

But I also look back and see how far we have come, how fast we have developed change and how much we have learned and I know, with absolute certainty, that these conferences make changes real and tangible, develop incredible passion in teachers and administrators and transfer into real and measurable changes in our schools, which directly impacts on the learners. Let's be honest - that's what it's all about.

uLearn 2011 - Getting Connected

2011-10-17T14:26:00.001-07:00

Well, today is the day! I am charging the laptop and readying the mind, packing the bag and sorting out the kids so that I can get off to Roto-Vegas for uLearn, 2011.

So much to organise! So much has been prepared! So many tweets about it from all over the world! The anticipation is building and some people are already there enjoying the choice tasters to whet their appetites for what is to come!

So, what am I personally expecting to get from this conference?

I want new learning. New ideas. Confirmation of things that I already know. Expanded knowledge with ideas that have been percolating around in me for a long time or some for a short time.

But more than anything, this is the chance to CONNECT.

I want to connect on a personal level with people in my PLN on twitter who exist as an @ and already operate as a # group but have yet to be known in the flesh. I want to make NEW people connections and re-connect old connections. I want to connect the learning that I have in the classroom or through crowd-sourcing, blogs, #edchats with the learning that others are speaking about, developing or showing. I need to connect with like-minded people who are working in schools like mine and different to mine. I need to connect the dots from A to Z and then reconnect them in new and wonderful ways.

This conference is all about connecting for me. I am doing a short 40min presentation tomorrow about eBites and the whole gist of it is for people to make new connections. My goal is to help my small group of 18 see that eLearning is ME learning and that we can all learn new things every day and teach new things in a variety of ways, but in small, bite-sized chunks so that people feel connected to their own learning pathway.

I can't wait! uLearn - here I come!

True Grit

2011-10-16T18:48:00.001-07:00

Tenacity and determination.

Community and collaboration.

Sometimes the worst of times bring out the best in people.

And sometimes, though not often, people can really surprise others by their grit and determination as a community.

When the ship, Rena, hit a reef and began to spill oil, fuel and toxic waste into the ocean on the coast of New Zealand, in a region known for its immense stretches of beautiful white, sandy beaches, the locals were told firmly to stay off the beach. Signs were erected and the army swarmed in to assess the situation.

But the small local community could not bear to sit by and watch their coastline ruined. They could not simply lie down and let fate have its way. So they donned their gumboots, rolled up their sleeves and trudged along that beach to help clean up. Tonnes of oil mixed with oil-sodden penguins, seals and birds, were lying stretched as far as the eye could see. Their picturesque beaches and idyllic views were now blackened with sludge and slime. Their stunning shoreline which was home to their kaimoana (seafood) and was once rich with fish and sealife, is now replaced with a clean-up job that seems impossible.

But this little community is not to be deterred. They have gone there, day after day, carrying their plastic bags (reduce, reuse, recycle!) to cart, sweep, sift and shift as much as they can. And every afternoon they leave a clean beach behind, only to arrive the next morning greeted by the same task again. More sludge washes up on that beach every day, and more bags depart every afternoon.

If we look at that community, we have a wonderful portrait of a united people. We can witness collaboration at work daily as the army and the locals work shoulder to shoulder. We have seen it during other tragedies such as Katrina, Japan's tsunami and the earthquakes in Christchurch. We have only to turn the pages of the newspapers to witness a true testimony of grit, determination, co-operation and collaboration. And we are awed - so we should be. These communities are the ones we would seek to build in our schools and in our lives. We can only hope that these traits would be apparent to all if we were faced with adversity too.

The Most Inspiring School Leader I Have Ever Met

2011-10-11T19:38:00.002-07:00

This is actually an incredibly easy post to write. I have worked in close to 100 schools over the years, through classroom teaching, Literacy Consulting in the U.K, relieving (supply teaching/substitute teaching), teaching English as a second language, as well as teaching adults at Teachers' College in the UK. This means that I have worked with a LOT of school leaders - the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

The very best have risen to the top of my memories and this is exactly where they should be. Inspiring leaders have a unique way of pushing everyone else to the very back of your mind and setting themselves at the front. This is where most of them lead from so it is rather apt!

