Hey Milly!

Educating Boys

2012-01-07T19:19:00.003+13:00

Around 6 months ago a friend recommended a book called 'Educating Boys' by Michael Irwin to me. I started it and then, like most books in term time, it got put to the side. Even thought I've been desperate to read it! These holidays have meant that I have picked it up again and continued to read it. It's a worthwhile read for anyone who are working with boys in education or who have boys at home.

Not a lot of the ideas and concepts are all that new to me e.g. boys need more movement, action learning and hands on approaches. But so far it has reinforced a lot of key teaching and learning concepts and approaches as well as ones that I have changed or don't use as much as I have previously.

A concept I linked into with learning is the idea of 'Play' as a basis for learning. A place to hook old learning into new learning and to make discoveries. Last year as part of our Daily5 reading work the students did 'Work with Words' which is basically spelling/grammar work. As part of this I gave my year 4 students purple sand to draw words into and wikki stix to make letters with, amongst other tasks. Initially I thought perhaps they wouldn't use them as they might deem them as 'babyish'. Interestingly enough these were the items that were first taken by the students working in this area over and over again. There was also a student developed system for letting people know you wanted to use them next. Both of these were play items and I will use them with my Year 5/6 students this year again! I also really liked the idea of having 'explorer' areas where there are things for the students (not just the boys!) to create or dismantle. But also it's made me think about how I can create more areas for play in curriculum areas to diversify the teaching and learning process.

Exercise and Physical Education as a catalyst for more focussed work. I know this and do a lot of this already as I see a huge difference in the students when there is more activity in the day. But it's made me interested to look at starting each day or the breaking the middle block with a burst of focussed physical activity. I've done this previously with 'Brain Breaks' and it's made a huge difference but it was something this year that I didn't use.
Also how I'm teaching Physical Education and the importance of making time for it. Our school is well set up with our syndicates taking part in syndicate wide sports each term for at least 1 hour and also whole school Jump Jam each week. This is a great base for our students and I know that my boys are always the first ones to be asking what sports they will be undertaking during this time and the first to complain if the weather is bad on sports afternoons!

It was interesting to read about the students who are coming into schools and the importance of teaching them to read and write from the first day and as early as 5. Irwin talks about the fact that a lot of the teaching and learning for literacy has moved away from play based, making and creating into more 'talk and write' examples. He stresses the importance of linking back to the play concepts and developmental play in the early years. There has been a lot of talk about the Finish education system lately and how they excel with teaching and learning in worldwide comparisons. Irwin interestingly points out the fact that students don't start school in Finland until they are 7 giving students more time to be involved in play. Such a focus on literacy which in turn pushes out areas such as The Arts, Physical Education and Science out of the daily curriculum. All areas that boys tend to excel in but don't get the opportunity to be as involved in.

So, I will continue to read, reflect and make links to my teaching practice and challenge ideas I have or have had and why I may not do them anymore. I think it is a worthwhile read and while the focus is on educating boys, I do believe many of the concepts and ideas can equally be forwarded to girls and their learning needs.

Retelling a Fairy Tale

2011-11-17T22:07:00.001+13:00

This afternoon our school (Summerland) ran some iPad workshops at The Learning Network in West Auckland. There was a fantastic group that was a full house of 80 people, all ready to share and listen to what we have been doing this year. Our principal, Luke Sumich, started the session off with some really thoughtful words... what are you doing with these iPads and why? Where are you going with making sure that learning and your learners are at the heart of what you are doing? From there we broke off into 4 sessions. We offered an Art session using Art Rage and Live sketch, Storytelling, Apps for Numeracy, Tools for Teachers and a retelling workshop, which I ran.

Retelling using Draw Free and Puppet Pals

This session was based around the reading strategy called 'Retelling'. This is one of the CAFE strategies that we have worked on in our class. The students spent time reading a fairy tale then using the 'Retell Rope' and chart to retell their story to their partner. A 'Retell Rope' is a rope that has 8 knots down it - one for each area that they need to include in their retell. It provides a kinesthetic hook for them to hang their retelling information on.

From here we moved into using the iPads to retell their fairy tale. Over 2 sessions the students were in groups of 2-4 students, they decided on the fairy tale they wanted to retell. From there the students decided the characters or items they needed to draw and they created these in Draw Free. The important thing here is that each character is saved to the photo album, so that Puppet Pals is able to access the image. Once the students completed their character drawings they would head into Puppet Pals and get ready to record. It's rather easy to import the characters into Puppet Pals through the 'Add Actors' button on the Actors page. The important thing to note here is that if you have the free version it will allow you to import it but then you won't be able to use it! So if you want to be able to import your own photos or pictures you need to make sure you have the directors pass. But it's definitely worth the $4.19 you will pay for the app!

The students select their actors and background and it brings you to the 'stage'. Here you will have a white rectangle in the middle with your characters and background. Everything that is inside the white rectangle is what will be recorded, so it's important to remember that if you have an actor outside the white box they won't be in your final video! Once you are ready to go you can press the red circle to record - on the newer version it lets you pause your recording which is handy. But the kids basically have 1 take to complete the recording - tough but handy from a teaching perspective as the kids tend to not keeping going back and touching up little things; it sets the bar high!

While recording the students can move their characters around inside the white box and speak. The movement and audio will all be recorded!

Once the kids have recorded you can then save and export them. Once you have tapped 'export' in Puppet Pals it will export it into your Photo Album. If you don't do this, you will only be able to watch your movie inside the Puppet Pals app. When it let's you know that it's exported you can easily plug it into your computer and download it to your computer through iPhoto. Check out my students very first Puppet Pal retellings on our class blog here!

There are many different ways that you could use Puppet Pals.

Some of the ways you could use it are:

Students that didn't want to speak in front of the class - take a photo, add the student into Puppet Pals and get them to talk
Sharing their learning - what did I learn, numeracy strategies, reading strategies etc
End of topic to explain their learning and knowledge from the topic
Photos from trips as backgrounds and students can recount events that happened on the trip

There are so many ways you could use it!

The following link (click here or on the photo) will take you to a how to sheet that you are welcome to download and use in your classroom to help you get on your way. Link back to any work you complete or ideas you have and leave a comment to let us know how you get on!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_I4f6vGYHk5ODdhNzc5NTktNjA2NC00MjZjLTlhYTUtYWZmNTEwYjgyYjg1

Daily 5

2011-11-15T20:40:00.001+13:00

Daily 5 is simply...

Work on Words

Read to Self

Read to Someone

Listen to Reading

Work on Writing

I'll explain more about the key areas in the blog post but first I want to explain about the process that got me interested in and using the Daily 5 model in my class. I've found over many years that I've not been entirely happy with my Reading programme and the things that were happening as part of it. I've had some definite successes throughout the years but nothing that has sit in that 'good place' alongside my philosophy for what I want. This year I felt really unhappy with the written content of my "Reading" programme and that this was becoming the main way they would respond to books. I can't think of the last time I sat down and wrote a bunch of information or answered questions after I read a book. But I CAN think of many times where I will talk about the book - retell it, share events, get excited and talk about all the aspects of the book with other people. I was seeing students who were not that keen on reading as it meant written tasks afterwards. I don't ever want to discourage a student from the joys of reading just because of the written tasks. So along came several days, hours and minutes rigorously searching the internet and talking to people via twitter about what they were doing and why? Some great conversations and I thank all those that answered questions and sent through examples of Reading setups and planning!

Daily 5 kept coming through on several searches and when it was combined with the idea of the CAFE model, this is when I saw that it was something that would fit in with my classroom and the kids I had in front of me this year. So I spent many more hours searching through a range of websites and blog posts before I jumped onto Book Depository and ordered the books;

The Daily Five and The CAFE Book.

The books are fantastic, practical and easy to read. They explain where/how the programme was developed from, how to implement it and also how flexible and adaptable it can be. This is one of the main things I love about the programme - it's structured but flexible in allowing you to change and alter what you want. There are people who are using the programme across the world from NE classes through to Year 7/8 - for more information check out the weekly Daily 5 chat (#d5chat on twitter).

So, onto the basics. Daily 5 is an independent management system where the students take part in 5 daily activities. In our class we do 3 of the activities a day - this is based on the time that we have. The 3 activities are based around spelling, reading, listening to reading and writing. Students have anchor charts that help to remind them what they are expected to be doing during each activity. This is created with the kids and is what I come back to when the kids are off task.

The students come in at the start of the day and set about self selecting the tasks that they want to complete. They each have 3 names in 3 different colours (1 colour for each rotation). There are 3 rotations and they must select a different task for each one. There is a number next to each activity which lets them know how many students can be on that activity in each rotation.

At the end of the session the kids complete a checklist that helps them keep track of what they have completed for the day/week and what they need to do. It helps me identify those kids that will avoid certain activities and give them ideas/feedback and to spend some time with them to help them get under way!

A quick overview of each activity:

Read to Self

This is about independent reading.

Finding a quiet space to read to themselves aloud or in their head.

Read to Someone

This is about reading in a pair or three.

Finding a quiet space to read to their group and talk about their book.

Listen to Reading

This is about listening to good models of reading.

Most students do this on their iPods or the laptops. My aim was to have the students recording stories for each other, but unfortunately we haven't gotten there yet. It's on my list for next year for sure!

Work on Writing

Developing a love of writing - comics, newspapers, poems and more. All the free writing that the students don't get to do in the dedicated writing sessions during the week. This is about writing for enjoyment and fun - self selected topics and styles.

Work on Words

Spelling or Grammar. This is about teaching spelling rules and grammar. We have worked on spelling sounds through to words like homophones/homonyms. I select these based on needs in the classroom and set up weekly/fortnightly word lists from there.

So, this is the basic information behind Daily 5. There are an amazing amount of websites, links and places you can go to for more in-depth information. This is really a quick overview and I would recommend getting your hands on the books to read if you are keen on looking at implementing Daily 5 in your classroom. Some of my favourite sites are:

Integrating Technology In The Primary Classroom

Next post will focus on what I am doing while the kids are working on the Daily 5 tasks

- the CAFE model!

Adding a Google Calendar to your blog

2011-10-21T23:20:00.000+13:00

At uLearn I spoke about how I use a Google Calendar embedded into my class blog to help support communication to students and parents. I've been contacted by a delegate from the conference to find out a bit more about how to make this happen. So here is a quick and (hopefully) not to painful way to embed a Google calendar into your blog or wiki!

Log into your gmail account - you may need to create one if you don't already have one.

From here click on the 'Calendar' icon at the top of the page (alternatively log straight into your calendar using your Google account details).

Once you're into your calendar it's pretty simple to add appointments into your calendar by double clicking on the calendar and adding in the relevant details.

You can also add in stock standard calendars such as the NZ holidays calendar. This is as simple as searching within the Google library of calendars down the left hand side of your calendar - click on 'Browse Interesting Calendars'.

When you are ready to share it you need to go to the cog on the top right hand corner of the screen which holds all of the setting options. Here you need to click on 'Calendar Settings'.

Next is to click on the tab underneath the google logo that says 'Calendars'

All of your calendars will show up underneath the 'Calendars' tab - you can have multiple calendars and set different audiences.

The first thing you need to do is click on 'Shared: Edit settings' and to then click on the tick box to make your calendar public. This will allow people to be able to view your calendar without logging in.

Go back to your calendar settings, into the tab 'Calendar' and then click on your calendar.

You will then get another screen which has all your sharing settings. This is where you have 2 options to either take the web address of your calendar or to take an embed code to embed into a blog page/wiki page etc

To embed: copy and paste the code from the box on the right into your blog.

I use the calendar address link as I prefer using the standalone page format for the calendar. So, where is says 'Calendar Address' click on the blue HTML button and copy the page url that it gives you in blue.

You have finished with your calendar for now - it's always a good idea to leave your calendar open in a tab to come back to. Just incase you want to go back and make changes to your calendar.

The next step is to take a screenshot or find an image that you want the kids to use to get to the calendar. I used a basic Google calendar text image for the kids.

Now head back to your blog - this tutorial is using blogger so you will have to adjust it slightly if you are using a different blogging format.

In blogger click on your blog title e.g. Electric Eight and then down the left hand side select 'Layout'.

When the layout page comes up - click on the button that says 'Add a Gadget'

From the selection choose 'Picture'

You could also use a range of different gadgets here e.g. the html or text gadgets but I prefer to use an image that the kids can link to the calendar from so I use the 'Picture' gadget.

The Configure Image box will pop up. This is where you need to paste the link you copied earlier from your calendar into the 'Link' box. In the 'Title' box give your calendar a name e.g. What's on? Our Calendar! etc You then need to click on 'Upload an image' and upload your image from earlier. Once this is loaded it will show up next to the work 'image' in the box. Lastly, click on 'save'.

You'll see in the layout window that your gadget for your calendar will be at the top. You can click and move this gadget around within the list so that it's in the place you would like it to be. It doesn't have to stay at the top of your sidebar!

Last step! Click on 'Save arrangement' to save your new gadget.

Then click on 'View Blog' and down the left hand side of your blog you should see the gadget you have just added!

Click on your image in the sidebar to make sure that your calendar is showing up!

You now have a class calendar!

Extra goodies for people that like pretty things!

Just a little bit of an extra step here if you are interested in tweaking your calendar or changing the way it looks. Go back to your calendar settings, into the tab 'Calendar' and then click on your calendar.

You will then get another screen which has all your sharing settings.

Where you would take the embed code there is a small piece of writing in blue that says

'Customize the color, size and other options' click on this to customise your blog.

It will give you a screen where you can change the look and format of your calendar.

One bonus here is that if you click on 'Agenda' under 'Default view' it will give you a list format of the calendar that can easily be embedded straight into your side bar using the embed code and a html gadget.

Example of what an Agenda view is:

Hope this helps you get started with adding a Google calendar to your class blog. If you have any questions or would like anything clarified or if you have a great tip to make this process even simpler leave a comment!

Web Wonders - uLearn

2011-10-20T13:02:00.001+13:00

Web Wonders uLearn

View more presentations from heymilly.

iPads - Breakout 2 uLearn

2011-10-19T16:07:00.000+13:00

iPad's in the Class

View more presentations from heymilly.

Goodbye Delicious - Hello Symbaloo!

2011-10-09T20:54:00.000+13:00

With the change over of delicious and all the problems that have gone alongside it, it has seen me seek out new ways to share and display learning links for my students. With the change over the kids were quick to point out that tags were missing and it was hard to find links that they knew where to find previously.

So this sent me on hours (yes, hours) long search to find something that would allow me to create several pages but also allow the students to have visuals of the links they are wanting to use. I really wanted to switch to a more visual form of bookmarking rather than word tags after myself enjoying Pinterest - a visual bookmarking tool due to the ease of use and visual way of organising links.

I had a play around with the delicious stacks - which at first seemed very promising. Apart from when I kept getting 500 gateway errors from them. When stacks did work it would only allow me to stack together my first page of links but not access the other pages. Fiddly and unfun. So, I gave up. I moved on to trialling websites like favoritus, portaportal, sitemarks and more - all visual bookmarking sites that looked extremely good. All of them had the same problem for me. The lack in ability to be able to create a standalone web page that had seperate pages for my links. Painful.

Then I remembered a site that I had previously played with and put into my 'could be helpful' pile of links. Symbaloo. It's a simple idea - you create webmixes or pages of links. Each link is a little coloured icon that you can arrange across your webmix. The webmix can be shared via email, kept private, shared with the world or embedded into webpages. So this is the angle I have taken. I am creating seperate pages for each subject and colour coding links with visuals also. The students used it in the last 2 days of term and the votes were pretty clear - all but 4 students loved the new Symbaloo system because of the colours, images and how easy it was to find links. The 4 students who didn't like it said that it was because they were used to delicious. Though 1 student did say he might like Symbaloo more once 'he got used to it' - awesome!

The image from above is from my Daily 5 wiki for the students. This is one area I have created Symbaloo link pages and it has now become the portal that they will use for links. They can either go straight to the page or jump to it via the class blog. You can view the website here.

