A New Bridge to Cross...

A new year and a new set of challenges.  In the past few years I have been spoilt by sharing an office with a person who can reflect, discuss, inspire and challenge myself with on a daily basis.  I've had the chance to work alongside them as a team member and in the classroom.  I feel that in the last few years some strong pedagogical ideas and changes have happened in my teaching and in the way I learn.  Many of these shifts have taken place by having a person who wants to challenge, change and examine the way the classroom looks on a daily basis.

Before this, my place of reflection - this blog was the place I came to, to reflect and think about my practice and ideas. To share my learning and pass on the process.  It's amazing how a place of reflection - whether it be a person or a place - makes a difference to your pedagogy.

So my blog has sat at the side of the bridge - waiting for me, while I made new discoveries and changes in thought.  The time has come to make my way back on to the bridge - a place that has helped me gain friends and colleagues from around NZ.  The bridge that always takes me on the same familiar journey but also leads me to places of new surprises and sights.

I have loads to share and think about from the range of professional readings, tweets and conferences I have had the pleasure of attending.  Over the last short while I have had attended educamps around NZ, uLearn in Auckland and the International Thinking Conference in Wellington.  I have been able to take many things away from these conferences and also find a way to connect small ideas together that will make big changes in my understandings and teaching.

This year I also am taking on new challenges in my professional life - leading a team of talented teachers.  Taking on leadership and working towards creating a shared environment where we, as a team, can work together to be a support network for each other is my aim.  To become a strong professional learning house, sharing our pedagogy, triumphs and challenges.  I have a lot to learn and am looking forward to the year ahead.

In my classroom I am continuing to develop my passion and interest for negotiated learning in the classroom.  Students developing their self managing skills and autonomy in the classroom.  Last year saw some strong developments for myself in the way that this could be structured in the class.  Many of these changes came from reflections with the students about how they want their learning to look.  This year it will change and develop further with the different learners and needs I have within my classroom.  My passion for the integration of eLearning and mobile devices will continue with a strong basis in supporting the learning and learners in the classroom.  Examining the way student voice can be shared to understand that my students can have an audience as big as the world.

So... welcome to the place where I begin my journey back across the bridge - to the familiar place with familiar places but also lots of new sights and people.  I hope you will take part and have conversations with me in different places.  Challenge my thinking/ideas and share your own!

Photo used under CC: Heymilly

You Gotta Know!

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.