The second school principal that I worked with here in New Zealand, was incredibly inspiring. Blunt, forthright, a 'from the front' leader, she was one of those amazing people who you either killed or died for, or spent your weekends trying to work out how you could dispose of her body and not get caught. She didn't suffer fools lightly, was quick to tell you if you were not pulling your weight and shook up the school with a lot of scary ideas. BUT - she was the one who bought the first round at the pub every Friday night if your planning was complete for the next week, she was the one who worked more hours than her staff, she was the one who had a big vision that every child had excellence inside them and her philosophy was that we are building a child NOT a school. I loved working for her - her character was refreshing and she was a great person at recognising that all teachers were learners too, quite a revolutionary thought at that time. I ended up working for her 3 times in 2 different schools and when she retired, I knew that education in New Zealand had seen one of its finest leave the building.

The boss I really loved working for in the UK was a great leader. He believed that relationships build a school and that in turn builds a platform for learning. He was in our rooms doing a cruise around EVERY morning - in fact, in the four years that I was there, he only missed one day. He was great with the parents but also a very approachable boss. He amassed a fantastic team of leaders around him and they drove the school with him. He was fun and funny, relevant and relational and he was just a joy to work with, as he had an incredibly positive spin on life and teaching. The biggest thing that he did for the school was to revolutionise the behaviour in a very tough school. Over 6 years, he took on every child and got them on board with a school-wide behaviour programme based on rewards and consequences. It totally changed the classrooms and allowed us maximum teaching time in a school where the kids were pretty difficult. He passed away just before I left the UK and his funeral was packed with ex-pupils, ex-colleagues, other school leaders, ex-parents and hundreds who jammed in to pay tribute to an incredible leader.

The two principals that I have worked with since being back in New Zealand have both been incredibly strong leaders, but totally different to one another, in fact, poles apart. The first one was a visionary man who took a patch of dirt and in 10 years, he turned it into a truly great school to work in. He believed in the importance of the Arts in children's learning so he built a Performing Arts studio. He also built a Learning Centre so that the gifted and talented programmes had a base as well as the special needs programmes. He was constantly thinking of ways to improve the school and he was ALWAYS ahead of other schools of thought. I believe he was rather a 'thought leader' because of the way he worked.

The principal I work for now took over from that type of leader, and fortunately, she never tried to fill his boots. Instead, she brought her own shoes! She is the type of leader who is totally people-driven, relationship based and she is incredibly approachable (teachers, students and parents) as well as incredibly realistic. She is hugely supportive of teachers undertaking further study and attending professional development conferences and seminars. She is best described as the 'wind beneath your wings' type of leader - someone who gets excited by new ideas and is constantly backing a new idea or initiative. She is the leader that you go to and say, "I have a crazy idea..." and you leave her office with her full support and lots of strategies for trying the crazy idea! She leads from the front and is always quick to recognise teachers who are leaders too, and she nurtures and supports them in growing into leadership.

Every school leader is different but I believe that these and other great ones have some things in common:

1. They serve their staff, teachers, students, leaders, parents and community wholeheartedly

2. They have a vision for their learners, teachers and the future of the school

3. They believe in the power of education

4. They believe that every learner deserves the best opportunities to become the best that they can be

5. They build strong relationships and depend upon other leaders to hold them accountable

6. The recognise leadership in others and work to nurture growing leaders in their schools

7. They understand that it takes a community to grow a child and they work with the community to support families and learners, developing a knowledge of their community along the way

8. They are positive about change and understand the future is fluid and unknown in education

9. They think BIG

10. They are learners too, never afraid to grow their own knowledge

Although all of these principals that I loved working with were all different, they had all of these qualities in common.

And THAT I believe, is why they are etched in my mind as the most inspiring school leaders that I have ever met.

The Most Inspiring Teacher I Have Ever Met

2011-10-11T19:38:00.001-07:00

I was quite disillusioned with school, particularly as a teenager. I was not your 'meat and three veggies' kind of learner, I didn't WANT to learn about sine and cosine, tangents and logarithms. I didn't enjoy learning imperative verbs in French and as for science, well, it I couldn't dissect it or blow it up, frankly, it was boring.

But I had strategies and they were outstanding. If work avoidance could have a grade, well I scored an A+. The debating team (I am gifted at arguing), drama club including all of the school productions, choir (you got out of two maths sessions per week!) every sports team the planet has known, gym monitor, prefect, and much, much, more. By sixth form I had scraped my way past the first set of exams by the skin of my teeth (I am definitely an assignment person and there were no points for assignments in those days!) and I was heading into the REAL stuff, the exams that meant University or a career at McDonalds.