The colour coding system is quite handy also. I have a student who is new to my class from overseas and has minimal english. The links in orange are specifically set up for her - the students were great at showing her that they were for her and the second time on the computer she seemed to understand that this was a great area for her to start.

The other thing about Symbaloo that was a bonus is that the interface works on iPads and iPod touches. One of my students became a fantastic tester and tried it out. Unfortunately only 2 of the above links would run on an iPod - this has meant that I've created other Symbaloo's that will contain mobile device friendly links!

The biggest drawback is the time that this takes compared to setting up links in delicious - with the delicious bookmarking paglets it is extremely easy to link and tag websites. While Symbaloo isn't as easy to tag websites at the moment the visual elements and arrangements for the students makes it far outweigh the time it takes me to add links in!

eWrapper Conference

2011-07-30T20:16:00.000+12:00

On the last day of the holidays I had the pleasure of attending the eWrapper Mini Conference at Everglade School in Manukau. I was even more excited to have been asked to present a workshop by Rachel Boyd. The choice for the workshops were huge! It was really hard picking workshops which ranged in topics from thinking, green screening, mobile devices, questioning and more!

The day started with a keynote presentation by Trevor Bond based on the notion that there shouldn't be such a huge focus on Inquiry models but rather more of a focus on the learner and their needs. This looked like a fantastic keynote but unfortunately I wasn't able to be there for the whole keynote. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see this at a later date.

I was fortunate however to be able to attend Trevor's Questioning workshop later in the day. This has been a big focus for me this year and he definitely threw a few spanners into the work and made us think and question what we are doing. One of the quotes that he worked through was a quote by Edward De Bono - "Questioning is the engine-house of thinking." He then worked through the notion that as teachers we shouldn't be so focussed on the 'fat' and 'skinny' questions but rather look at how student's questioning skills can be developed to be more specific and focussed. He argued that sometime there is a high need for 'skinny' questions that prove them to be more than effective in gaining the information they require. One of the participants referred back to "what every good marketer would know" that the use of a skinny 'screening question' is highly effective to find out if the person they are talking to fits their requirements.

A good question is one that:
- is relevant
- gets you the information you need
- can be taken from intelligent and non-intelligent sources
(Intelligent being people / non-intelligent being books, internet etc)

The idea of modelling to the students as questioners is a huge concept also. What kinds of questions are we demonstrating to our students?

Something that really hit home from me and that I took from this workshop was the notion of what do we do with those questions that kids ask? The on topic questions? The random questions? The ones that we just can't answer right now? I've always loved the idea of a wondering wall but then for me it's been the next step. How do we answer these and really acknowledge that we appreciate and accept a range of questions that will develop our student's knowledge? I've done a lot of thinking about this in the last day and I have a few ideas about how this could work in class. So keep tuned to see where this goes. I think this was my BIG takeaway from the day. If you want to find out more about Trevor Bond head along to his website at ICTNZ.

I also went to a workshop looking at how the Key Competencies were being developed at Reremoana School. There were some great ideas and really interesting to see how they had created their own Learning Competencies based on school and community feedback. They had fantastic use of Learning Journals in their math's programme to set goals, question and reflect on their own learning. There is more information about this on Lisa's Weebly.

Photo used under CC via Flickr: dullhunk

Keeping it in Check

2011-06-03T16:33:00.000+12:00

Scripts, Sprites and Green Flags

2011-06-02T20:53:00.004+12:00

Fear no more, once you have a few nights of playing around with Scratch you will quickly come to grips with the basic terminology you need to get under way with it!

Scratch is a simple piece of programming software which allows you to animate and create games using simple codes. The basics involve moving your sprites (game characters) around in different ways using pieces of code or information that tell your sprites how to move (script). The easiest way to think/learn about sprites and scripts are it relate them to drama.

In drama you read a script and it tells you what to say, what to do and how to move. You are the same as a sprite, the character in the drama that moves/talks in the way the script tells you too - the same happens in Scratch!

Just some of the many Sprites you can choose or you can even paint your own!

Now that you have the basics the rest is just child's play... literally! To make your sprites move you have a bunch of snap together 'blocks' that you put together to form your script. These blocks are separated into areas like motion, control, sensing etc to make it easier for students to identify and use the blocks.

One of the great things about Scratch is the way that it supports it's community. There are a range of simple 'how to' cards that you can download that show you the blocks you need to build to create simple scripts. This is a great place to learn and fantastic to work with students on as it teaches them the basics that they need to know. As they begin learning about the blocks and how to create the scripts the more adventurous they can get with what they know.

Scratch also allows you to download all the sprites and scripts for any game that is on the Scratch website. The thing that I think it genius about this is that if there is a game that you think it pretty cool you can download the script & sprites and see how they have put the game together. Instant Scratch professional development. You can then tinker around and change elements of the game - as soon as you upload it back to your Scratch account it lets people know who you remixed the game from. So, no 'I made it' recounts from the kids!

Here are my Scratch samples - ranging from bad to getting there! Here are some examples that a group of 15 Year 4 students created on their very FIRST Scratch session. These kids had never heard of, nor touched Scratch before this 1 and a half hour session. Not a bad start I say!

A huge thanks to Timoslimo for sharing Scratch at EduCamp Welly - inspirational stuff!

EduCamp Welly

2011-06-01T20:15:00.004+12:00

EduCamp Welly was an amazing experience and well worth the flight to Wellington (not that I ever need an excuse to go to Wellington!) It's not just about the learning that goes on but also about the connections that you make. EduCamps continue to provide a range of experiences and teachers where the conversations can be dynamic and broad.

From the smackdown at the beginning through to the end there were many people to listen to and conversations to be had. The first session that I attended was looking at cloud computing and how different schools/classes/teachers are using the cloud to base their ever increasing digital lives. The conversations in this session involved sharing each of our experiences of what we are doing. For some it mean being consoled as the changes they wanted to make couldn't be undertaken. I guess what I find baffling about this is that 1 person can ultimately change the outlook for an entire school because of what they don't understand.

The second session saw me sharing some resources with a new teacher who has a class with 5 Interactive Whiteboards.... yes 5! Teachers struggle to get their head around utilising one IWB in a fashion past a glorified overhead projector, let alone 5 of them. But it sounds like he is making an awesome start in his journey and what better place to start that heading along to an EduCamp!

While this conversation was happening Tim was running a session on Scratch with one of his students SkyGecko. I'd heard about Scratch at a previous conference and had a go at it, didn't 'get it' and left it. After EduCamp this was the first thing I downloaded and attacked. I am now a full blown Scratch enthusiast! Scratch is simple programming software that allows kids to make animations and games. The layout is easy to use and once you get used to commands, scripts and sprites the opportunities are endless! This week we had a PINs session (more about this later) where I worked with a group of kids to create a game - kids that weren't even in the session want to use Scratch after seeing the games!

All in all it was a fabulous day - great to catch up with the tribe of EduCamp followers from Hamilton and with the ever wonderful Allanahk. There are several more EduCamps to come in 2011 including a new one in Dunedin! So check them out and head along. Don't fret if you're by yourself - there's always a smile and a group of awesome educators there to meet you!

Photo by Fiona Grant from Flickr

Teaching Mojo

2011-05-07T19:55:00.014+12:00

Mojo
Noun.
1. A person's style
2. power; charisma. : She seemed to radiate a penetrating mojo that made her easy to deal with
3. Self-confidence, Self-assuredness. As in basis for belief in ones self in a situation. Esp. I context of contest or display of skill such as going into battle.

Teaching Mojo - the stuff that makes you radiate in the classroom. Makes you settle into a new day and say 'bring it on' - where does it come from and where does it go?

Once it's gone... how do you get it back?

The last term I felt somewhat flat - things weren't happening like I wanted them too. They weren't bad, but it really didn't have that magical feeling of being an amazing teacher. This term, 1 week in, and our class and I feel somewhat magical. The kids are enthusiastic, keen and taking their learning outside the classroom doors. They are researching, questioning and bringing their parents into their learning. But I'm also enthused, excited and at the end of the day thinking forward to what next?, what about? and how about? It's amazing how much your teaching mojo influences the whole atmosphere of the class. The teaching mojo is back.

We know that our attitude and enthusiasm affects the classroom.
It's not rocket science really. But crucial to remember.

Think back to a bad day that you had in the classroom.
Think about what your class was like and what it felt like.
Now think about a great day.
Think about the atmosphere that radiates through your class - what made it such a great day?

I remember having Tony Ryan work with us at the beginning of the year and talking about keeping a check on our work/life balance as a teacher. If that is out of kilter it's easy to loose yourself. Funnily enough at the time - I thought, 'yes, that's me and I'm going to change that this year' - kick in term time and how easily we forget the goals we set ourselves! It reminds me of a post from Tony's blog I really loved reading. 'The First 5 Minutes' - the idea that the perception of everything is formed in the first 5 minutes - your day, your attitude, students attitude to the day, the lesson, the learning.

For the first holidays ever I did a minimal amount of work - thanks to being sick. This was somewhat a blessing in disguise. 2 weeks away from work but still having time to reflect/think meant some great changes were made. I could recharge, re-form and re-assess what was happening in my classroom, but most importantly what was happening for me. I guess I needed to time to get the balance back.

Sometime we need to reassess that all to important work-life balance that we easily forget about.

So, I guess the question is - what do you do when you've lost you're teaching mojo?

Balance used under Creative Commons from Darkr on Flickr

EduCamp Welly, Auckland & More!

2011-04-13T21:11:00.006+12:00

EduCamp time is nearly upon us again and with even more excitement than normal because this year there are FOUR, yes... FOUR EduCamp opportunities for you to get involved in!!

EduCampWelly: Wellington College, Saturday 21st May

EduCampTaiTokerau: Whangarei, Saturday 2nd July

 EduCampAKL: Epsom Girls Grammar, Saturday 6th August
EduCamp BOP: Taurange School Support Services, Saturday 13 August

There is the EduCamp wiki where you can find out all the details and register your attendance on the day.  It is such an amazing opportunity to be involved in to set your own PD for the day and network with a range of brilliant minds.  So head over to the wiki and sign yourself up for at least one!

Image Source: Fiona Grant Flickr

iRead Using Evernote

2011-04-13T20:40:00.011+12:00

In the past I've blogged about Evernote and it's great ability to collate notes and make them available to you online and on your mobile device. Today I had a great experience using Evernote in a different way - to collate and hold iRead recordings.

iRead is a simple but very effective reading tool that I use as part of the Reading timetable. The students use a voice tool e.g. Garageband on laptops, voice recording on a tape etc to record themselves reading. Simple rules - once they start reading they don't stop the recording until they have completed reading the text. Once they complete reading they then go back and listen to the text and they follow the text with their finger. It allows students to listen to their own reading and set personal goals based on what they hear and observe about their reading and the kind of reader they want to be. I've found it's a powerful tool for kids to set goals about their reading. You can tell kids - but they also need to see/hear them for themselves to fully understand their next learning steps.

Today with one of my students we logged into Evernote and set up a new note. We labelled the note with the students name and the book that he read. Each new note automatically timestamps itself so there is no need for dates. When the student was ready to record all they needed to do was click the 'microphone' then the 'stop' button when he was completed. Once he had gone back and listened to his story he was able to record his goal down within the note to be saved. Once Evernote was synced it meant that I could access his recording and goal quite easily from my iPad or laptop. The great thing with this is that we can also easily tag the note as the students name which will create a mini portfolio of his reading throughout the year. Much quicker than getting students to save it to the server and it also meant that it was easily found by me, the teacher, to listen to. Evernote also includes the voice recording as a sound file that can easily be downloaded from the note.

This is the 'note' as you would see it online:

It's a very clear layout which makes it easy for students to create and navigate notes and within the app. I'm looking forward to seeing how this supports some of my lower readers with their reading fluency.

Popplet For iPad

2011-04-13T19:16:00.004+12:00

Over the last few weeks we've been utilising the iPad app Popplet Lite in a range of curriculum areas. Popplet is a straight forward and simple app that allows students to collate text, drawings, images and more onto a page.

It's based around a board (page) where you double tap to add 'popples' which are boxes where students can add text, videos and images or draw straight into. The popples can be left as stand alone popples or be connected up to other popples. They can also be re-ordered and moved around as you need to. It's so simple that most students pick up the app within the first session.

We've been experimenting with the free version but it has proven so popular with students/teachers that we will be upgrading to the paid version over the holidays. The great thing about Popplet is that it seems to be well designed for students and schools. The layout and design of the app and website are well suited to students young and old!

One of the area's I have been utilising Popplet Lite is within reading. Students use a drawing app such as Free Draw (a great simple app with no extras!) to create a visualisation of their character. The drawing could also be completed straight into a popple using the draw function too. The students have then created popples around the visualisation of their character with information, words and ideas about the character from the text. We are then using Dropbox to export them off the iPads. There are many ways which Popplet can be utilised in the classroom throughout a range of curriculum areas - check out my growing list here (as a Popplet of course!)

You can also use Popplet online and is able to be used on the iPads in a collaborative way with students participating on a single board with their own popples. Popplets can then be embedded into your blog or sent as a link for others to get to.

Check out the Popplet site and video to see for yourself:

Dropbox for iPad

2011-03-21T17:29:00.005+13:00

In today's iPad session during Reading the students used a number of really simple & effective apps to create character webs (more on this in another post). It all went fantastically but when we came to the end of the lesson there was the small problem of 'what now?' with the students work. My original plan of using the 'whiteboard' app to bluetooth them across to the master iPad didn't pan out like I wanted it to (more work on that one needed). So it was back to the drawing board slightly!

There was an app that I had placed on the iPads but not tried, which was 'Dropbox for iPad'. If you haven't used Dropbox before it's a really simple but handy service that allows you to drop a file into a folder on your computer. Then it will sync up to your Dropbox account via the internet and enable you or a person you share it to, to have access to the file by downloading or viewing. This works for images, videos and documents.

Towards the end of the lesson as students started to finish I realised the next step was missing. Another thought was for the students to log in to the class blog and upload them via there - but we were running out of time.

So... I've set up a class Dropbox account - very easy to do and between set up and setting up individual folders I would say it took around 5-10 minutes to create them. The layout of the web Dropbox is incredibly plain and simple which makes it easy to navigate and learn to use.

Web based Dropbox layout:

The fantastic thing is that once images were uploaded from the iPad into the Dropbox account it was an instant refresh on my computer and there were my files.

Here is a snapshot from the Dropbox iPad app:
It shows all the students files and uploading into a file is as quick as clicking 1 button, finding the image and then it automatically uploads to your folder.

Once inside a folder you can view the image/file within the Dropbox app also:

So this will be the next step in our next session - being able to go back and save the content we created and upload it to our Dropbox account so that we can use it elsewhere. The only negative I've found so far is that it remembers your password - which is fantastic if you are a single user iPad. But each time the students will need to go through a couple of steps to log out of their Dropbox account - not too hard but not a simple click either!

More to come once I've trialled this in class further!

The Awesome Highlighter

2011-03-16T16:57:00.007+13:00

A funky wee tool that I've come across lately is 'The Awesome Highlighter'. It is a simple to use, great site to use during Inquiry/Reading etc where you want the kids to be able to highlight information on a web page. It allows you to do this all online via the 1 site!

Head to 'The Awesome Highlighter' website and all you have to do is enter the name of the page you are looking to be able to highlight online.Once you've clicked the 'Highlight Page' button you'll be taken to your webpage with a handy navigation bar up the top. This bar allows you to change to 1 of 4 colours when highlighting and leave notes.

Once you've finished you click 'Done' and it will give you a page with the key ideas highlighted. It also gives you a link back to the page so you can locate where the highlighted text came from.

It provides the opportunity for the students to be able to email straight to you or copy to place on a class blog etc for sharing. There are multiple ways that the tool could be used in class and is a great springboard for work with kids on newspaper articles etc to share key ideas/vocab and so much more.

