Creating Class Blogs

Today was my first experience at sharing some of my web 2.0 knowledge with other educators. I presented a professional development workshop for the teachers at my school on creating class blogs. Only a small fraction of them actually turned up, but the ones who did were enthusiastic about using this new tool for learning.

I eventually used my own personal wiki to create a site that would guide my own teaching but also guide the teachers if they needed to go back and review what we covered. It will also serve to help those teachers who were not able to attend. One of the teachers said she found it easy to create her class blog from the instructions.

I cannot take all the credit, I borrowed heavily from two of my favourite New Zealand teachers and part of my PLN, Jacqui Sharp and Allanah. Thank you both, I used links to your blogs so I did not have to reinvent the wheel.
http://jacquisharp.blogspot.com
http://www.bling4yrblog.blogspot.com

My class blog wiki guide:
http://shaunwood.wikispaces.com/About+Blogs

I have encouraged these teachers to get their feet wet and post a few blogs, as well as introducing it to their classes. Our next step will be to comment on each others blogs to encourage participation and show the kids that they have a wider audience. I also plan to run a few short workshops to help the teachers start adding all the fun extras once they have gained some confidence.

Graphs and charts made easy

A big thanks to Kevin Jarret I discovered Chartle.net a flash based site for creating graphs and charts.

You can create pie, bar, line and a few other fun charts with just a few clicks. It is easier than using Excel or other spreadsheet programmes.

I especially like that no sign in is required which means it is easy for K12 students to get in and create awesome graphs.

Another great feature is it alows you to create further graphs based on one already created. For example I created this temperature graph sample for my class as they are tracking and graphing temperature. They will be able to use this model as the basis for creating their own graphs, thus scaffolding them in their introduction to Chartle.com.

The only issues I found was using the embedding code. You need to be able to embed it in both the HEAD and BODY html which is not always an option when you are working with blogs and wikis. I found the easiest method was to create a screen capture on the chart and insert it as a picture.

Presenting an Inspired Classroom

I am presenting my observation of Jacqui Sharp's inspired classroom at our staff meeting, my first ever presentation to the entire staff. I decided to present it as a BubbleShare on my blog to illustrate the simplicity of integrating ICT into the classroom and using it for ourselves. I believe teachers need to take the first step, and use the 21st century learning opportunities available. It seems a big scary leap to most teachers but I am hoping to introduce it to my collegues in small easy fun steps.


BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Handwriting Fonts for New Zealand Curriculum

I wrote this in Word and screen captured it to retain the handwriting font, although I struggled to get it to a readable size (something about importing pictures into Blogger). Still aside from the odd spelling error I think it turned out fairly well. I would appreciate any feedback.

Observation of an Inspired ICT Classroom

Today I went to observe Jacqui Sharp’s digital classroom at The Gardens Primary School. What struck me first as I entered the room was that it was so open, no ‘personal’ desks or spaces, no rows or group tables, rather a less formal learning environment with digital centers. It looked exciting, I am sure the other classes must be envious every time they walked past.

Jacqui is a confident and an inspiring teacher, she never talks above a normal voice and she doesn’t lecture. I realised how teacher directed my own classroom is compared to hers. She begins class by reviewing expectations and work choices, she then models, explains and off they go. Quick, detailed and well scaffolded. Despite having four observing teachers in the classroom with whom she chatted, she still moved around and conferenced individual students according to their needs.

I found the whole experience inspiring, the students worked away at their tasks, of which there was a huge variety. They have a board to guide their activity choices, I saw students regularly referring to it in order to decided on their own next learning step. They all seemed to be on different but related activities, working individually, in pairs or small groups, yet they were all engaged and on task. I sat near a group of boys who were comparing each others Hero avatars and teaching each other ICT skills as part of their discussion. I don’t think they were even aware of how they were learning and tutoring each other, they were just having fun!

I could write on and on about the many fantastic and inspiration ideas I observed in her classroom, but then you can get most of them by reading Jacqui’s blog. There are two elements however I would like to share that had the most impact on me and that I believe made this digital class such a success.