Enter, Miss Law.

A rather mouse-y looking young woman, totally dedicated to her life as an English teacher. She was sassy and slightly edgy as teachers go at that time. She had scored the 'hell-class' - all the reluctant learners who were actually quite gifted, but disruptive, disconnected and downright difficult. We were the kids who had potential but somehow we hadn't decided to use it. We had been told that we couldn't do it. We were yet to prove anyone wrong.

Her first session with us included her telling us that if we didn't want to learn, then we needed to get the heck out of her class. Show up for roll-call, she advised us, and then disappear to the common-room and begone from her hallowed temple of learning. When we all sat frozen, contemplating the catch to this wonderful lifeline we had all been given, she proceeded to unravel what the year would look like in her class.

Her catch-phrase was, "Nothing but 100%." And boy, she meant it. She was all about choices and us being responsible for our own learning, which was a rather refreshing pedagogy at that time! She had no textbooks in our English classroom - her theory was to allow us to choose the genre and texts for study based on our real interests. When the lads suggested rather impishly, that we do our film study on "Horror Movies", she booked the film room for six sessions and hired 'Halloween' and 'Friday the 13th' movies which she sat through smiling at us.

Her teaching style was all about questioning - endless ORAL questions which we loved. She created scenarios for us and we had to duck and dive and weave our words through them like an obstacle course. Everything we did was noisy and engaging, creative and challenging. But she BELIEVED in us and it was etched on her face. We were hooked.

We LOVED her classes. We loved her teaching style. Every week we completed every task, assignment, study component gladly and with vigor, and I HUNG on every word she said. we waited anxiously for the feedback that she gave both written and oral, as if our life depended on it. We used her feedback to improve our writing and to influence HOW we read a text.

When the time came for final exams, I went to see her on the last day of study leave. I was getting my old school dress signed by friends and I really wanted one last piece of her to take away. She wrote, "No less than 98%" on my dress.

I looked at that comment, slightly crest-fallen. She smiled her gentle, warm smile at me and said,"Kimberley, you have already given more than 100% all year. In this exam, I expect you to SCORE no less than 98% because I believe you can achieve that."

Well, I got 88% (and passed all of my other exams without a problem) and you have to be pretty happy with that. For a kid who hated school, loathed exams and avoided learning at all costs, Miss Law inspired me (and who knows how many others) to believe that they were excellent learners. Her teaching impacted on HOW I learnt and how I approached learning. It influenced every aspect of my character as a learner. She taught me that no two learners are the same, that a curriculum that works for learners is one that accepts and embraces ALL learning styles. She inspired me to believe in myself as a lifelong learner.

Miss Law was truly the most inspirational teacher that I ever had.

The Most Inspiring Pupil I Have Ever Taught

2011-10-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Years ago, when teaching in the UK, I had the privilege of teaching a boy who had brittle bone syndrome (Osteogenesis Imperfecta). He had the most optimistic view of life that I have ever come across. He was determined and independent, unwilling to be defined by his disease, and for the four years that I was at the school he endured cast after cast, surgeries, wheelchairs, crutches, hospital visits galore - yet wore a permanent smile.

The school had only 105 students and I ended up teaching him for 2 years because I changed year levels. During the second year of teaching him, it became obvious that he was going to have to lose both of his legs as he kept breaking the lower leg bones almost monthly. He would come out a cast and be straight back into it again. So, our athletics day fast approaching, he set himself one, last goal 'with legs' - to run the 100m race.

Every person in our school, every parent, teacher and child, cheered him down that field that day. As he loped in last, the class joined him to run the last 20m with him, cheering him the whole way. You would truly have believed that he had won an Olympic Gold Medal such was the joy, celebration and tears.

A week later, we did a class visit to see him in hospital after both of his legs had been amputated. Still smiling, still larger than life, and still positive to his very core, he entertained the class, cracked jokes about 'being leg-less at 11!' and regaled us with stories of how he planned to 'pimp his wheelchair'!

He single-handedly taught the class and the whole school community about being happy with who you are. He inspired us all to want to be better people, and to be grateful for what we have. My class raised money for him and bought him a Sony Discman (VERY trendy at the time) and lots of CDs. They sold seeds and plants that they had grown, held cake sales and even hosted a community fair to help him purchase the best wheelchair that he could. He taught those children the value of caring for others and fighting to be the best that you can be. He taught me to look at every child for who they are and not what they do, and he taught me that a class is a community who can genuinely bond together to bring about change.