RSS Feed on iPads

2011-02-24T21:03:00.006+13:00

Over the last week I've been trialling a number of RSS apps for the iPad. My main aim with these was to load all the school blogs into a RSS reader so the kids could easily navigate, read and comment on the blogs from the iPads.

During a search of many different RSS reader apps I came across Pulse. The first time I downloaded Pulse (back when we first got the ipads) I couldn't get it to do what I wanted and so off the iPad it came! In the search for a reader this week I came across it again and decided to give it another go. With a bit more playing and time I got to edit the parts I needed and it works perfectly!

The layout is simple to use and is easily edited with 5 headings that you can add your blogs to.
Each heading can be edited to allow you to customise your RSS feed pages. At the moment our Pulse reader is set up with Junior, Middle, Senior, Other and Cool Blogs as page headings.

The thing that I loved the most about this is that it didn't need a google account or any other login for it to work. Just choose your heading, type in the website - pulse would search for it and then you would select the feed you wanted and it was added to your page... simple!

Another bonus is that it's very kid friendly as it shows thumbnails of images in blog posts along with text which is a major advantage compared to some of the more text based rss readers I found.

So now on each iPad we will be able to have a simple and effective way of accessing our school blogs as well as some great blogs for the kids to read and comment on.

Delicious In The Class Update

2011-02-21T21:33:00.007+13:00

As per a previous post here I discussed the use of the social bookmarking site Delicious. Once again in 2011 I am continuing to utilise Delicious as a way of storing class bookmarks for students to use at school and at home. Over the first few weeks the students seem to be able to easily navigate the site and find where their favourite sites are. Just a few tips to get you going if you are planning to use delicious for your class!

Tips:
* Think carefully about the tags for your websites... it's easy to get caught up in bookmarking amazing sites and end up with plenty of different tags.

* When deciding on tags think about if you want tags organised by your reading/maths groups (e.g. the 'Dazzling Dividers' group) or by levels (e.g. 'Stage 5 strategies') etc.

* Try to keep tags together by using a headline tag e.g. Writing_online or Writing_organisers This allows the students to look for the subject and then what they need. As delicious organises tags down the side by Top 10 and also All Tags - it allows them to search alphabetically for the subject they need.

* You can add information to each link that you post e.g. what you can do there or tasks that you have set for them to complete on the page. I find that not every link needs to have this added - the students are quick to know what their favourite links are named.

* Add your delicious page to your class wiki or blog.

* Send home a notice promoting your delicious account as parents are keen to have links to some great websites that children can use at home.

* Set up a whiteboard in class or a place on your class blog for students to add their favourite sites too. Students are more than able to login and add their own sites - but teach the concept of tagging carefully so you don't end up with random tags to re-organise!

* Link up with other classes via delicious, so you can make the most of the social aspect of delicious. This is my next step for 2011 with Delicious - so if you have a class delicious account add it to the comment section so we can link up!

ePortfolio - Ministry Guidelines

2011-01-20T08:11:00.003+13:00

The Ministry of Education NZ have just released an ePortfolio Guidelines document. The document is aimed at schools looking to implement ePortfolios in their schools.

The document covers a range of concepts from what to consider about ePortfolios, the system you may use and key elements that will help make the implementation of ePortfolios manageable in your own school environment.

One of the key things that I like about this document is that it brings together ePortfolio pathways from 11 different schools. All of who are using different ePortfolio portals. It shares their challenges, decision and highlights from their ePortfolio implementations.

It's worth a look whether you are new to ePortfolio's and considering them or whether you have been using them for a while. Check them out here.

365ers to RSS

2011-01-11T01:55:00.000+13:00

These are some NZ 365ers that you can follow if you are interested in seeing a year through their eyes!

Teachernz - http://teachernz.com/

Allanahk - http://allanahk.posterous.com/

Cheesy - http://summerland365photoaday.blogspot.com/

Chrissy - http://www.teachingsagittarian.com/photography/

Keamac - http://365kea.blogspot.com/

Barbs1 - http://barbspix.posterous.com/

Dragonsinger - http://kiwijoe365.blogspot.com/

Jane - http://daybydaybyjane.blogspot.com/

If you've got a 365 project happening please add it in the comment section!

365 Challenge

2011-01-10T01:19:00.004+13:00

So, for the third year in a row I am going to attempt the 365 challenge. The basics of this is posting 1 photo a day, every day for a year. The logistics of it seem simple but I continuously seem to fall flat once the term gets going and I get enthralled in my class.

I have a couple of aims this year. One being to improve my photography skills and the second to really utilise my iPhone camera to find everyday occurrences to take photos of. Between these two aims I think this year I can do it. I'm finding that having a really good camera with me consistently is making this task much easier. I've been keeping up with the project365 app for over a month now, which is great!

As part of this challenge I've been playing around with lots of apps and websites that offer the versatility to help me complete this challenge.

The 365project app: a fantastic design that is simple and easy to use. If this app allowed for web commenting I would be sticking with it in a heartbeat. I love the web template that offers the photos in a calendar format with a lightbox window to view images larger. Here's my Project 365 site: heymilly.

Tumblr: this is another one that I would continue using but unfortunately it has one major drawback - it's inability to easily enable and leave comments. After research it seems I can use disqus to set up on my tumblr but after a bit of playing I still couldn't get it to work the way it was supposed to on my template. This is a pain as the tumblr iPhone app is easy to use, great layout and makes it simple. The same applies to the tumblr website. But alas - I would like feedback in this journey so at the moment that's a no go. Here's my tumblr site: heymilly.

Blogspot: has been my blog of choice for a while now. But unfortunately I can't seem to find a great iPhone app that is going to make this easy to happen. Any suggestions gladly accepted!

Posterous: this seems to be becoming the choice of app/website for a lot of 365ers but I'm a bit wary of signing up to more sites to post to. In saying that I'll be watching the growing posterous crowd to see how this goes.

And so... it takes me back to my original photosharing website...

Flickr: This seems to be the choice that I'm going with for now. I can upload via the web and my iPhone with ease. Images can be easily linked to the right tag or group using the free Flickit app. It also allows me to create and utilise the flickr community through my account that I already have. The commenting section is exceptionally easy to use and I can set certain photos to family or friends only privacy settings to maintain privacy for some of my friends or family. The layout isn't flashy and I can't set a cool template (which I'm a giant sucker for!) but it seems to tick a lot of boxes for what I want at the moment. Here's my flickr 365 folder: heymilly .

Capture180 Camera

2010-12-12T19:25:00.003+13:00

Found this today in my reader and it is on my photography want list big time!

The Capture180 by Lucas Ainsworth has a fish eye lens that captures a full 180 degree image. The 2 things I love the most about this camera are it's door lens and it's ability to 'knock out' an image.

The door lens allows the camera to act normally but also as a tripod for taking a photo. It also means that shorties like me can gain an extra bit of height in the crowd to take photos!

Capture180 has an ability to 'knock out' of the image. So once you select the image you want you can tap the camera and it creates a window view of the image. As you move the camera around it's like being able to view parts of a much larger image. Check out the video to understand this idea better.

Welcome Back

2010-12-09T22:50:00.004+13:00

It's been a long time since I've posted and it's not as if there's been nothing going on. Plenty has been happening. Sometimes when these things happen, other things get put to the back burner and don't happen like you want them too.

Either way, blogging is very important to me. It has allowed me to change and reflect on my practice while having amazing feedback and ideas from the people in my P.L.N. (that's you, by the way!)

It's amazing how one conversation can change your motivation in the most positive of ways. So it's back to it... there are lots of things to share and say and I will be endeavoring to share these in the next few posts.
I look forward to it!

Photo: HeyMilly - Yes one of the things I've been up to!

Dropmocks

2010-09-22T16:56:00.004+12:00

Courosa passed on this handy wee tool that you can use to create galleries of images by dragging and dropping into your browser. Dropmocks is extremely simple to use and allows you to create a url of your images to share with others.

You can sign in using your google account and keep your dropmocks together or edit them later on down the path.

Navigation of the screen is extremely simple and would be great for a quick way for students to put images into a slideshow and link to their blog post. Dropmocks gives you the ability to title your page of images and if the images are labelled before dropping it gives a list of the images that will allow the user to flick straight to them. This could also be a great tool to use for Visual Arts when introducing an artist model, for sharing examples of photography, artworks and so much more.

Check out the Dropmocks from the image above. Pretty simple and easy to use!

Next Project...

2010-09-17T23:22:00.004+12:00

Yeondoo Jung is an amazing photographer.

Yeondoo takes children's drawing and re-creates them as photographs. The images are fun, creative and retain their childlike components. I can alway revisit photographs and spot something new that is happening in the image. This would be a great visual language task to complete with student and it is on the agenda for Term 4!

Check out his web page for more photographs.

Image:
The Magician Turned the Wale into a Flower.
c-print 2004

You Gotta Know!

2010-09-16T20:00:00.001+12:00

Moving on from an earlier post that I had about e-portfolios and the changes needing to happen to upskill parents in the uses of tech in our classrooms. Last week myself and another teacher began our journey of working with students and parents outside school hours to develop the e-learning knowledge of our parents. This is a reflection on the process and consultation with our parents to make this happen...

First Steps
Our first ideas were to send home an information sheet explaining what we were hoping to do and also a chance to gauge where our parents saw themselves on the scale of ICT competence. We looked at knowledge ranging from google searching to blogs to educational tools like wordle. The last thing we wanted to know about were days and times that best suited our families. The response we got to the surveys was average with around half of both classes returning the notices.

From here the information we recieved it allowed us to move on and plan for the first sessions topics to happen on a day and time/s that suited our families. We found there was a clear split of families wanting to come straight after school and then again straight after work. So to allow for this we set up 2 sessions: 3.30-4.30 and then again 5-6pm. For each family we also emphasised that the students were to come to the sessions as we want them to be able to share and pass on the knowledge and skills they have. They are a key element in the sessions working successfully too. So the students sat with their parents and supported them throughout the session.

We sent out final forms again to notify the parents of the date/time and topics and we received 10 parents across the 2 classes who were keen to come - with another 2 who wanted to but were unavailable that night. We knew the numbers would be lower for the first ones and are relying on word of mouth to begin the upward trend to more parents.

We have called the sessions 'You Gotta Know To Understand'. A nice NZ musical reference there for those of you that know!

Beginning Topics
Our beginning topics were Google Searching and Wordle. Though quite a few of our parents said they felt confident in the basics of Google searching we knew that many of them did not understand further commands or ideas to use when searching - so this is where we focussed. We also looked at wordle as our classes had used it a bit and we felt this would be a nice, clear tool to hook parents in with. Both our beginning choices proved to be a successful place to start as parents gave us feedback such as 'I thought I knew Google searching but I didn't know all these other things!' A few parents were keen to take Wordle back to their workplaces and share their new learning also.

Connections
During the sessions we emphasised the idea that the sessions were for the parents and we wanted them to be driven by the parents. To help keep the connections up between the sessions we have set up a wiki that will allow the parents access to notes, how to's, tips and also a place to ask questions and set directions for future sessions. We gave the parents a quick intro session to the wiki and will continue to recap on using the wiki in each session. It was good to see that a few parents and students have already posted ideas to the wallwisher on the wiki.

Next Steps:

Our long term idea is that the sessions will be run by the students - but for our first ones we are providing clear models to the students on what the sessions could look like when they begin the teaching.
To continue to build the audience each session.
To continue to allow for the best availability of the sessions for parents.
For the wiki to become more of a hub for the sessions and the parents continued learning.

Talk Like A Pirate

2010-09-15T19:50:00.004+12:00

Yes!
It's that time of the year again... I nternational Talk Like A Pirate day is coming up on Sunday the 19th September. A lot of NZ schools are celebrating the day this coming Friday the 17th. You may ask... why? Oh, there are so many reasons to take part... Talk Like A Pirate day is all about showing creativity, thinking and most importantly... fun! A bunch of teachers (including you soon!) have come together to create a shared Talk Like A Pirate wiki where you can share ideas, connect with and collaborate with a range of classes across New Zealand on this day.

So get your pirattitude ready and come join us for Talk Like A Pirate day!

e-Portfolio Reflection

2010-07-24T21:07:00.010+12:00

Over the last 6 months there has been a vast number of aha! moments and questions that have been raised for me in regards to e-portfolios. In the last post on our Learning Links I skimmed across a few of these concepts. After having a few discussions with people at EduCamp it gave me a chance to think through these concepts a bit more. In this post I want to reflect on these concepts and look at a few of the big questions I have floating around.

Tech vs Reflect When we put the technical needs in front the of the student needs are we then creating barriers for the students to overcome? From moving away from a Learning Management System for student e-Portfolios to a free relatively low-tech portfolio system has allowed me to see students completing tasks in a range of situations.

Transference Across Sectors One of the key concepts for me that make an e-Portfolio powerful throughout a learners life is the ability for it to be transferred across all age levels. The MOE acknowledges that the lack of interoperability between systems and schools is a major barrier to the use and advancement of Managed Learning Environments (MLE).

At EduCamp I had the opportunity to talk again to one of the ex-teachers from Manaia Kindergarten about what they have been doing with their Blogger based e-portfolios. Their system seems like a powerful way of allowing the learning to be owned by the family and then transferred on throughout that child's learning. NaketaNZ talks more about this in her post on EduCamp. A few years ago I had the chance to present at an Early Childhood Conference and then talking to some of the same EC educators at EduCamp, it reinforced that there needs to be an eye kept on what is happening for our students that enter our schools from ECE through to where our kids go at the end of their primary schooling. When we are talking about e-portfolios it's all that learning that comes and goes with them and how is it going to go with them?

Continuuing on the path of moving on with the e-Portfolios (Learning Links) that we are developing within our classes I am becoming more interested in the pathway of creating individual blogs for each student to track their learning through. At the moment there are a few ways of creating and maintaining them that would work effectively and safely for the students and families. This will be part of the ongoing development.

Whanau/Family Knowledge
Through a range of conversations we have already identified that a large portion of time needs to be placed to upskill and develop our parents knowledge and understanding of e-learning. The change from paper portfolios to digital portfolios was received well by the majority of my parents - who were really keen to see the variety of learning their children were involved in. But this opened the door for more questions and new knowledge that parents realised they need to keep up with what their students are doing in class. A next step is to run a series of workshops along with another teacher to develop our parents understanding. I can see that if we move to blogs as a primary way of sharing learning that for them to be highly successful we will need to run a series of workshops/sessions in varying formats for parents. I would be interested to know how those utilising e-portfolios to share student learning are informing and upskilling their parents to use and respond within them also?

EduCamp

2010-07-24T20:35:00.004+12:00

Summerland Primary hosted EduCamp 2010, which is an unconference styled day where participants who turn up decide on the content and direction of the day as it rolls through. It's an event that has been on my calendar for a while and it didn't fail to disappoint. The day was filled with lots of learning, collaborations, conversations and definite Aha! moments for all involved. It was great getting to meet more edutwitterers face 2 face and have some brilliant conversations.

The morning started with the Smackdown sessions - 3 minute presentations from a range of people all sharing tools, good practice and inspiration. Wallwisher provided a starting point to collate each of the ideas which people then stood up to talk about. As the Smackdown progressed more and more people participated in the sharing. A fantastic way to connect with people as it gave you a view of who was around and available to talk to on the day. Some amazing ideas were shared and the Wallwisher remains as a fantastic resource.

The day then broke up in to a range of sessions and workshops all decided on the day by the people who were there. There was a fantastic range of people across all the education sectors from Early Childhood to Tertiary, which is one of the reasons that EduCamp is such a fantastic day. No limits and No boundaries to who can be there and be involved! It was also great to see that there were many followers via the hashtag (#EduCampNZ) on Twitter.

Over the course of the day people had the chance to geocache, digistore, google, blog, wiki, RSS, discuss, share, collaborate on a range of tools and so much more. A group of junior teachers have established a wiki were they are going to share resources and ideas for the junior class.

A BIG thank you needs to go out to ACES and also Fiona Grant and Dorothy for organising and plotting a lot of the big ideas that got the day up and running.

Here's an AnswerGarden about the day that Cheesynz created!

