Friday 28 October 2011

Do as I say, not as I do?

To often we ask our students to do what we are not doing ourselves, and I am thinking particularly about e-portfolios and reflective blogging. As life-long learners and inquiring teachers, I believe all teachers should be modeling these themselves.


This week I asked my students to do a reflection on their first week back at school, so I decided it would be interesting to do so myself.


We started the week discussing our treaty and values, our self management strategies and responsibilities, and very importantly, the Key Competencies which is the center of all our learning. This was finished off with an activity for mixed groups to practice what we spoke about. Each group had 15 minutes to create their most imaginative outfit out of newspaper and dress one of their members, then do a final self-assessment which they shared (see left). I believe it was a huge success but then you judge from the photos and comments on our class blog.







Thursday morning was a a ray of sunshine, so remembering something from Ulearn11 about using outside spaces and changing the environment, I took the class outside to do maths on the hall steps. I taught the groups to one side while the others work individually or pairs in the sun. It was actually going very well until some sports training began on the field, we eventually had to move back inside because I had lost their attention, but I will certainly do it again.


After last term's inquiry, I realised that my students really needed a lot more learning around researching, particularly finding the key ideas in text and then summarising it in their own words. We have been pioneering Diigo for Education (see my blog post here) and so we used the highlight function to find unknown words in one colour and then key ideas in another colour on an article on the  NZHerald website




Our science inquiry this term is magnetism, so we had our introductory lesson this week. We started with a brainstorm which produce an amazing amount of questions, considering I had only asked what they thought they knew. I had to bite my lip as I had decided not to give any answers or explanations, but just be a sponge. 


After that still without explaining or answering anything we moved onto the 3 station activities. This was an amazing and fun session that created even more questions, we are certainly set up for our inquiry.
Station 1 was a range of online games based on magnetism using laptops.
Station 2 was a table of magnets and objects to experiment with. A challenge to make something hover in mid air focussed the exploration. 
Station 3, I created a race car game with magnets and paperclips, but their challenge was to create their own game, and some exciting ideas develop from that. I hope to take that idea further as a unit challenge.
Again, I never gave any answers but just asked them, "why do you think that is happening?" "I wonder why . . .?"





I am not ashamed to say that I personally hate homework, but that is another argument. However it is school policy and what the parents want, so I do it. I have been using "homework worksheets" and decided to ask my students what they wanted this term. Their answer was a choice of activities and projects, which would also cater to different intelligences and learning styles. I created next weeks homework and have it on our wiki already so they can give me some feedback by Monday. 


I have not forgotten about creative commons and giving credit on the document, but I won't put them on until the end of the week, as they also contain many of the answers.  To the left is my "Friday" t-shirt that I wore today, just to prove my viewpoint.


When I asked who had a fun first week of learning, I got a resounding YES, me included.

Saturday 22 October 2011

Testing Google Presentation Updates

It is wonderful to see Google improving Presentations and I couldn't help but have a play to see what the possibilities are. It it getting closer to having all the great features of PowerPoint (for digital storytelling) without the huge files and difficulty of getting it online without losing all the effects.


Below is my test presentation embedded and here is the link.
Do you have anything to add or have I missed out anything? 
How would you use it in the classroom?

Ulearn 2011

This year I got the incredible opportunity to go to the biggest education conference in New Zealand, Ulearn in which I was a first time participant and first time presenter. It was a magical experience being surrounded by like-minded passionate educators of all ages and backgrounds, which really reaffirmed my faith that passion, willingness to change, learn, explore, innovate and share is what makes a great teacher. Another exciting aspect of the conference was meeting people face-to-face from my online PLC, many of whom I chat with regularly on Skype and Twitter, and have worked with on collaborative projects. Friendships and bonds where made and strengthened, we all shared, supported and taught one another. One of the most exciting moments for me was meeting Professor Stephen Heppell, what an inspiration!


I left brimming with ideas, inspired and excited, although my brain felt ready to burst (like fireworks not a melon :-) after four days of intense learning. The sheer quantity of amazing presentations meant I could only attend a fraction of them, luckily with a spirit sharing some of us shared our notes and learning. See my notes below for more detail on presentations  keynotes and workshops I attended.


As a first time presenter I was somewhat nervous but with support from my PLC and a great audience I believe I managed to impart some ideas and inspiration on using Google Apps in schools. The allocated time was shorter than I expected so I did not get to do all I had planned, especially the collaborative activities and I found the participants ranged from very beginner to advanced which was difficult to cater for. Next time I think I need to be more specific in my target and state it clearly in the abstract.
Below is the Google Sites website I created for my Ulearn presentation.




My Notes:



It will take some time to process all this new knowledge and try out some new ideas. I look forward to sharing some of this with my school staff and spreading some of these exciting ideas. I will certainly be a next years Ulearn, and if you haven't been before, make sure you get there, you will be inspired!

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Ulearn Twitter Badge

I am busy packing my bags for Ulearn, and just saw a nice idea by David Kinane to add a Ulearn badge to your Twitter avatar. So I gave it a go and it really was quite easy, and if you want to see how I did it using Avairy check out my screencast below.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

The Art of Collaboration

Last week our school hosted our Art Exhibition in the hall for three days with an open evening the first day. Art from all students and classes were on display, and student singers and dancers entertained the crowd. I co-ordinated a interactive and collaborative art work that was painted by over 50 different students, in fact it was started by some kindergarten children who will hopefully see it displayed proudly when they one day join to our school.


Successful collaborative projects take some planning, I had an A4 colour daft print of the big picture stuck to a nearby chair. The canvas was primed and a pencil outline of the heart added by me. I had three students working on the painting at a time, one on the inside working on the heart, with a palette of only warm colours, and the two outside students with palettes of cool colours.


As each new student left the painting grew in depth and complexity, as facilitator my role was teaching brush techniques, discussing the effects of colours and layers, and as the evening progressed many students watched first before adding their touch. It turned out to be a beautiful painting that was created and owned by the students of the school.


Collaboration can take many forms, and together we can create beautiful things.