Inspiring?

Absolutely the most inspiring pupil I have ever taught.

My First 2 Years As A Teacher

2011-10-10T12:06:00.001-07:00

They were the darkest of times.

Some days I went home crying. Some days I just went home and wondered what on earth I was doing. Most days I didn't know what I was doing let alone WHY I was doing it.

I had kids who swore at me daily. Some hit me or spat at me. Others arrived without breakfast, ate no lunch and didn't show up after lunchbreak most days.

I had kids who came with bruises, black eyes and cuts that I know didn't happen from the door slamming. I saw abuse, violence, our school had an attempted arson most weeks and sometimes even when we were in the buildings. Kids urinated in the tote trays, ripped seats off their own toilets, graffiti was everywhere, no-one wanted to help, no-one wanted to know. We had a bomb threat the first term I was there and the bomb squad was too busy to come so the unmarried teachers with no children were sent through the school to search the bags. That was me.

The school leaders were broken. My deputy head, who was my tutor teacher, had a nervous breakdown week 3 and I waited for a new guide and support person to arrive. That took 6 months.

I had a child in my class who was psychotic. He had experienced a hideous personal trauma aged 6 and had never had counseling or support after it. No-one had the resources to help or the time to care. He came to school and barked like a dog, urinated in the corner, hit me, threw chairs at me and generally swore at every opportunity. I would read the class story with him pinned between my legs and his arms held by me as another child turned the page for me. He was violent, angry and a mess. I was a beginning teacher who didn't have a clue of how to help him.

Our principal didn't want to know. She rolled up at 9am and rolled out at 3pm. She had the audacity to tell me that I wasn't cut out for teaching because I asked for help. She suggested I go and re-train as some other profession. She wouldn't support us as a staff, wouldn't even call in the parents of a child who broke my colleagues jaw in a fit of rage. The school was limping by without a single professional person screaming 'STOP! I want to get out of here!' until I did.

It broke me.

I did my time, like a prison sentence and I resigned from teaching forever.

I had never wanted to be a teacher. I went to teachers' college by default so I could kill off a year until I was old enough to take my place in the Journalism course I had always dreamed of.

But then the kids got hold of me while I was at teachers' college and they wove their way into my heart. I had grandiose dreams of traveling to Africa and making a difference to kids who had nothing.

Then I got posted to my first school, with kids who had nothing, in my own backyard, and it was NOT the romantic fantasy of a beginning teacher with stars in her eyes. It was hell and I had to drive there every day, count out 6 hours of hell, and drive home crying.

So I left.
I gave up.

It beat me.

They won.

I was never going back to a classroom again. And that, as they would say, was that.

Until my mother got into the act.

One firm lecture from her about being a waste of tax-payers' money and all that and guilt got the better of me. I made a deal with the devil - I would apply for ONE job, and one job only. And if it was 'meant to be' then I would get it and return to teaching to have another go. If not, then journalism beckoned...

I applied. Wearing jandals, board-shorts and a shabby t-shirt I sauntered into the interview (oh I was determined to sabotage ANY chance of getting this job!!!) but I was in for a shock. The principal recognised a very broken, very disillusioned young teacher and she hired me. She knew I had had the worst of times, she knew I was busted up and cynical about my career choice, and she hired me anyway.

Over 2 more years I healed. I experienced the joys of actually TEACHING - not just managing - a class. I experienced laughter and fun, daring to try new and wonderful things. I was nurtured and supported, finding a collegiality that I had previously not known. I was respected by students and their parents, I was part of a thriving learning community and I fell in love all over again. The romance was back. The dream was alive.

If I had my time over again and I could change anything, I simply wouldn't change a thing.

Every experience that I had, every tough time, every bad day, contributed to me being who I am today. I have never been complacent BECAUSE of what I learnt. I have never been content BECAUSE of what I experienced. I have been passionate and driven to make a difference to myself first so that I can be the best teacher and learner that I can be BECAUSE I went to hell and back and I never want to sit back and accept my circumstances ever again.

I am a teacher and every day I get up and LOVE what I do BECAUSE of what I learnt in those first two years.

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my destiny.