What did you think of Educampnz 2010... at AnswerGarden.ch .

Eastnest Cluster Conference: Web Wonders

2010-07-21T22:22:00.001+12:00

Web wonders

View more presentations from hey.milly.

Workshop 1 from the Eastnet Cluster Conference.

Jog The Web

2010-07-14T19:13:00.005+12:00

At the ERA3 Conference Jackie shared the website Jog The Web.

It's quite a handy wee tool where you can gather up a range of websites with directives, guiding questions or cues for the students to think about as they view each website. The layout of the page is simple and makes it very easy for students to navigate.

At the top, left of the page in the dark grey box is the navigation box. To the right are the steps which is where you are able to place questions and directives for the people navigating the websites. Down the left hand blue side it lists all the website that are part of the 'jog'.

Here is an example pnelso created about Web 2.0 Tools For Kids.

Blogging: Basics & Beyond

2010-07-13T22:59:00.003+12:00

The other presentation given as part of the ERA3 Conference in Brisbane. I had previously given a similar one at an Auckland conference but updated links, some of the slides and developed the content a bit further. The main focus of this presentation was aimed at people beginning blogging and to share some of the things that you need to think about prior to or when beginning a blog. It covers a range of topics from examples, content creation through to cybersafety and more.

All links in the presentation are available from here.

Blogging final

View more presentations from hey.milly.

Web 2.0 In The Classroom

2010-07-13T22:51:00.005+12:00

Presentation 1 at ERA3 Conference in Brisbane.
This presentation focused on looking at how/why you pick certain web tools and a range of Web tools that I have used in my classroom and examples of other classes uses to demonstrate purposeful use of web tools.

Unfortunately many of the transitions don't tranfer into slideshare well so will work towards updating this shortly.

All links from the presentation are available here.

Slideshare web

View more presentations from hey.milly.

Adora

2010-07-12T10:01:00.003+12:00

This video was shown at one of the Keynote sessions at Education Revolution 3 in Brisbane. Adora is an exceptional young lady - 12 years old when she presented this to TED in February this year.

Learning Link Reflections Term 2

2010-07-11T14:32:00.001+12:00

This term another teacher and myself undertook the e-portfolio journey with our classes. It was a great chance to work alongside a teacher with amazing ideas who wants to challenge where we were going with them and how they are working. Through many conversations and sharing sessions we worked on creating e-portfolios via keynote. Within this there has been some challenges and changes but mainly it has been 2 terms of hard work that paid off hugely with the student learning, collaboration and sharing.

The tech
For our e-port's we utilised a resource that the students had a basic understanding of - Keynote. Keynote is the mac version of Microsoft Powerpoint - but much more simple to use. The great thing about this was that the students weren't having to spend a lot of time on learning the technology so thus could focus more simply of the content of their Learning Links and sharing of the learning.

It was amazing to watch the students as they conversed and collaborated on their Learning Links. Often sessions would involve little direct teaching from me but rather facilitation of students helping each other. This allowed the students to build more and more confidence in the skills they had by being teachers. Students were able to hook their computers up to the projector and run small group workshops where they could share their knowledge. By the tech not being so heavy to learn and navigate it allowed the students to focus on the sharing of their learning.

Benefits
Learning styles is a key area that we started the year learning about. It interested me to see groups of students who showed that they were very 'people smart' preferring to work in pairs or small groups while my 'self smart' students preferred to sit together but often didn't speak. For 2 students in particular they shared with me that their Learning Link was the best way to share their learning - they tended to be working on it in all opportunities, including their own time. All students thought that they were much better than sharing their learning via paper.

Problems
The biggest problem that we came across were the 2 following:

Movies
The crossing over of movie's from photo booth into keynote. Initially we were utilising the bonus of mac's drag and drop features but unfortunately we found that movies didn't transfer properly into keynote this way. By using the media button in Keynote to find and select movies we overcame that problem.

Storing:
Because the Keynote is not an online system it meant that students had to take the keynote on and off the server to work and update their Learning Link. In the early days, as the students were learning the systems needed it meant that a lot of work was lost. As students became more confident with this we have had fewer problems with this. Ideally we both agree that an online system would be a good way to move forward and we have been investigating a range of systems.

Looking Forward...
In retrospect I can see that the students need a lot of focussed teaching on reflecting on their learning and work. The students are highly capable at choosing work that shows their learning journey and movement in core areas. In fact several of the students thought of better ways of showing their learning than I had originally allowed them. The teacher I am working alongside utilised the 6 thinking hats to help her students reflect. In adopting this idea I found that my students became more confident as they were using the hats to guide their reflections.

One thing that I worry about is that by putting hurdles up that make students explain their learning in a written format that it may mean some students aren't always selecting work they want to. Perhaps a good next step for this is trialling the students verbally reflecting via Garageband or Photo Booth to place into the Learning Links alongside the learning sample.

Overall I think that between the 2 of us we have given the students a lot of ownership over their Learning Links. They were keen to select and share the learning that they have completed over the last few terms and the parents seem to have enjoyed sitting down with the students and talking over these things at home. It will be interesting to read the feedback from the students and the parents about them too.

ERA3 Schools Tour - John Paul College

2010-06-23T21:07:00.003+12:00

John Paul College is situated in Daisy Hill, Brisbane. An independent school that caters for K-12 students within a massive campus. At JPC the students from Year 4 work on 1:1 notebooks also. This was the final stop on our schools tour on Monday and what an amazing place to finish the day. Once again there seems to be a big movement in the Secondary sectors to move towards more flexible learning spaces. Some of the ideas and designs here were amazing and showed that the students were at the core of the decision process for the designs.

The main highlights for me at JPC were:
* The whiteboard tables and cupboard facings - flexible spaces for students to work and group work together.
* The Arc - An covered outdoor area with inbuilt speaker system into the roof.
* The primary classes that utilised the outdoor areas into the classroom spaces.
* The senior common library that had been organised by genre rather than author's last name. Also the library had a large percentage of front facing books. The librarian stated that they had had around an 80% uptake in borrowing since these 2 changes were made to the library.
* The senior common room's use of flexible learning spaces and a range of high/low learning areas. The use of portable screens that the students could hook their laptops up to for group work was a great idea as well.

These and more can be seen in the photo's below.

ERA3 Schools Tour - Brisbane Girls Grammar

2010-06-22T22:36:00.004+12:00

As part of the ERA3 Conference there was a 1 day Schools Tour which took us through The Anglican Church Grammar School (or Churchies), Brisbane Girls Grammar and John Paul College. Below are the photo's from Brisbane Girls Grammar - I will post the JPC photo's tomorrow. Phenomenal schools with some amazing architecture and flexible learning spaces. It was really interesting getting around to some very different schools and seeing where secondary and primary learning spaces are heading in Australia. Click on the Brisbane Girls Grammar link here, to head to flickr to see more information about each photo. More from the schools tour to come!

500 Photographers

2010-05-31T07:27:00.001+12:00

Photographs from the series 'Evidence of things unseen' by Photographer #40 Simen Johen

500 Photographers is a weblog by Pete Wisse that aims to document 5 photographers over 100 weeks to collect 500 of the most stunning photographers from across the globe.

I have to say, he's doing a pretty amazing job so far. The project is in it's early days at photographer number 40, but already we have been exposed to some brilliant photographs. If you are into photography or just interested in amazing images, this is a blog to add to your RSS reader and keep an eye on.

Photographs from the series 'Landings' by Photographer #26 Branislav Kropilak

The Fun Theory - Competition Winner!

2010-05-30T18:53:00.003+12:00

I while ago I posted about Volkswagen's Fun Theory competition. The idea is simple - how can we create positive change by making the everyday tasks more fun and enjoyable? This is where The Fun Theory comes in. Over the last wee while they have been running a competition for people to share their own ideas of how they can apply The Fun Theory. These are now up on their website for viewing. This would be a fantastic task to take on with a class of kids - I have it lined up to attempt one term!

This is one of my favourites and will appeal to anyone with kids - it's a great idea and I would quite happily have a wardrobe like this!

The winner of The Fun Theory competition was Kevin Richardson, who took it out with his idea of the speed limit lottery, check out his winning video to see his idea.

Check out The Fun Theory website to see more of the entries!

End of the iPad...

2010-05-23T16:43:00.006+12:00

Well in our class anyway...
Our 3 week iPad trial ended on Friday, much to the dismay of the students.

They have loved (this could be an understatement) using the iPad in class. Consistently the first thing they chose on the iPad were games. It gave me a really quick understanding of how gaming in educational is a powerful tool for students. But also finding Apps with a balance of gaming to learning is an important factor!

I've discovered a lot about the iPad from having the chance to work with it myself and within a classroom context. It's incredibly simple and intuitive to navigate and use. A friend's 4 year old daughter had a play when she visited and the iPads ease of use was immediately apparent. She picked it up and understood very quickly that you press a picture to play an App and press the only button to quit a game. Simple and easy. The same applied for the students - many of them picked it up and were using it with little instruction.

Most of the Apps that we had on the iPad were free - which is amazing in an educational setting. It seemed that every few days you could go back to the App store and find new Apps up at the iTunes store. This will change further once the iPad is released in NZ and the iPad Apps can be accessed via a NZ account rather than having to have a US iTunes account. Another bonus is that a lot of the more expensive Apps tend to have trial Apps so that you can get the idea of what it can offer you before you buy the real deal. In an educational setting this is a massive possibility - opening up lots of new content weekly for free - free is always great to a teacher!

I think one thing that would be ideal in a classroom is the iWorks package as Google Docs and many of the other collaborative writing websites don't work, most of them because they are flash based sites. The Apple vs Adobe standoff won't change anytime soon, this is not a problem (definitely an annoyance at times) but means that there needs to be a shift in thinking in making the iPad work online in the way we are used to at times. It definitely wasn't like putting a laptop in the classroom as many of the sites we use daily in class can't be accessed on the iPad at the moment.

It's definitely something I can see myself buying but not in the first round at the moment. But I really do understand and see that the iPad is a work in process, not a final product. For it to be an ultimate class gadget I would really like to see a camera on the iPad - this would allow for students to take photos and videos easily and would make it an ideal gadget for ePortfolios creation and sharing (create all the content via the iPad, then collate and share using Keynote - simple!)

I also think the iPad really is a personal learning tool and will be highly successful when the students have a better understanding of the Apps available to them and are using it more than just 'when they have a turn'. I will be continuing to watch and read articles as the iPad gains momentum in schools and around the world. It will be really interesting to see where the 'next big technological advancement' for schools will head to in the future.

Learning Applications: Teachers vs Students Choice

2010-05-21T11:08:00.003+12:00

Celia from the iPad Learning LAB wrote the following post about the different learning applications of the iTouch/iPad's. These cover the 3 main types of Apps that you will use across this tech.

Productivity Applications - Those that we use to get tasks completed such as Evernote.

Utility Applications - The simple Apps that bring knowledge to our fingertips such as weather Apps or complete a simple task.

Immersive Applications - These are the Apps the include games or Apps where the learner is fully immersed in the task.

It's been interesting to see the kids use a range of these Apps over the last few weeks with a definite lean towards the Immersive Apps.

I think the big question for me here would be if the iPad belonged to a student...

What kind of Apps would a student select to have on their iPad?

The iPad at the moment is set up with a large range of mainly free Apps that I think would be of benefit to the students in the class. This definitely is a selection of Apps from across these three sectors. But the problem with that is that I am the one with the idea of what exactly is sitting on the iPad and what they would be good for (from a teachers persepective). Meaning that the students aren't actively seeking to engage in using Apps for certain tasks as their own knowledge of the Apps and what each one can do isn't there as it could be if they were the ones selecting the Apps.

Many schools seem to select Apps for their iTouches so that the students can't change the Apps. I see benefits for this but also negatives to this. I am beginning to think that if the students select Apps from the beginning they have a better understanding of what each App is and how they would utilise it in the classroom.

I can see that if you had a set number of Apps you could work with this as a group and set students up working on tasks across these also - with teaching. But my main aim would be to see that students fully understand what Apps they can use to be of benefit or support their learning in the classroom without much or any prompting from the teacher. For example knowing that they can use Evernote to record notes or web clippings but then head into the Animoto App to create a photo slideshow through to using Draw to complete visual art tasks. Not un-similar from how we would expect students to know to choose Pages if they need to type a piece of writing rather than using Kid Pix.

Of course there may need to be a range of teaching and 'suggesting' for Apps that would be a good place to start or more ideal for certain tasks/curriculum areas, but what would the students choose for themselves and their learning style?

Maybe a next step is to sit down with some kids and show them the App store and look at how and why they would select certain Apps for their iPad.

Reflection - iPad

2010-05-20T23:27:00.007+12:00

In a previous post I explained my next steps with the iPad:

Next steps:
* Organise the Apps on the screens so they are easy for the students to access the right App for the right task e.g. Sound recording Apps, Writing Apps etc.
* Investigate more Apps and to source Apps that are the best for the learning area.
* Investigate more Apps that allow the gaming aspect to be integrated into quality learning.
* Continue having the students use it in each of the curriculum areas.
* Develop more areas for the collaboration to occur e.g. utilising collaborative tools like scribblar etc where the students can write/brainstorm/share ideas.

The first step that I wanted to undertake was the most logical next step in the students being able to easily navigate through the pages to find Apps. So I spent some time collating the Apps into certain pages - Maths, Reading, Writing/Utilities, Music/Art, Website, Games etc etc This has been really effective in the students being able to find and identify the Apps that they most enjoy and use during the day.

We've used the iPad in a range of areas but the main areas so far are Maths, Reading, Writing and Visual Arts. The students love the maths Apps and will happily play on them in their spare time also. The Visual Arts tools are not for everybody - but have found their way into a few students favourite Apps lists. The iPad is a great tool for recording Reading and Reflections as it's so quick and easy to take it somewhere quiet to record and then sync to the web (using Evernote or iFiles).

One key area that I really wanted to develop was the collaborative aspect. The students are quite happy to have 2+ students around the iPad talking and discussing what is happening and what they should do. Unfortunately it has been hard going finding a range of different websites that allow this. Google Docs cannot be edited on the iPad - apart from spreadsheets (which is do-able but not ideal). Many of the collaborative sites like Pirate Pad, Etherpad etc do not work either. Evernote is the site we have had the most luck with but not quite what we wanted to use it for.

We had the same problem with our class delicious links. 99 percent of the websites that we have set up to use as part of our learning rotations will not work on the iPad as they are Flash based games. I've spent a fair while starting to sort through websites to find iPad compatible sites before I realised that it would be a good idea to let that one rest for a bit! This isn't a moan - but merely a reflection of how Flash based a lot of our educational sites are. As more and more people move towards smartphones such is iPhones or iTouches to view their web content it takes me back to a previous questions of how are we making our content compatible to this HUGE audience that we are missing?!

I have a great idea for Basic Facts testing utilising Google Docs that I am going to trial tomorrow - fingerscrossed for this brainwave! In small steps we are figuring out things that work for us. It's been a great journey with the kids and I've loved watching them move away from being star struck by the iPad to it being another tool in their classroom.

My next step is in another post as it's quite a big step or wondering about the set up of the iPad and how to make it work in the classroom so they are more tailored to individual students needs over those 'that the teacher decides'.

Image Courtesy of CC: PicturePurrfect685

iPad Links & Articles

2010-05-20T21:59:00.000+12:00

Clicker - For finding video via the iPad. Searches for iPad friendly video across the web.

Mobile Flickr - How the m.flickr.com mobile site works for the iTouch range.

Teenage App Tycoons - Interesting article about teenages making Apps that are allowed & not into the Apple App store for differing reasons.

Apple Controlling Your News - How Apple is controlling the content you can select and use via it's range.

iPad - Looking at some of the flaws

Move Files Between your Comp & iPad - MacWord (Still makes it seem harder than it could be!)

This is how Apple Rolls - Looking at how the Apple works and how the iPad is a beginning to some big changes and big ideas. Looking at the long term picture of where the iPad is heading.

