Sunday, July 31, 2011

I Love Teaching Conference - 18-19th July 2011

It was yet again a great opportunity to be in the audience of our ILT sponsored education conference.  Brought to us by our Conference Convenor - Marlene Campbell and an enthusiastic committee who were dedicated in delivering a top quality conference leading the way with keynote speakers of a high calibre.

The conference programme was themed for teachers under two key competencies - Managing Self and Relating to Others.  The conference perked up everyones early morning moods with the first presentation from Rhythm Interactive - "Action Speaks Louder Than Words".  Before too long everyone was involved in creating music by using an African styled hand drum and believe it or not all those educators did it without speaking and via non verbal instruction.

The Keynote Speakers included...

Francoys Gagne
The DGMT (Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent) theory of talent development was delivered to us highlighting the clear distinction between outstanding potentialities (the gifts) and outstanding achievements (the talents).

Allie Mooney
In an exciting delivery we heard about the four different personalities there are in life Playful, Peaceful, Precise and Powerful.  It was certainly entertaining and thought provoking.

Wilson McCaskill
Brought to us key messages about play and how we empower children to manage their emotions.  His beliefs of how the power of games acts as a universal language for the development of positive social behaviour was incredibly passionate.

Graham Watts
Shared many practical tools in his workshop presentations that can be easily transferred into classroom programmes e.g. 10 tools to combine literacy and thinking.  His keynote messages encouraged us as educators to look critically at what we are teaching and why we are teaching.  Are we heading in the right direction for the 21st century learner and how will it look for our learners in the next 100 years?

Jeni Wilson
Asked us to take a step back and ask ourselves... What does it look like at our school from a students point of view?  How passionate are we about what we teach?  Have we personalised learning to meet the needs of our students?  We were given grand examples of learning spaces and "Big Picture Learning".  Within her workshops there were clear guidelines to use Thinking Strategies uphold the value of belief in ones self.  Creating action plans using personal learning goals and reflections to meet the students needs which applies personalised learning for students.



James Nottingham
Delivered a powerful message about the methods of feedback.  He explained how praise feedback was ineffective to the next steps of a students learning and how process feedback was essential.

I have added slides that James has shared as I am inspired to learn more.

It was a tremendous conference and I a grateful for the chance to have attended this marvelous form of Professional Development in Southland.
I Love Teaching
View more presentations from James Nottingham



Challenging Learning Workshop
View more presentations from James Nottingham

Welcome to the World of ipads

We have just had our senior classes equipped with two apple ipad2 per class.  The secret is now to find the best possible way to use the ipads to the best of its potential for child centered learning throughout the whole school day. I found the following interesting resource that will help us on this new but exciting journey.

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzIxZ2RrNWp0ZDg&hl=en_US



Using iPads in Education: Resources for teachers using iPads in the classroom

http://bit.ly/pIxQ52

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Encouraging Teachers to use Class Blogs in the Classroom.

 How to sell the value and easy use of class blogging across all levels of the school. 

Most teachers can see the need for class blogging but find it difficult to find time and implement blogging into their exisiting class programes a hurdle to somewhat hard to overcome.

It is merely a shift in thinking and before you relise it the hurdles will have be passed and students will use blogging successfully and effortlessly within daily programmes.

Setting up the blog page easy with support from a previous blogger.

Learning how to embed new tools a slight challenge but once practised a few times, very manageable!

Maintaining the momentum of posts and links to programmes a little more difficult but with some planning and specific teaching and learning contexts it will become apart of your daily planning routines.

Creating an audience and regular input of comments from a wider audience may prove very difficult.  However applying some of the following ideas will be helpful

Steps I have taken to help lead the blogging journey...

1.  Whole Staff Teaching team create an account and design a blog page to meet their purpose e.g. Deputy Principals, Library, Junior / Senior school, nump / lit leaders page

2.  Offer Techie support for blogging at least 2 per term.  Introduce basics gadgets, embeding, widgets.  Practice is essential before returning to next session.  Next session staff share their questions / wants / needs.  Introduce the use of slideshows e.g. photopeach, glitter text for some sparkle - personalise to individual needs.

REFLECTION...
After a staff feedback session it was obvious that the main hurdles were...

time to organise or use the blog 
how to use in daily programmes
finding a reliable audience make comments and give feedback

NEXT STEP...
I had recently been introduced to quad blogging (four classes - each week one class is the focus class and the other three classes view and leave comments for the focus class) Every class gets an opportunity to participate as the focus class and viewers.  Within the school we will approach quad blogging as above but across the school involving junior, middle and senior classrooms.

Teach students how to make comments...





Blogging for the very Young - check this link out...

http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/07/19/blogging-with-very-young-students/

Friday, July 1, 2011

Intergrating Blogging in the Primary School

Teaching students to comment correctly on blogs is an essential step in the use of blogging.  Also these skills are handy to share with parents when encouraging them to comment on your classroom blog.
Check out Intergrating Blogging in the Primary school for inspiring ideas...

 http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2010/02/21/blogging-teaching-commenting-skills/