Qualities of a Learner

2011-10-10T02:11:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about what the most powerful quality of a learner could be. I have been examining my own children, both the ones at home and the ones at school. If I could pick the one most essential quality that I would want them to have, what would it be? Resilience? Flexibility? A team player? Leadership?

After a lot of consideration, I have decided that it has to be DARING. Yep, you read it right - DARING.

I have learnt that it takes a lot to be a risk-taker, especially a sane one. If you are daring then you are resilient usually anyway, since risk-takers tend to fail a lot! You are generally flexible since there is a lot to contend with along the way. And you are likely to be a team player and a great leader since you need buy in with people with all of the daring ideas!

To dare is to be a risk-taker but to be a person who possesses the sound judgement that goes with it. A daring person is one who is able to look failure in the eye and do it anyway. It does not mean that you must be foolish or foolhardy, more that you must be willing to try new things as well as to create new things.

I believe that there are two choices in life often - to step outside the box and dare, or to sit back and take the easier, more comfortable, safe choice.

Daring people go in rockets to the moon. They discover how lightbulbs work. They crash planes and sink ships. They invent cars and find stars. Daring people create visual effects and build theme parks. They risk everything in the hope of discovering that one elusive thing.

If they dare to be different, then they may just inspire others to try things that are new, explore other options and become more daring themselves. In possessing this quality, they may not be afraid to break from conformity and discover the essence of who they really are and what they can do with their lives. It may prevent them from being swept up by the crowd, caring about the opinions of others, following poor leadership or peer pressure or even allowing a bully to affect them.

I would rather my own children, both at home and at school, were willing to dare in life and make mistakes, fail, err and more, just to possess that quality of being able to courageously dare to challenge the norm and get the most out of life that they can.

Go on.

I DARE you.

Conference Time (again!)

2011-10-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

I find it hilarious how much I hated classrooms and listening to teachers or lecturers when I was busy resisting learning as a child/teenager. When I went to university I spent more time trying to suss out the relevance of what the lecturers were going on about than actually listening to the lecture! I found them, frankly, boring. The only interesting thing about school was sport, morning tea, lunchtime and anything to do with music. Outside of that? Boring.

One or two teachers were the exception and I often wonder if I was the hardest kid to sell education to in those years, or was education just downright boring then?

I am presenting about eLearning and eBites (small, bite sized learning that will engage teachers who need to experience success with eLearning and using digital tools) at a conference next week, and I find myself constantly seeking new ways to keep my audience interested. It is a small group of only 18 and me, so it is easier in one way and harder in another. If someone is bored, it will be very obvious. If someone starts texting or searching the internet for something more interesting than me, then it will be highly visible.

So I ask myself, why didn't any of my teachers try to find new and inventive ways or tools to inspire me? What was wrong with education and teachers when I was at school, that they didn't desire engagement? Was it a terrible curriculum? Was it pressure from parents? Was it a need to tick boxes for summative tests and grades that drove us to boredom and probably them too?

Teaching is one of the most exciting and interesting vocations that you can have! You kind of don't pick it, it really picks you. Personality is essential, ridiculous humour is helpful, a drive and passion for kids' learning and a heart for their development is a must. Something I have discovered over many of hit and miss is that learners are all looking for one thing - interest. Can I interest them in the ideas? Are they interested in the learning? Does the learning style cater for their interest? How can I make a lesson interesting to all of my students?

Oh don't be fooled, just because I have the diagnosis doesn't mean that I have the cure! But I have also discovered that anyone can learn new things if they have them in 'bite-sized' amounts. That's why I am presenting about bite-sized learning. If we approach the big picture by trying to paint the whole thing at once, then we are all bound to feel we will fail right from the beginning. But if we paint the background and then the other parts one small step at a time, very soon we will have a portrait of the big picture that looked impossible. Bite-sized learning is like that. A classic example being cyber-safety. If I tried to teach my class everything they need to be cyber-safe, then I would just bore them very early on and I would also be likely to have total buy-out. Instead, if I integrate cyber-safety into every session that we have online, with small and bite-sized lessons, then I am guaranteeing a more gradual building of skills and a greater level of interest.

(I hate public speaking so I guess I will just have to 'suck it up', picture them all in woolly knickers and hope for the best!)

And maybe, just maybe, one more teacher might 'get on the bus' and join the eLearning wave from one bite-sized thing that I suggest.