Adobe blows Apple a Kiss - Next stage in the apple/flash debate

Apple Creating a "Walled Garden" - Apple being selective about what it will and won't allow to be included in Design Kits and viewed via the web.

Evernote on the iPad

2010-05-17T21:14:00.003+12:00

Evernote is a great website that comes with it's own App for iPhone/iTouch and iPad. So far it's been the most efficient and simple way of creating documents, editing them and syncing them to the web to easily use.

To use Evernote you need to create a free account with them. Evernote promotes itself as a way of collating bits and pieces, notes and things you love in one place, easily. Easily is definitely the keyword for Evernote. I've been really impressed with the simplicity of the App. Most students who have used it have been able to intuitively find their way around the App with little fuss. The one area students needed the most support with was with syncing - as this is a new concept for them.

The only disappointing factor so far with Evernote has been the inability to re-edit rich text notes after they have been created. So, if you create a note with audio attached to it you are unable to edit it without removing the audio first. (Though I did just try this again and it seems to be working now - fingerscrossed!)

The students seem to be impressed with Evernote and are slowly getting used to typing on it. One student noted though, as he was writing his story on the iPad, that it was much easier to do the 'peck and type' on the iPad than the traditional keyboard style typing they have been learning in class.

In a whole class lesson on Inferring, small groups of students used it to collate their ideas on Evernote and then sync it to the Web. This then allowed the students to view their ideas up on the whiteboard via the projector once they had synced to the web. The students loved this even though they had had experience with online whiteboards like wallwisher before via laptops. There continues to be a certain draw to the iPad, with students a bit worried that this is their last week with it in class!

EduCamp 2010

2010-05-17T19:55:00.003+12:00

EduCamp 2010 is coming up - it's the must attend event for those with an interest in ICT in education! Saturday July the 24th at Summerland Primary School is EduCamp 2010 - a day where you can come share ideas and learn in an open space with a variety of people and educators.

EduCamp is based on Unconference and Open-Space meeting philosophies:

We are all learners AND teachers.
The agenda is not set prior to event, those that attend are the right people and they will set the agenda on the day!
There is no set time for events - they begin and end as they are needed.
If you arrive at a session and it's not quite what you want, you are welcome to move on to another session! (The law of the feet!)

It's a great idea to sign up prior to the day so that people can link in with you and see what it is that you are interested in also. Helps with networking and finding people who may help you with what you want to learn and get from the day at EduCamp. For more information check out the Wiki and sign yourself up if you are going to attend - it's going to be another awesome day!

Speed Geeking at Unconference 2009
Image Courtesy of Fiona Grant

Fotobabble on the iPad

2010-05-12T10:47:00.007+12:00

Two of the best Websites that have an iPod/iPad App are Fotobabble and Evernote (more on Evernote later). I first heard about Fotobabble through Fiona Grant. Fotobabble is a quick and easy way for students to share the work that they create on the iPad with audio and upload it to the net to embed anywhere.

Students can create work on the iPad using a range of Apps such as the Martians App or any other drawing/photo App available. Once the image is stored in the iPad's photos it is accessible to the Fotobabble App.

Students simply select their image and then press the record button. Recording is allowed for short bursts of 30 seconds - which is the only drawback for somethings. Once they have recorded they can play back and listen to their work before deciding to publish it or re-record.

Once they have completed their recording a simple button push to save the work uploads it to the Fotobabble site. The interesting thing is that the students can view their Fotobabble via the list in the Fotobabble App but as soon as it is posted to the blog it cannot be viewed via the iPad because of the lack of Flash. See an example of a completed Fotobabble here.

iPad - Student Reflections

2010-05-07T13:07:00.014+12:00

Yesterday as groups and as a class we had conversations about the iPad. Students had a chance to reflect in small or large groups on what it was they they liked and disliked about the iPad. I was really interested to see if my initial thoughts and ideas about what the students might dislike about the iPad bothered them or if they were of no concern to them (such as the flat screen typing).

Over the course of the week it's been interesting to see what have been the Apps the students have most enjoyed and been using. So I also asked them about their favourite Apps from the week so far and why it is that they enjoyed them. We used inspiration to record our ideas so the images are just screen shots from our conversationg

The following are their ideas after 1 week using the iPad...

What did you like about the iPad?

The students were actually really thoughtful about some of the reasons that they enjoyed the iPad. The "shine" factor is starting to come off the iPad and they are starting to think about how it can be used in the classroom for more than something to play on.

The students are extremely keen on being able to use the iPad.

What do you dislike about the iPad?

The students once again had some very logical things to say about the iPad and the parts of it that they disliked.

The biggest concern that came up from the students was the sound. The majority of the students really enjoyed having the sound but found this difficult to have it at the volume they wanted in class. With more iPads in the classroom this wouldn't become such an issue. But the interesting thing about this is that the class quickly came up with some ideas of how this wouldn't be a problem anymore.

The distraction of the iPad in the class also seemed to be a concept that the students all agreed on. Even when they were on the computer etc they found that if the iPad was near them they would get distracted by what was happening on it. It will be interesting to see as the next 2 weeks happen if this starts to become less of a problem for the students.

The last thing that the students seemed to agree on was that they found the orientation of the iPad a bit tricky to get to grips with at first. By this they meant that sometimes they would hold it portrait way and the screen would flick to landscape and vice versa. They seem to think that this will get better the more they use it and understand how it works.

What Apps did you enjoy the most?

This is a list of the Apps that were the most popular on the iPad for the students. By far the 2 biggest App types that students enjoyed on the iPad were gaming and drawing Apps.

We began the conversation sharing all the Apps. As they started to list them I told them that I had made a guess as to why they enjoyed these games. It seemed I was pretty spot on with my ideas.

The students were really quick to share why they enjoyed these games and it kept coming back to the principles of gaming and SiSoMo - the Sight, Sound and Motion that happen within the App. The other interesting concept that they said hooked them into an App was the use of strategy and levels. They enjoyed being challenged and pushed to a new level, where the idea of gaming comes in.

It was a great conversation, I really think the students are working towards moving away from it being a 'fun' thing to do to looking at how they could use it in the classroom. I have some big ideas for what I want to do next!

Next steps:
* Organise the Apps on the screens so they are easy for the students to access the right App for the right task e.g. Sound recording Apps, Writing Apps etc.
* Investigate more Apps and to source Apps that are the best for the learning area.
* Investigate more Apps that allow the gaming aspect to be integrated into quality learning.
* Continue having the students use it in each of the curriculum areas.
* Develop more areas for the collaboration to occur e.g. utilising collaborative tools like scribblar etc where the students can write/brainstorm/share ideas.

iPad - Further Thoughts

2010-05-04T20:43:00.009+12:00

One thing that I had mentioned previously that I found quite hard with the iPad was the lack of flash on it. Today Sumich posted a letter from Steve Jobs about the whole Flash vs Apple debate that has been a thing that has often let people down about Apple products such as the iPad and ITouch. It's an interesting letter that sheds light from another perspective on the conversation. It's always good to know both sides, I guess!

It also got me thinking as to how and what video/multimedia we are uploading to our class blog. With so many people accessing the web via smartphones, iPods and iPhones etc it's a good forward move to start thinking about other video sites that allow for all our media to be shown no matter what platform our audience are viewing from. I have begun looking at alternative sites to upload material to that allows for viewing across a range of platforms.

Another really interesting piece of reading that I came across was from the iPad in the Classroom blog which talks about the idea of multiple iPads being able to be synced from 1 computer. Obviously the logistics of this would be a nightmare but not so bad when you're talking a class set synced through 1 computer. This also means that 1 App could be brought to cover multiple iPads. Once again whether this is entirely legitimate seems a bit unclear in terms of user agreements and schools.

I've been really impressed with the battery life of the iPad. From 1 charge it's withstood continual use for the whole day in a range of Apps like Rock Band, PopMath and drawing programmes. Meaning that charging could occur overnight and the iPads would be good to go during the day in the class with no need for chargers around the class. A nice thought!

The kids are putting it through it's paces. We are still yet to work out a work around for the writing at the moment as google docs is unable to be edited via the iPad - which is a shame as this would have been a great way for students to collaborate during writing. I am ideally looking for a free writing/text edit programme that the students can use - but Pages may be the only way ahead on this?! Am going to trial DraftPad tomorrow - it allows writing to be emailed when completed, not sure how it will go with saving writing but we'll give it a try.

iPad - Day 2

2010-05-04T16:08:00.003+12:00

Today it seemed like the iPad was shinier than the day before. The kids were all keen to gather around it and watch people play on Apps or point out things that they had learnt the day before.

We are still getting through the last of the students to have their play on the iPad.

My initial hopes of getting the kids to create written collaborative work using google docs has been dashed after a suggestion from Allanah K that google docs couldn't be edited on the iPad. I log in to google docs and find.. no students can't edit work. This is a real shame, as it would have been an awesome tool to have on the iPad. Will have to go back to the plan of downloading Pages etc for the iPad for the students to create written work and presentations on.

So far, from what the students say I can tell that the interactive nature of the iPad is a real hit. The touch screen technology is what sets it apart from the laptops. The Apps seem to have the right blend of SISOMO that capture the kids also. The kids also quickly learnt that if they want video - they go to the Youtube App.

Tomorrow is cross country so we'll see how we go with getting on the iPad. I am hoping to record some more of the kids reflections but Thursday we are going to kick in with our challenge and see how the kids go.

Day 1 - iPad in the Class

2010-05-03T21:18:00.004+12:00

Well, the buzz about iPad isn't contained to adults. At first mention of the iPad to my students a good 75% of them raised their hands to share something they knew. Astonishing, but not suprising I guess.

The first day with the iPad was actually a great day - the students were keen to get started and have a go. To start with the students had just 20 minutes each to play around with the iPad to see what Apps were there and what they could do or find. The kids were all excited to get their hands on it, but interestingly enough when a student had the iPad other students were happy to let them play by themselves. Only a few occasions saw several students huddled around the iPad (generally when an App let out a random noise or sound).

I have started recording some of the students initial thoughts after their first experience with the iPad to share what they liked about it in the class or didn't. So far the kids have really liked the touch aspect of the screen as well as the interactiveness of the Apps.

One student has already commented on the fact that she really likes to have the sound going when she plays on the iPad (especially the book she read). But that you couldn't really have the sound loud on the iPad in class. This was a great reflection from her first go with it and the first reflection from any student. I think it's a fair call that earplugs would be a great accessory to go with the iPad in the class.

I'm glad that at the moment I have left the protective plastic screen on as already it's managed to gather a few scratches from being passed around the class. This would also need to be a consideration.

One concern I had was the way that students would be able to work on the touch screen. As to type you need to be in a good position to type on the flat screen. Or have it propped up on something such as the Apple stands. The students didn't seem bothered by this at all and simply went on their way using and typing without a fuss.

The students favourite Apps from the day seemed to be the Toy Story book, PopMath and the drawing Apps we have loaded.

My next step once everyone has had a quick play is to put the iPad and the students to the test. I am going to give it to students in certain blocks and see if they can complete the tasks we are doing in class via the iPad. At the moment we don't have Keynote on the iPad so students are going to use Google Docs for typing projects. After that I am keen to see if the kids can find a good App from what we have to complete the task we are completing in class.

iPad - First Free Apps

2010-05-02T18:53:00.006+12:00

Best Free Apps so far...

StoryKit
Students are able to read books that are already available within the App. The best part of this App lies in it's ability to be able to change or add to these stories. But also for the students to create their own stories that story on the shelf in the App for later reading. Inside the App the students are able to type, select images from their photo library and draw their own illustrations using the paint utility. Lots of great opportunities with this.

PopMath
A cool wee App where students match up basic fact sums by popping matching balloons as they move around the screen. Had me hooked after the first play - you need to pay for the full App to get more than addition problems.

NoteTakerLite & Use Your Handwriting (UYH)
Both of these Apps are easy to navigate and allow you to take notes and store them so that you can order them and bring them up when necessary.

Bump
A great wee tool shown to me by Belinda Johnston. Two iTouches/iPad's "bump" together to exchange files easily. A simple way to pass files around from student to student.

GS Lite - Green screening
A simple tool for green screening photos.

Other notable Apps..

FreddyFraction - Fraction game for kids
FilterStorm - Amazing image editing suite
iStudiez Lite
"2009 Best App Ever Award Winner in Education category!"
A way for students to timetable in their days
Whiteboard
A collaborative whiteboard that shows on each of the iPads.
Toy Story
A read along for kids with a range of other activities as well as a record story feature.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the kids think of these Apps also. I can see some good potential from a range of them. If you have any other great Apps that you are using across iTouch/iPad's feel free to leave a comment to share your great finds!

iPad - First Play Thoughts and Findings

2010-05-02T03:39:00.002+12:00

These are a few initial findings as I played with an iPad, looking at it from an classroom perspective.

There are already some great ways that I can see that the iPad could be used in the class. So far one big drawback that I can see is the lack of flash on websites. Blogging is an important aspect of my classroom - but on entering our class blog none of the video's or animoto slideshows would play, instead greeted by a large black square. This stops a wide range of media being played back to students via the blog. Also, coming from a background in interactive whiteboards, I can see how the touch technology will be a big hook for students.

Blogs/Websites
Websites load quickly
No video content shows e.g. blogger video's, animoto's
YouTube video's show when embedded anywhere e.g. wiki's, websites etc
Will play at full size in good resolution
Good volume from youtube videos

iPod
Can play music in the background as you continue on with Apps
Easy to navigate

App Store
Can't access through the iPad as it's not the US Store.
Need to change the account to a US account - this is possible.

Apps
Homescreen is easy to navigate, arrange and delete Apps as you need them
Search function on first home screen to find Apps
Able to bookmark websites to your homescreen for easy access.

A lot of chances for connectivity between iPads with Apps
e.g. Being able to challenge friends with high scores and connect via Apps e.g. ArtLite and Whiteboard

More to come...

iPad in Education: Initial Readings

2010-05-01T21:08:00.010+12:00

At the ITSC 2010 Conference there was a definite buzz about the 2 days learning that lay ahead. But there was also another buzz running through the room - that of the iPad. A few of the educators that were in the room had their own iPad's. The excitement of this was quickly noted as one person pulled it out to use to be accompanied by "ohhhh's" and "ahhh's" as it would quickly disappear for a round of the table with keen people.

But the question is, does the buzz that exist belong to something shiny and new. Or does it belong to something that is going to "revolutionize education" the way that many articles across the web suggest.

So far there seems to be 2 distinct camps in the iPad conversation. Centered around the abilities and restrictions of the iPad. How it can interact or work for students and educators and how it can be or could be used in creative ways (e.g. the development of Apps by students).

1 side of the conversation seems to believe that the iPad lacks many functions which we seek from technology in the classroom these days; the ability to multi-task applications, the ability to access a range of Apps through the NZ iTunes store (due to them only being available in the US Store at present). Also the lack of camera and the use of the iPad in the classroom - for example, the screen glare from lighting.

The strong sides of the conversation seem to centre around the iPad as being a consumer product as opposed to a creator product. The iPad seems ideal for consuming products such as Apps and the internet but not for the creation of objects. This seems to flow from some people in the opensource community - that the lack of flexibility in the Apple App guidelines doesn't allow for a range of content to be made by or available to students as the App's need to be created under guidelines from Apple.

The other side of the conversation seem to be those that see what the iPad has to offer in the long run of it's development. Those that see that the iPad as well as the range of App's available already have huge potential in the classroom. That the mobility and collaboration that the iPad allows for will be a powerful asset in the classroom.

For a piece of technology that has created such a buzz through the world and the education sector it has been interesting to read through many articles and see the difference of opinions that are circulating about the iPad. The key to this conversation though is the students - it will be about what students think about iPad in comparison to the technology they already have access to in our classrooms.

I know that my students have a strong preference to a laptop over a desktop computer in the classroom. They enjoy the mobility factor of sitting outside or in bean bags to work. So it will be interesting to see if the mobilty, the shine or the tech factor of the iPad will grab our students as a new tool for their learning.