First routines and expectations were WELL established. Jacjui only had to say ‘Stop’ not even loudly, and she had the instant attention of the whole class. The students did not waste time or get distracted by visitors, they all knew their timetable and what they needed to do and how to find out their next step. From the moment they came into the classroom they were fully engaged.

Secondly, with Maths, Reading and Writing, they had a huge list of possible activities to choose from and as a result there were no students asking what to do next. Every curriculum area had a broad range of activities that the students need to complete. In writing there were a range of activities for the draft, conferencing and publishing stage. Most of these were set up as digital learning centers in folders on the server, with everything from WebQuests to Inspiration comparison charts.

I mentioned to Jacqui that it must require an enormous amount of preparation getting so many digital activities for each curriculum area together, and starting from scratch it would take months. Her advise was to start with your higher ability groups, create for them and teach them, so that by time the next group has progressed you already have all those resources ready and waiting, plus those students can be your experts to tutor the next group.

Thank you Jacqui for an inspiring experience in an inspired classroom.

Guided Reading Professional Development

Our school has been receiving professional development for guided reading over this term. Earlier on in the term Kathryn did an observation of one of my guided reading lessons and followed it up with lots of really helpful advice to improve my lessons, which I blogged as "Attacking words and guiding reading". This week she modelled a guided reading lesson for my syndicate in my classroom.

I was fortunate that it was my class as I got to spend time with her choosing a journal reading for the lesson. She showed me how to use the asTTle What Next site to find appropriate journals by asTTle stage. Her lesson focus was using the Chunk, Check and Cheer method to work out unknown words in order to gain meaning.

I found myself please by the lesson because I felt my own lessons lately have been almost like hers. I felt I must have really learnt from her. Naturally I am not nearly as experienced and have much to learn and I did realise some important things that will change my future lessons.

It's all very well to be teaching the main strategies that good readers use (preview, predict, clarify, visualise, question, infer, make connections, summerise, and evaluate), but comprehension has a smaller beginning. When you have readers like most of mine who can decode words just fine and read a sentence perfectly but without understanding a word, or two, then it is vital to go back to Chunk, Check and Cheer.

I will be focusing on word decoding, re-reading for understanding while still have other broader learning intentions such as prediction. I realise they must work together, I cannot teach strategies in isolation of each other.

For some awesome free comprehension strategy posters and powerpoints, go visit Mathew Needleman's Creating Lifelong Learners blog.

Self Directed Online Maths PD

Teaching numeracy is one of my challenges as a beginning teacher, from running a smooth maths programme, teaching the skills and strategies and even using the equipment resources correctly. My goal is to develop my maths teaching and until now I have not had any professional development that made me feel like a confident maths teacher.

I often use NZ Maths website for guidance as it is linked to the New Zealand Numeracy Project, but I still felt like I needed some personal professional development. NZ Maths is a essential resource for all information relating to teaching maths. They have units of work in each stand, background information, exemplars of work and a huge amount of downloadable material masters such as hundreds boards, number fans etc.

My tutor teacher recently showed me the NZ Maths Online Numeracy Professional Development course. Last week I tried it out and was very impressed, and I believe my math lessons have improved dramatically in just one week. It is a simple to follow online tutorial which can be started from any 'stage' level. Most of my students are at Stage 5 and 6, so I took the Stage 5 tutorial which took an easy afternoon to view. I intend going back to view other stages, but an important point here is that you only need to pick the stage that is relevant to your students.

Each tutorial is presented in a slide format which with short but relevant inserts of text or video. It progressively shows you what your students should be learning, how and what it looks and sounds like. This is done through video clips of students explaining math problems and clearly articulating their strategies. This was one the the major breakthrough points for me, I could see and hear exactly what I should be getting from my own students!

The site also has Equipment Animations which are simple flash based animations that show and explain clearly how to use the many, many, many, maths equipement materials that fill my maths resource box. I used to be a bit embarrassed that I wasn't sure how to use half of them, but now I use them with confidence.

I can highly recommend this Online Numeracy Professional Development tutorial to all teachers, experienced or not. It serves as an exemplar for good practice and to measure your students against. Most importantly it is free, easy, simple to understand, and can be done at your own pace in your own home.