Image used under Creative Commons: Tom Raferty

ITSC 2010

2010-04-30T20:32:00.006+12:00

Conferences are always a great chance to work alongside and network with old friends and new. A chance to confirm learning, understanding and also as a springboard towards new ideas and movements. Which is extremely important in education.

Today was day 1 of the ITSC Conference in Auckland. ITSC is an Apple educational conference that lasts 2 days and brings in expertise from Australia and New Zealand through the ADE's (Apple Distinguished Educators). It has been an amazing day of new ideas, confirming understandings and networking with a range of people from around the upper North Island and further afar.

I learnt a lot of new things today which was really great for me. By far the most amazing part of the day was the workshop with Jess on Accessibility. The workshop looked at what simple mac applications are built into every mac that we can use to cater for learning needs students in our classrooms. This was a highlight as she showed most easiest and simplest ideas that will make big differences for some of my learners.

The other highlight of the day was having the chance to play with an iPad and iPod touches. We have been given an iPod touch to play with over the 2 days and I am more and more hooked as I check out the range of apps that are available for the apples. After talking to Belinda there are more and more ways that these could be used effectively in the classroom.

Here you will find notes on the conference in general.

Here you will find notes on the Accessibility workshop with Jess.

Holiday Video's & Telescopic Text

2010-04-28T23:25:00.013+12:00

Usual holiday stories.

Or maybe not.

After the holidays the kids are always keen to share their holiday happenings, but for a lot of them not so keen to do this in writing. For my writers at the moment, choosing one idea and working with it is a hard task... distractions galore and we end up sharing a million things in one story. So, these holidays we aimed to create a holiday video about one event that happened in the holiday.

We looked carefully at success criteria which included surface and deep features as well as context to get started. I pulled out 2 areas in each part that as a class we needed to concentrate on. For this piece of writing we talked a lot about the order of the event and describing the event using interesting words. These are two keys areas as writers we need to work on.

In class we call boring words - 'wicked words'. The students are working towards creating a working wall in the classroom where replacement words can be found to help them during writing. The students can go up to the wall and find for example, words to replace over-used words for example replacing 'said' with words like shouted, growled, grumbled and more. This wall is being built up as the year goes on and students are learning to identify words that they use a lot in their writing - these then become class 'wicked words'.

The best tool that I have used to date in writing this year has been telescopic text. It's an extremely simple site that allows you to expand your ideas from something simple into something elaborate. Using the telescopic text writing site students are able to change and expand their ideas by editing words to create a story which grows in concepts and length. Check out some examples that they created here.

Unfortunately, you cannot save these without taking a screen video via a separate program e.g. Jing, so we used a screen shot to record the first and last piece of telescopic text. I can't wait until the registration opens on the site. It was amazing to see the changes and editing to their writing that the students made along the way, so it would be good to be registered so you can save these and review this later.

The Sessions...

To start with we began with teacher modelling. I created my own holiday story that began quite simply with 'I went to the beach'. I then showed them how I could add descriptive words and how I had to think carefully about the order of events to expand my story into something amazing. We discussed the images that came to mind in the students because of the words I, the author, chose to use. The kids were buzzing!

Beginning writing...

(The grey text is where you click and the changes you made unfold - to be viewed)

Final piece of writing...

But of course, like all things... it's much more fun when you try for yourself. So off the students went in pairs to create their own telescopic text example using the write programme. They chose a simple sentence to explain their holiday - 'I went to the pools' etc They worked through adding different elements to their text so that it became more interesting and descriptive, moving text around and adding text in, so the order was correct. It was amazing to see the kids working with their buddies to edit and replace words along the way. The best part for them was folding the text back to their original, simple sentences and then watching click, by click, the changes they had made to create an amazing piece of text.

After several mistakes were made, we realised that we couldn't delete them. The really interesting thing for me was that after this was spoken about, the kids instantly began to check and re-check their words before they clicked to add the new ideas to their telescopic text example. They set their sights high and aimed for them, without anything needing to be said by me... brilliant stuff.

The kids spent 2 sessions working through their telescopic text examples before they went back to their original piece of writing to edit independently and then with a buddy. It was great to see a lot of changes made in their original piece due to the work we had created with telescopic text.

Today was the final stage - recording their video using photo booth to be uploaded to the blog. The learning objective of these lessons was not the video, but rather the way they were communicating and sequencing their written ideas for an audience. The video was a hook for getting the students to write and share their writing to a wider audience than myself.

It was really great to see the kids buzzing about their holiday video's rather than moaning about writing it!

Wikispaces Independent Pages

2010-04-26T19:54:00.006+12:00

To start of our theme of 'Out of the Ordinary... Extraordinary!' in Visual Arts we have begun the term looking at the artist Piet Mondrian. It ties in nicely with our Geometry unit we are in the middle of and provides many opportunities to look at someone who created extraordinary artwork from the simplest things.

I always begin a visual art unit like this by looking at the artist in detail and compiling ideas on what the students think about the artwork. We also look at the elements that make up the artwork like colours, textures, mediums etc. Previously I have used websites like Wallwisher to collect in prior thoughts as we look at the artwork. This has been really effective to gain an idea to what the students understand about the artwork and what they understand about the art techniques.

For this unit I began with a wikispaces page set up with tasks for the students to complete. It gave them a chance to work alongside a buddy at their own pace to share their ideas and develop their understanding about the artwork and the artist.

Firstly I collected a range of images through google image search and tagged them as 'Mondrian' using Delicious. Then I took the RSS feed for this tag (which can be found at the bottom of the page in delicious) to embed it as a widget into the wiki page. This meant that any new tags placed in delicious would automatically be fed into the wiki page and updated. This is great as it means not having to go back and embed/link up new pages all the time. I made sure that I stuck to just images for this tag to ensure that webpages and images didn't get mixed up. I wanted purely images for Task 1 - which was to look at images and examine the similarities about the different paintings.

The rest of the page allowed me to embed links and images for the students to work through. It allowed the students to work through a structure from introducing the artwork, to elements of the artwork and to finally creating their own example to share their understandings.

Introducing the artist using this format allowed the students to play around with a range of media e.g. games, images and articles to find out more about the artist. Students paced themselves at their own pace and worked through this recording their findings in their visual art books and taking screen shots and saving work to the server. While students worked I was able to observe, pinpoint students who were having trouble, ask questions and problem solve alongside the students. The students really enjoyed being able to work through the wiki and experiment with different media.

The students repeated a similar process for ANZAC Day. With different tasks and challenges being presented to them through the wiki which allowed them to experience a range of concepts around ANZAC Day. As there was such a huge range of knowledge levels around ANZAC Day this worked brilliantly as students worked in a different order for the things that interested them the most. Work was recorded using the Discussions feature on the wiki page and their Reading books. What was really amazing about this was that a few students went home and continued their learning from home with a few posting to the discussion forum during the weekend, not bad since this was their first time using the discussion forum!

Images used:
Mondrian Image: Wikimedia

Blogger in Draft: Template Designer

2010-03-27T09:52:00.006+13:00

Blogger in Draft is a space where you can try out the new features of blogger before they are added to Blogger. It's a space where blogger can test and trial features with audience feedback and to work out any bugs there might be.

One feature that has been quite lacking in Blogger is the template section. Whenever you create a new blog the first thing a lot of people ask is "can I change this background thing!" So off you go to btemplate etc and find new templates.

But Blogger in Draft has just released a new blogger template designer, where you have the ability to easily design your own blogger template to the specifications that you want. It's quite simple to use and the navigation is really clear and easy to follow.

You have the ability to change nearly all of the bits and pieces in your template right through to text colour and background images. I like the ability to choose how many columns and gadget bars you want - often you find a great template but it's not got the gadget space you need or it's got too many! One thing I couldn't find was where I could change my post text colour... will have to keep tinkering.

My favourite thing about the template designer though is the ability to change the width of the post boxes and the gadbet bar. You can slide along and choose whether you want a wider or narrower box to post all your work into.

It's also good to see a variety of background images that are available for people to use. Blogger in Draft says that there are 15 new templates as part of this - which there are. But also remember that there are 4 actual templates and then a few versions of each one that make up the 15 new templates. It would also be really nice to see a more photography based template available as part of this. As a keen photographer there is a lack of fantastic photography based templates available freely - if this was a part of the template designer I would be a very happy blogger!

So, head to Blogger in Draft and have a go yourself - I just used one of my trial blogs that I try stuff out on, to have a go and play around. See for yourself what you think and let me know.

Apimac Timer & Class Rotations

2010-03-23T20:42:00.013+13:00

Apimac is a tool that I came across last year and used a lot in my classroom for various reasons. My favourite was using it as part of class rotations, which I will explain more further on.

Apimac is a timer with many different functions - my favourite being it's ability to use songs from your iTunes to notify the end of your timer. Along with being a timer it is a stopwatch and alarm clock. For a free download it packs some pretty strong punches. When the timer sounds Apimac will open your iTunes, play sounds, speak a message or sound out the time among a few of it's timer features. It's also available in a PRO version for a $45 - the PRO offers many more functions such as launching applications, sending emails, full screen mode and more at the end of your time.

In the classroom I am finding more and more uses for Apimac. To develop independence skills in the students as part of rotations I use Ap imac to indicate when they need to swap to the next task by using the iTunes function rather than me stopping the class to move them along.

For example in Reading at the start of the reading session I let the students know how long the session will be, what song will play (this generally lasts 1 week) and what the expectations are for when the music is played at both times (middle of the reading session and again at the end). The students are told that when the music starts they have 3 minutes to finish off what they are doing and get themselves settled into their next task on the board. At the end of the session, the music indicates cleaning up and setting themselves up ready for the next subject on the board.

The students then go on to their tasks. Apimac runs on my laptop that is connected to a set of speakers. At the end of the set time Apimac plays the chosen iTunes song which is always roughly 3 minutes long. In this time I can continue teaching groups that I am working with, monitor and mark student work etc while the students organise themselves. The students learn to monitor their needs without having me remind them of what they should be doing.

In my year 4 class we have just begun using this as part of our rotations (last year I used this with Year 5 students) and already the students say that they prefer having the music break in rotations over me stopping them. It allows them to make decisions for themselves and the music adds a rather happy vibe to the classroom. Students also prefer having some time to finish off what they are doing, rather than being told to pack up things straight away. To be honest, who really enjoys stopping something straight away, when told to, when they are enjoying it!!

Flame

2010-03-21T17:51:00.005+13:00

This is someone's experiment who got it completely right! Peter Blaskovic has created Flame as part of his 'I Am An Artist' project.

If you are anything like me and love creating photographs from moving lights and anything that shines - you will love this site.

Basically you can play around and create your own artwork using 'lights.' You have the control to choose and change colours, opacity, size and more to create your desired artwork. Without anymore explaining, the best thing you can do it to head over to the Flame site and have a play!

Delicious in the Class

2010-03-16T17:37:00.009+13:00

One of the ways that I organise computer time for students is by utilising the website Delicious. It's a simple concept - take the idea of bookmarks that you keep on your desktop and broaden it out so that your bookmarks are available anywhere you have internet access. Your bookmarks are accessible via a url - like this -> http://delicious.com/hey.milly.

I've been using delicious as a way of organising my own links and sharing links through conferences for a few years. Last year I started using this in the class also and the kids quickly got a hang of it. This year with my Year 4 class I am also using the same idea - they have also quickly figured out how to access and use their delicious page.

The first thing I do is set up a class delicious account e.g. http://delicious.com/twelve2010 that the students access to get their bookmarks. I start with one curriculum area and teach the basics of how to access it and find the links you want.

The great thing about Delicious is that when you add a link into your account you can tag the link with a keyword. For example if I took the link Questionaut I could tag it as several different areas like thinking, problem solving, maths and more depending on where you wanted to keep it.

As you create your own tags this allows you to easily tag links for specific groups, curriculum areas or teaching points that you are working on with the students.

When students come to work on the computer - their taskboard will pinpoint the tag that they will look for when they get to Delicious e.g. Addition This also gives the students some ownership in choosing tasks that they feel confident with and need to work on. There are also a range of websites that the students can use to develop that teaching point or need.

Currently I am the only one adding links to the delicious, but would like to move forward to the kids finding great sites and being able to share them or add them to the class Delicious page.

PicAp Example

2010-01-23T14:45:00.002+13:00

PicApp - Images For Your Blog

2010-01-23T14:44:00.001+13:00

Through the Google blog I came across the PicApp website. PicApp allows you to find thousands of images that you can easily add to your blog. The images are up to date and a good way to find images for current events. This could be a great site for students to find images that they can use when discussing current events.

Once you search you are given large thumbnails of the images on a single page. Once you click on the images a pop up window shows you a larger version with all the information, description, embed codes.
If you are a Wordpress user it gives you the direct code for your blog also.

The website is simple and the layout is clear, so easy for students to navigate.

Threadsy

2010-01-23T13:47:00.004+13:00

MacAppStorm is an amazing website to keep an eye on if you are a mac lover. They do excellent reviews and preview up and coming mac based applications. Today one caught my eye called Threadsy. Luckily MacAppStorm were giving away 500 beta invites to Threadsy - so I signed myself up.

Threadsy integrates your email and social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook at present) into one easy to use window. It's easy to track tweets/conversations, easy to navigate and for the hour I've been using it I am impressed! :)

Twitter refreshes quickly and you can easily navigate to a user to reply, retweet, direct message and see their profile. All in the same window. One feature that I absolutely love is the way that youtube links play straight in the twitter stream. You can easily view and play it from within the person's tweet and still access a full size version as well.

For email you are able to complete all the normal email tasks - reply, forward, read and delete your emails. You can choose a number of ways to view your email through a list or quick view, where it gives you a snippet of the email. I use gmail, which allows your to 'star' important messages. I was delighted to see that these transfer into Threadsy and it also allows you to star new messages inside Threadsy. It seems as though all aspects of email have been considered and applied to Threadsy.

At present I'm only using this for gmail and twitter, but I am keen to give Facebook a whirl as well to see how easily it integrates the 3. There is a sound setting that you can set to notify you of new notifications but this is easily removed. I will be playing with it a bit more and am interested to see if it will takeover from my Tweetie application for twitter. For now, I'm loving the all-in-one integration!

Interesting Ways To Make Your Classroom A Sparkly Place To Learn!

2010-01-17T19:39:00.003+13:00

Tom Barrett is the King of the "Interesting Ways..." collaborative series. The idea is simple and highly effective - he sets up a google doc and an idea e.g. classroom displays, ICT projects and then gets people to collaborate and share their top tips and ideas. In the hunt for looking at classroom display ideas I came across the project. I have contributed to his ICT based docs before so was keen to give this one a go. So check it out and don't forget to take part if you've got some great ideas to share!

Jelly Lens Filters

2010-01-11T14:38:00.000+13:00

These things are AMAZING!! I first found them through the photojojo site and have been on my want list for a while.

Low and behold when I talk to the brilliant Lisa, she tells me they are available at NOOD. So off I went to pick some up - $5 each. They easily attach to your phone or camera but I am keeping mine in a little bag altogether.

Once you pull off the cap, there is a sticky jelly ring that attaches to your phone or small camera. It easily attaches and detaches from each camera easily - the cap keeps it clean so it's ready to go when you want them.

There are lots of different ones available through photojojo but NOOD only had 3 - starburst, wide angle and 6 view. I haven't had much chance to play with them but here are a few examples:

Wide Angled Filter:

6 View Filter:

Starburst Filter:

The Daily Shoot

2010-01-10T14:27:00.000+13:00

Daily Shoot is a great site for those taking part in the 365 challenge!

If you are stuck with an idea for your daily photo head here to grab an idea. Each day there is an assignment based on a huge range of ideas. You can check out the website daily or follow them via twitter to see the assignment also.

What I love the most about the site is the easy integration between flickr and twitter to take part in the daily assignments. It's not another site that you have to sign up to and log in to each time you want to take part. Your image is easily linked through a quick process.

Once you have selected your image post your photo to flickr (or another twitter images sharing site). Then all that needs to happen is you send a tweet to @dailyshoot with the link and the assignment hashtag (#ds54 for assignment 54).

A few minutes later the image will be loaded up on The Daily Shoot front page... couldn't be easier. You can then also see how other people have interpreted the daily assignment and leave comments/feedback etc for them.

Give it a go... you can go back through the past assignments and take part in them when you have extra time or aren't feeling the assignment of the day!

365 in 2010

2010-01-09T14:16:00.005+13:00

NZchrissy is always inspiring me... she is one of the first people I met outside of my school through twitter/blogging and I have continually loved the passion she has for things. She's inspired me again!

The 365 challenge is a simple one - take 1 photo a day and share it.

I started this last year but stopped after day 92. This year I am more determined to complete the 365 days. For me it is more about documenting my year and being able to have a look back at what I have done & where I have been over the year. Intertwined in this is my passion for photography - I am hoping to improve with my photography skills also. People take part in this challenge for different reasons!

It's never too late to start - so pick up a camera, sort out your blog or flickr and get get started! There are a lot of people who have taken on board the challenge - head over to my 365in2010 blog and check out the blogroll to see what people are up to. Already there has been a strong start with some gorgeous photos!

Happy New Years!

2010-01-04T21:15:00.001+13:00

Wishing you all a happy New Years and that you all get the most of what you want, need and wish for in 2010! I am looking forward to learning more from you all this year and sharing the new adventures I have ahead!

The Climb

2009-12-12T09:31:00.016+13:00

I've spent the last 7 years in the most amazing school. I started teaching at Elm Park School in the Juniors. Exactly where I didn't want to be when I was in Teachers College - I stayed teaching Year 1/2's for 3 years! Funny how sometimes the things you think you'll hate are the ones you love. I've learnt a million and 1 things through my time at my school.

I've been given endless opportunities and have had the chance to excel and develop my own style as a teacher. In the last 2 years my abilities and knowledge in e-Learning has been recognised with the chance to become an e-learning specialist and lead a team of talented ICT lead teachers. These first 7 years of my career have been a huge opportunity and I have loved every part. I have watched students grown and change - some have been in my classes for 4 years over the span of my teaching and have also watched me grow as a teacher. In the specialist role, having the chance to work with all the students across the school has been amazing... even made me want to go back to teaching Juniors... almost! :) But, balancing 2 jobs in 1 day for a confessed workaholic (thanks Mum and Dad for those genes!) is hard and my heart really is in the classroom making these things and more happen for my class, at the moment! So the decision was made that 2009 was the year to move onwards to new challenges - a new school and to return to the classroom fulltime!

The students I've had the privilege to teach in my 7 years has been immense... they are such cool kids at EPS. Every single one has taught me something about myself and the way I teach - they have made me the teacher I am today. At the Cultural Celebration evening many of our past pupils return - having them come up for chats and catch ups (or even just to show me how much taller than me they now are!) is mind boggling. Staying at 1 school for a while gives you the chance to see whole families grow and learn - it gives you links and roots that can never be shifted. My farewell assembly from the kids was overwhelming. I will NEVER forget the dance off with the boys... many laughs and many tears. I thank these kids for everything they have taught me and I dream big things for each and everyone I have taught.

I could never begin to thank the older people who have made me who I am today - without these people, I would be a different person. But I thank them and hope that they do truly realise what a difference they have made to me. I've had people around me that have seen the light in what I do and encouraged me and pushed me, when I didn't see it. People who love my crazy nature and tolerate it - if not celebrate it alongside me! It's these people that I'm finding the hardest to move from - that, for me, is a good thing. I have made friendships that will span a lifetime and these people are more than just colleagues. From my fellow e-Learning nerd - BJ, to my Auckland Mum to RC to KT who was the first massive influence for me at EPS to LA & GT who have been a lot of inspiration and support to LR, SR, LC, RV, AH, VA and CD who are all stunning teachers. These people are all massive influences because of the people they are and have been to me - I thank them for everything they know they have taught me and everything they don't know they've taught me.

As with all experiences there have been challenges. Ones I've known how to face and ones I haven't. Once again the people who have surrounded me have helped, encouraged and reminded me of who I am and where I am. It's been a hard climb in places but I have learnt a lot about myself and that is always a good thing. And as they say - Challenges are what makes us stronger.

My decision to leave has not been an easy one. But I think, I know, that the formula that I am heading off to is right. So for now, 1 mountain is moved and another awaits...

Image used under CC: Ryan Smith Photography

Misstep & Tumble

2009-12-11T21:29:00.002+13:00

Since purchasing a Canon SLR I've been loving heading off for photo missions with some of my best friends and by myself.

Some of you already know about my keen interest in Digital Photography and my photography blog Misstep & Tumble. For those of you that don't - head over to keep an eye on what I've been up to!

If you are a keen photographer leave a comment with your blog so I can check it out too!

K12 Online Conference

2009-11-30T18:46:00.001+13:00

It's due to kickoff very shortly... here's just some of what you can expect!

k12online09flyer-GMT

The Fun Theory

2009-11-14T20:06:00.000+13:00

Catching up on my blogs (can't you tell) I came back across a post from Naketa that I loved the first time and have loved everytime after that. It's a Volkswagen initiative called The Fun Theory. It's based on the concept that if we make the mundane more fun - people might do it more. Here are two examples:

Walking Stairs:

Recycling Bottles:

Picking Up Rubbish:

I think this is a great concept. Naketa has talked about challenging her kids to see what mundane tasks can be made more fun... I wonder what my class could come up with? They have a competition that is open til the 15th December where you can enter your ideas and the top ten entries will be revealed. First place offers 2500 Euros too!

Blogger Templates

2009-11-14T18:12:00.002+13:00

One of the best sites I've found so far for Blogger templates has been 'BTemplates'. They have a massive range of templates that cover a range of styles.

Their sidebar navigation makes it simple to navigate through all of their templates by searching through layouts such as 1 to 4 column layouts through to searching by styles and colours. There are over a thousand templates here, I'm not guaranteeing that you'll find 1 you love as I often find myself contemplating between 2 or more!

Thinking Past The Square...

2009-11-12T17:31:00.001+13:00

Some of you will know, but some of won't. Previously I started blogging at edublogs at Thinking Past The Square. When some of the changes started to take effect with edublogs I made the shift over to blogger. I still think that edublogs are an amazing blogger platform and provide the best help I have seen yet! But for me, it came down to costs involved.

So if you want to read my older posts and find some handy how to's and more head back to Thinking Past The Square and have a read!

Google Wave Gadgets

2009-11-11T05:38:00.001+13:00

One of the coolest and most helpful items you can add to a wave in Google Wave are the gadgets (click here for the google gadgets tutorial). When you start google wave you have 2 gadgets as a standard.

One standard gadget is the google maps gadget where you can pin point locations as a map that zoom right down to a street level. The maps sit within the wave without having to embed code or send someone out on an external link

The second standard gadget is a 'yes/no/maybe' voting gadget that places people at their desired answer when they vote. A great wee tool in a group discussion to get a clear picture of people's choices!

There are lots of site's coming out with links to gadgets that are being created by people. One of the best and simplest lists to navigate that I have found so far is here at Chaaps.com. It's an easy list to get through and has a range of fun and handy gadgets from the sudojku gadget through to the Ratings gadget.

The gadget function is not all fun and games. In a group setting when you are organising events gadget's such as the 'yes/no/maybe' do away with a lot of the backwards and forwards emails when planning and organising. Your map goes out to everybody and any changes can be seen by all and are noted as soon as you log in to google wave.

This would be a great way to collaboratively work within a team or for students to work when planning inquiries or investigating. It allows you to track who has posted work/comments but also easily allows for clippings, links, images, video and more to be linked or embedded within the wave giving you a complete overview of the journey in the inquiry process.

Digital Storytelling: Music & Visualisation

2009-11-09T07:44:00.007+13:00

Pam Thompson posted this link up on twitter today and from the moment I saw the post I fell in love with the concept. Basically the concept is a simple one. Take a piece of music and create the images to work with the lyrics - take still shots and turn it into a music video... ta da!

I have a class that loves drawing. One boy in particular has a real passion for it and it's something I can use as a hook for getting him to complete a range of tasks. His favourite reading strategy is visualisation - creating an image in your head based on what you read. It's a great strategy as you get to see all sorts of amazing things come out when the students draw what is happening in the text as they read.

A fabulous idea and one that I would like to transfer into Reading towards the end of the term (if there's time!) In class the students have been looking at the poem Jabberwocky. It would be great to get a group of students to record themselves reading the poem, draw their visualisations of it and turn it into a movie of the poem. There is one group in particular I can see this working really well with as it would work towards their goals of visualisation and expression in their reading. Fingerscrossed there is time to make this happen!

In the meantime watch these examples:

K12 Online Conference 2009: Bridging The Divide

2009-11-08T16:22:00.003+13:00

The K12 Online Conference is on it's way through again. A huge worldwide conference that spans countries and age groups. The conference is a fantastic event to get involved in as there are so many people from around the world sharing and interacting at this event.

This year the conference is beginning with a keynote from Kim Cofino and then follows with over 50 sessions in 2 weeks. You can head here to have a look at the presenters and what's on. Don't forget to tune in and support Rachel Boyd, the only Kiwi repping at K12 and is also a keynote speaker with the 'A Week In The Classroom' strand!

Balloons

2009-11-08T13:03:00.002+13:00

On The Mac.AppStorm site today I found an iPhone application called Balloons. I would LOVE to use this in the classroom with students. It's a fairly basic concept, but one that I think would really hook kids in to writing and geography.

The concept is simple - you choose a balloon, write a message and then set it free. You can catch other people's balloons and see where they have ended up. Each message records when and where the balloon has been with room for the 'catcher' to leave a message with photos and text. You can choose to be anonymous or leave a name. When you set a balloon free you can track it and see whether it's still flying, popped and how many messages have been added to it.

There is a lite version (which doesn't do the tracking) for free and a full version for $2.99 from the iTunes store. I would love to hear from anyone that has used in the class!

Check out the video below to get a better understanding:

Praise or Not?

2009-11-07T16:23:00.005+13:00

Over the last few weeks I have had some really interesting conversations with an up and coming teacher. One who has had a very different educational childhood setting from me. One that spans countries and teaching techniques - a world apart from my own. As we have spoken about behaviour management we have talked about 2 things in particular - the amount of praise given and praise "out loud."

To me praise is an important part of my classroom - I use it to celebrate success, thank students amongst a range of other reasons. I don't think I over-praise, I don't think I use it excessively and I don't praise unless I think it's deserved. But I think it's important that students are acknowledged for their efforts and part they play in the classroom.

I know a bit about praise used in contexts such as across cultures, where in some cultures praise isn't really given in a public setting, or at all. The last few weeks have really reminded me of this, while working alongside this teacher - as she thinks as a culture praise used too much and in particular to reward behaviour that should just be expected of our students. This is true to an extent, I guess. But for me I still see many of my students who lack the self-esteem and confidence and benefit from that extra boost - any way that it is given.

It would be nice to think that all our students are intrinsically motivated to learn, succeed and push themselves - but not all are. Some are built on the extrinsic motivation from home or previous schooling - whether it be toys, stickers or praise.

In an article from The New York called How Not to Talk To Your Kids - The Power (and Peril) of Praise it talks about a few studies undertaken looking at praise and how it is given and the validity/results of it. An interesting element of this article was a study conducted by Carol Dweck - looking at how different types of praise shifted the attitude or following steps a child took. Those praised more for their effort were interested in how they could improve vs those praised for being "smart" took the easy option. An interesting idea. If you are smart already - why should you try any harder?

There is a lot of discussion about children (also adults) being able to "sniff out" an insincere compliment - I think that this is a really important element in praising students - keeping it real. I also think students need to know why - verbalising the reasoning behind the praise.

It's an interesting article and one that has some valid points behind it that reach back to the conversations I have had in the past week. I think I would like to hunt around a bit more from Dweck's studies and the effects that it is having within an educational setting to those that have perhaps changed more to her format.

Used under CC: Gold Star by Lars_Ploughmann

Google Wave Is More Fun With 1

2009-11-07T11:07:00.007+13:00

I was lucky enough to get a google wave invite from google a few weeks back and while i've endeavoured to tinker with it a bit, it's pretty much just kind of sat there waiting... such a shame. But last night Allanahk announced she was looking for people to figure out what on earth this google wave thing was all about (same place i'd been for a while!) So Keamac and I jumped to this call and got on to google wave.

Don't get me wrong.. you don't need to be online with the person to google wave at all. But for this first chance to play around and experiment it was quite helpful as I found we were bouncing off each other when we found new tools and things to do. As google wave works in real-time, this was extremely handy! With google wave there are tonnes of things to do! We found maps, quizzes, links and embeds within a range. Later on in the night in another google wave session with Dragon09 we also discovered what the gadgets are - more on that later!

So far, I am pretty impressed with the way google wave works (once I figured it out). It's a bit slow and clunky at times and I find that it doesn't mark read messages too well - but this is a preview version and it's all about the feedback at the moment. Have had one chance so far to provide feedback to google when things went a bit haywire - they were very quick on the ball, with a pop up window asking for what happened etc.

I'll be posting a bit more on google wave soon.

Here's a couple of quick overviews of google wave which I quite liked...

Term 4

2009-11-02T20:17:00.004+13:00

Term 4 has seen a busy start and it shows no signs of slowing down. The kids are working away and trying hard to cope with not just 2 teachers now but 3 as we have a student teacher in the class. She has been working on developing her tech skills to engage the kids and improve her own knowledge. It's really good to see that change happening as student teachers come through the classrooms.

One thing that I have loved seeing from my students over the last few weeks is an increase in their ability and use of the tools like glogster for use at home. Last week we had the treat of watching a video that 2 students had created on their digital camera and then edited in Movie Maker at home. It seems to be that more of them are beginning to create digital content showing their own personality and interests. They are showing more ownership in their blog and in posting work throughout the day and evening on it. We rarely have a week pass where on a daily basis someone shouts out our new clustrmap numbers or that there is a new dot on the map from "where is this place???"

It would be great to see the kids become a bit more productive in what they produce with the tools. Some of them are on their way with this and bringing in content that shows a range of thinking and focus - am still enjoying the content that they bring in and am looking forward to seeing what they bring in, in the following few weeks!

Betchaboy

2009-11-02T19:56:00.002+13:00

Me and Amanda Signal, originally uploaded by Betchaboy.

Came across this photo on flickr today, via Chris Betchers aptly titled folder 'So you are real!'. One of the great things about conferences is being able to meet up with people I have met through the blogosphere. 2 people I had the chance to meet who had ventured over from Aussie to ULearn this year was Lilylauren and Betchaboy. It's such fun to try and track people down using only a tiny avatar to guide you. Luckily with Chris we had spoken through the OZ/NZ Educators meetings and through his work with his Interactive Whiteboard Revolution book. Head along and check out the ning and his blog - he's a wealth of knowledge!

Creative Commons

2009-10-19T23:02:00.000+13:00

One thing that I am becoming increasingly interested in is the use of Creative Commons in the classroom. In particular the use of visual works by students. One thing that I see commonly happening in the classroom is the use of copyrighted images for work. I have also begun to think more deeply about this and how this relates within my own classroom.

As teachers we often talk of plagarism. "Don't copy work, otherwise it's just like stealing... etc etc." "If you take written work, remember to write down the book... the website..." Often we only talk about this on a text level and then are more than happy for students to "google" an image to copy, paste and use without acknowledgement to who or where it has come from. As a keen photographer, I put a lot of hard work into creating powerful and interesting images when I photograph. I don't see this as any different from someone who has taken the time to create a piece of text. So what makes images and text so different?

Creative Commons is working along the principles of the web - sharing, creating and collaborating within a context that allows for acknowledgement of creation. If an image is shared under CC it can work in a number of ways (see here for more information). But most importantly - it is opening up the content that is being created to allow our students to continue the creating and remixing that many of them are used to. The main underlying idea is the idea of acknowledgement of work - or attribution. If work is taken from somebody and used in the ways they allow - they should be acknowledged for this. Whether is be a design, a drawing, a photograph, a piece of music, a movie or a piece of text.

This is an important piece of information and a huge movement, that our students need to be aware of. Last term, I begun talking more about this and developing the knowledge of creative commons licenced work with my students - most importantly attribution of all work taken. I am stoked to see that many of them prefer to create their own content. The flip side to this is that they also need to understand the rights that they have to place copyright or creative commons on their work, as they own it. This is something that I can see many of my students don't understand by openly sharing their work via the internet. It is something I will be thinking more about over the next term - I would like to talk more with my students about this and see what their understandings and ideas are on copyright and creative commons.

Image used under CC:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/ / CC BY 2.0

Flickr: World Through Your Window

2009-10-16T22:42:00.000+13:00

A fun group to share what the world looks like out your window - where ever that may be!

Flickr: 5 Frame Storytelling For Kids

2009-10-14T22:47:00.001+13:00

5 Frame storytelling is a great idea to incorporate into your oral, written and visual language programmes.

This is the student version of the 5 Frame Storytelling group that is on Flickr. I started this after running a unit on 5 frame storytelling with my Year 3&4 class. We used Flickr to successfully get comments and feedback from around the world as part of the original 5 Frame group.

After talking with the admin of the group, I branched out and created a student based one - Tell A Story In 5 Frames. I have posted lots of instructions on the group to help you get started - but don't hesitate to leave a comment if you would like to know more! We also have a 5 Frame Ning that was established to support teachers interested in giving 5 frame storytelling a go... it's been a bit slow lately, but head along to find out more!

ULearn '09 - Breakout 7: Visual Language

2009-10-12T23:42:00.001+13:00

Breakout 7 (or the graveyard shift) was my Visual Language workshop. During this workshop we covered a large range of ideas. From basic digital photography skills, elements and angles. Through to Creative Commons, practical websites for classroom use and ideas to help the 1 camera classroom work.

The largest part of this presentation shared some ways visual language can be developed/integrated in the classroom and used as part of an effective oral and/or written language programme. The major focus looked at the use of digital photography - both student and web based images. But also shared forward steps with looking at silent animations such as Kiwi or Carried Away.

It was great to see the people involved sharing their ideas and participating in the group/peer activities to share their thoughts - we had some enthusiastic people! We also had a few people who shared things that had worked well for them in the class - this was great for a collaborative feel to the breakout!

Head over to my wiki - Click on Presentations and then ULearn '09 and the Through The Lens title to see the presentation. (Or click on any of the links above!)

ULearn 09 - Breakout 6a: Digikids

2009-10-11T23:33:00.002+13:00

This breakout - Digikids, looked at the concept of having a group of keen kids take part once a week in a collaborative way - to learn new tips, tricks and tools that they can take back to their class, teachers and families!

I looked at the initial set up in 2008 through to this year. The changes that have been made, the positives and the negatives. Things that have worked and things that haven't!

Head over to my wiki - Click on Presentations and then ULearn '09 and the Digikids title to see the presentation. (Or click on any of the links above!)

Bloggers Cafe!

2009-10-10T22:21:00.001+13:00

Bloggers Cafe!, originally uploaded by FionaGrant.

Just a few of the wonderful people who I had a chance to catch up with!

ULearn '09 Reflection...

2009-10-10T21:18:00.004+13:00

ULearn is a fantastic conference to go to... 1750 delegates from all over NZ, with a growing contingent from overseas who both present and attend. A huge variety of workshops, spotlights and keynotes to satisfy nearly every e-learning enthusiast!! It's definetly one conference to plan for in your diary each year!

Once again it has been and gone for another year. As I said earlier, this year I didn't get to attend any breakouts unfortunately but went down to hang out at the bloggers cafe with Dragon09 (my very first blogger/twitter friend!!) and see some of the amazing twitter and blogging people I get to collaborate with, learn from and talk to on a daily basis. My friend from Christchurch who attended ULearn for the first time was so amazed by the friendly atmosphere that greeted her from the bloggers cafe. She was most amazed at the fact I had met all these bubbly people through twitter and blogging... I am extremely lucky for the people who I am surrounded by! I was stoked to have the chance to meet Lilylauren and Chris Betcher for the first time, who were over from Australia, but unfortunately missed Helen!

This year I presented 2 sessions - I will post the presentations up in seperate posts. After a long haul of putting my presentations together and touching them up - I was stoked to present them in breakouts 6 and 7 to 2 groups of keen and interested teachers. A big thanks to those teachers in the graveyard Breakout 7 shift who participated in the session with enthusiasm. I was even more excited on reading the feedback forms and getting an overwhelming positive response to my sessions. I liked that fact that many of them thought that the workshops and content were "realistic" and "engaging" among many other adjectives within the written comments! The number scale is great, but the written feedback, whether postive or negative is worthwhile as I learn much more from this! It does make the hard work worth it, to know that your audience is leaving enthused, keen and with some new ideas! It was interesting to see how many people talked about the fact I seemed so passionate about what I was talking about - this I was very happy with!

One thing I was extremely careful with was trying to work closely to what I had placed as my abstract for the workshops. When I sent in my proposals these were to be 2 new workshops that I hadn't presented on, but had a HUGE passion and interest in. So I made sure that I worked closely to what I had written. Many people have previously complained of attending workshops that didn't match their abstracts - this is a huge disappointment for these people.

I think I am becoming more confident and relaxed with my presenting and my presentation style. I enjoy working with the keen groups of teachers who have chosen to attend the sessions. It was good to see also, that I sparked some teachers into sharing ideas and tools that they have used in the classroom and were willing to share these via my presentation wiki page with others from the session - great collaboration!! I think that the more I present and work in front of adults the more fluid I will become in the way I present and interact with my audience. I know this time around, I felt I was a lot more relaxed than I have been in other years. It's really not that long ago the idea of talking in front of a group of adults was an absolute no go for me!! But that being said, I look forward to having the chance to share with others in the future!

Image of the ULearn09 stands used under CC: coreednz

ULearn '09

2009-10-08T15:05:00.003+13:00

2009 - Christchurch... back to ULearn for another year. Unfortunately not here for the breakouts this time around, just to present and to catch up with some of the amazing people who I get to digitally work with on a daily basis, year round.

Will be collecting links from around the place and different people. You can check them out here!

Interface Awards

2009-10-03T21:09:00.004+13:00

This year's Interface awards finalists have been announced and it's a toughy!

Elm Park has done well in the two years the competition has been run. Last year Raenette was a finalist in the teacher section and this year we have Veronica who has been chosen as a finalist in the class blog section. Veronica's class - The Brainy Bunch are Year 1 students!! They create some fantastic pieces of work and prove that Juniors can do anything!!

Up against her are some big contenders such as Allanah K from Moturoa with their fabulous blog filled with lots of goodies. Please head along and vote for these 2 amazing blogs from 2 classes who have brilliant teachers.

So please head here and vote for these 2 amazing teachers!

Lookah.tv

2009-10-02T22:25:00.002+13:00

Lookah.tv looks like a fabulous resource to add to your collection and to pass onto staff and students. It is an easy to use and navigate selection of video tutorials on different software. You can register to be a user or just use the site without registration. By registering it gives you a few added features such as creating a list of easily accessible favourites. It seems to be the project of New Zealander, David Kinane. So head along, check out the site and support a great kiwi idea!

Troubled Waters

2009-09-05T22:23:00.012+12:00

A school in our cluster is in some troubled waters. Hopefully that is all that it is, because continually I have been astounded and amazed by the passion, strength and care that these teachers show to their school and their students. I am stoked to have gotten to know a few of these teachers and had the opportunities to visit Waimokoia and work alongside them at our cluster days.

Many of you would have been following the poor efforts of the NZ Herald in keeping a non-judgmental viewpoint to this discussion on the closing of Waimokoia school. Even the so-called positive spin that is the latest article, fails to shed great light on the way the school now operates. It is still being judged on its past - how long for? I think Podgorani sums it up nicely with his comments about the newspapers taking some time out to see what life is really like in these schools, before they judge them and the academic achievements of the students. What these kids learn and get at Waimokoia is more than the worth of an academic score card.

The teachers of this school work in a tough environment - with kids who have reached the limits of the everyday school resources. They talk of closing the schools and spending the money on 'wrap around' services that would much better serve the schools and students. As a teacher, I fail to see that this will support these students well. For the students and whanau who we do see in these situations, who need the support of a residential stay, we fill in pages and pages of paperwork - to be told we are waiting in line or that they are not 'eligible'. How will this support the students that Waimokoia work with? It will take longer for them to find their way to a place that can nurture and support them and keep them hooked into a good life and education. Just take a look at some of the amazing stuff that the staff are doing to hook these kids into school, learning and develop their self!

I have nothing but strong faith and hope for the teachers and students of Waimokoia. Please lend a hand to them and support them anyway that you can.

Speed Dial

2009-09-05T21:58:00.007+12:00

For those of you using Firefox you will know about all the funky themes and helpful add-on's that compliment Firefox. One add-on that Anita (our school techie) passed on to me this week was Speed Dial.

I always have my Firefox set to open up on a minimum of 7 of my most visited websites everytime I start up Firefox. But Speed Dial is a helpful tool so that I always start with only one tab. Speed Dial works a little bit like a sharetab (example here), where you can view small screenshots of a website. Click on the website you want and it opens it in a new tab... very handy!

The great thing about Speed Dial is that it is highly customisable - right down to the size of the windows, how frequently you want them updated and the colours of each of the boxes. It's very easy and simple to use.

Perhaps you have a great Firefox add-on that you use and could share? I would love to know about it!

Jump To High School...

2009-09-01T08:11:00.002+12:00

Further on from my last posting about ECE transitions to primary this article was tweeted by dwenmoth from Stuff.co.nz about a study completed on the transition from primary to secondary

Jump To High School Too Big For Some

Travelling With No End Point...

2009-08-30T22:26:00.010+12:00

When you are through changing, you are through. ~Bruce Barton

Tonight I spent some time looking through my old posts on my first blog - Thinking Past The Square... It's amazing to look back at how far I think I've come in the last few years and the shifts in thinking and practice I have made. It's funny how change can be so uncomfortable at times, but have the most amazing results. I'm lucky that the majority of the shifts have not been too uncomfortable, but rather a trip that I have been able to reflect and build on. One that continues on with no end point...

I've been priviledged to be surrounded by some amazing people and minds, who I now call friends, who have been and will continue to be an integral part of my travels.

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. ~Ellen Glasgow

On this trip so far, I have made twists and turns. I have gone backwards to go forwards and sideways to find the right way. But always it has been for a purpose and a reason... to improve my own understandings and practices as a teacher. I know that I have a long way to go... I look forward to that and hope that in another year I can look back on my blog posts and see that I have challenged, extended and pushed myself onwards once again.

Image used under CC: BrianTaylor42

ECE Hui

2009-08-27T18:31:00.007+12:00

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of being invited to present a workshop at the Central North and Upper North Island Early Childcare Hui at Pt England School. I had heard rumours that the day would be good, but I was blown away by the whole event and it's organisation. From the amazing people at CORE who organised it (Naketa and crew) through to the keen participants of the day - it was a well spent Saturday!

The day started with the 2 keynote speakers - Jane Nicholls and Derek Wenmoth. I am always interested in what these two people have to say about e-learning and the journey that is happening.

Image used under CC: AlohaMamma

The first workshop looked at how blogs had been used to as the portal for learning stories to strengthened the home-school partnership. I was amazed at how much time and effort had been invested by these teachers to upskill the students and the parents. 1-1 sessions had been undertaken where the teachers worked with families to teach them logging in, leaving comments and more. It has taken alot of hours to develop this and now the centre is working on a 'family asks' basis for the learning stories to be given this way and the families must ensure that they are willing to put in the same amount of hours as the centre. It was refreshing to see how much family involvement was going on with these blogs and how many of the families and students that had left the centre had undertaken ownership of the blog and carried it on. What a powerful way to show learning over the course of a school career or lifetime!!

My next session wowed me in the way the students own interest and passions shone through in what the students were doing and the way they were learning. Their passions were the learning. This is where a lightbulb really turned on in my head in regards to the degree of difference in what is happening in ECE to Primary education. The centre running the workshop talked a lot about students interests and passions and developing those in the centre as the central idea to the learning. Students were involved in learning experiences that breached home to school and back and involved a range of people. Having taught juniors but not spent alot of time in ECE centres this has made me re-think more about how the first year of primary is so far removed from what happens in alot of these centres.

While not on a whole, I think many junior primary teachers would get a shock to see what e-learning experiences their students are involved in before they enter their classes at 5 years of age. I had the chance to talk to several ECE educators about the transition period from ECE to primary and how hard it is. There seems to be several schools who are developing close networks with the schools around them to (see Grasslands Kindergarten blog and their links to Rhode Street School). We are currently looking at getting some of our junior teachers into visit some ECE centres. Also I am keen to look around at what is happening at our ECE centres where our students come from - how this meets with what we are doing and expecting from our students when they arrive at our school from these centres.

Lead Teacher Day - eastnet Cluster

2009-08-26T09:02:00.024+12:00

eastnet Cluster Wiki Agenda

Pinwheel Sharing:

I shared using google docs forms to create quizzes as part of a independent Blooms Taxonomy reading contract. See Mega 25 blog and take part! Also shared Quietube - a way of removing all the excess videos, comments etc from around youtube videos.

LR - Keynote hyperlinking.
KT - iMove '09 version to create Te Reo Maori lessons.
J - Scholastic Story starter
LR - Interactive news reader - CBBC

Coaching:

Coach role: being supportive, listening, paraphrasing, questioning, allowing teacher to come up with own ideas and solutions.

Trust and respect is necessary to allow coaching to happen in an effective way. Needs to be taken as a way of upskilling and developing good teacher practice and reflection rather than a negative.

Scribblar.com
Positives:
**Able to video conference easily
**Easy pages.
**Owner logs in - but can make public and anyone can access and take part in.
**Would be good for cross class collaboration with the audio features.
**Can draw and write - shapes, stamps etc also

Negatives:
** Cannot change page without changing the page for everyone.
** You can delete other peoples ideas and comments.

Presentation Zen
Presentation Zen Blog

Core Area - Presentation Zen Philosophy
Preparation - Restraint
Design - Simplicity
Delivery - Naturalness

An approach to presentation.
Avoid the slideument - slide and document together.

Digistore: Fiona Grant
Digistore Site

How are you using e-Learning to support these areas:

Making Connections: Wiki's <-Little Language Experts project, classroom booktalk. Blog. Skype. Learnz field trips. Electronic books from Learning Media.
Facilitating Shared Learning: Classroom booktalk project, Skype, Wallwisher
Creating supportive learning environments: Glogster edu, Blog, Wiki, Knowledge Net,
Enhancing opportunites to learn: Blog, Youtube, NZHerald, BBC, Digistore tools

Down the back of the chair

eisforlearning Wiki - Fiona
Pedagogy and eLearning

digistore:
New software to be launched at ULearn
Digital Pathways

How to support using DLO's in the class...

Planning stage:
Identifying digital content during planning stage.
Linking them to learning management system -> use the URL
NZMaths - look for maths content here rather than on Digistore.
Put the username and password next to the link -> print them for in class use.
Students can access from home as well, if password is known.
Students understand Copyright and the Conditions of Use of Digistore.
Diginews
Using advanced search in google: search word and search site.
e.g. Maths in advanced search
EPIC
Te Ara

Software for Learning
Software For Learning Site
Software For Learning Wiki

Examples of students work across NZ:
StudentDigitalWork on Delicious

Heymilly Wiki

2009-08-24T11:13:00.000+12:00

My wiki is in the slow process of being updated.

Last week it got an entire visual overhaul and in the coming weeks there will be a content overhaul with the updating of many pages and the loading of many how to sheets that I have created over the last few years.

So keep an eye out over on the Heymilly wiki... there might be some goodies for you!