I love these two talks. The first was recorded in 2006 and the second was recorded this year at the February TED Talk. One day I am going to go to TED!
How can I start a revolution in my school?
I love these two talks. The first was recorded in 2006 and the second was recorded this year at the February TED Talk. One day I am going to go to TED!
How can I start a revolution in my school?
I wonder how this effects education and my practice …
You may all remember the list I made back in October. Well I am happy to report that I have made some very good progress!
I must say, all this oxygen deprivation is making my head spin!
“…almost one in five students are leaving school without the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need.”
Of the 20% who are not achieving at the expected level for their age group, I will safely estimate that a quarter of them are special needs or have been identified as having learning difficulties. So we could probably bump that 80% closer to 90%.
Let’s put this into a real classroom, my classroom.
I have 30 students – Year 3 and 4 (7, 8 and 9 years old).
(Well actually I have 28, but we will use 30 as a nice round number, I don’t want to make this to hard for you Mrs Tolley, I know that you are too busy to speak to or listen to us) (Also 30 is closer to the average class size in little old NZ).
1 out of 5 of them is below expected age levels in literacy and numeracy.
30 divided by 5 equals 6.
6 students are below – yep that’s my lowest reading group.
Of those six almost two of them have been identified as having learning difficulties.
(Luckily for me almost all of my students come to school after having a good nights sleep, breakfast, are well dressed for the weather and have a good healthy lunch in their bag).
Which means 4 of them are below. So that’s 4 out of thirty? (correct me if I am wrong Mrs Tolley).
Yep I knew that!
If the government wanted to know this, all they had to do was ask.
Hey! Brain Wave!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will be beginning a new position next year as a Sole-Charge Principal at Pukeokahu School (Pukeokahu means The Hill of The Hawk). To put this into perspective for you non-kiwis out there – I will begin the year (Feb 2nd 2010) with 10 students aged between 7 and 12 years, with two 5 year olds beginning half way through the year. I am expected to teach across all age levels with 0.3 release (one and a half days per week) to complete school administration. One of the biggest appeals about this school is the extremely high level of community support. The Board of Trustees (BOT) fundraises every year to employ a second teacher for an additional one and a half hours per day (0.2 teaching time) to focus on Junior Literacy (Yeah! I’m not alone!).
Soooo … I have a bit of a challenge ahead of me. The teaching part will be as sweet as a nut, but I now need to learn all about the compliance stuff! The paper work, administration, budgets, pay-roll (eek! I have heard many a horrible tale about pay-roll!), and water-testing will definitely be a challenge for me. Yes, you did read that correctly, I do have to test the drinking water once a month! But what is life without a challenge? I say bring it on because I also get to do the exciting stuff, and by exciting I mean super-sized-geeky-fun exciting stuff! I now have a blank slate to create a personalised elearning environment for my school community. Woohoooo!
As you can see, I have quite a lot to do and a few decisions to make before the beginning of the new school year. I will be blogging as I go to let you all know how I go. Hopefully I will have plenty of tips and tricks I can share with you all as I bumble along. I would also appreciate any wisdom and in-sites you could share with me 🙂
Images sourced gratefully under creative commons licence from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33852082@N00/323568343/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sflovestory/3746500354/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themonnie/2735689978/
I must first apologise for neglecting my blogging obligations. It would seem that life is flashing by and piling up at a furious pace. Between attending and presenting at ulearn09; preparing my class for term four; PAT and STAR testing for school reports and preparing for my new position as Principal at Pukeokahu School, I have been avoiding this blog with vigour. However, guilt has raised its furry head and I have decided to just get on with it.
Early on in the year I decided that my Professional Development Goal would be to take every opportunity to present to a professional audience. When ulearn09 came up I saw it as a fantastic way to extend my presentation experience. Though in hindsight, I must admit that the decision to present at ulearn09 was kind of like jumping into the deep end without my floaties! But, all in all, after all of the stress and sweaty palms, everything worked out well and it was over quicker than … well you can read the title.
My hands-on workshop was about using Web2.0 tools to enhance a classroom blog, like I had done with my classblog – The Wocket Spot Blog. I decided to design my workshop to be run like the Amazing Race. Collaborative groups would required to complete as many tasks as possible within a given time frame and publish their completed tasks to a mock classblog – you can check out the finish tasks here. The point being that Web2.0 tools are quick, fun and easy to use.
All of the information needed to complete the tasks can be found in a website I have developed – Creatingewindows.com. It was my hope that after my workshop the attendees would be able to continue using the site and share it with their colleagues and perhaps even run the Amazing Race for their own staff (I have left The Race page with all of the tasks on the site).
And of course now I offer to you all access to my wee site. I hope it is helpful and fun to use. I will be adding to it as time goes by and I discover other funky little Web2.0 tools that enhance learning in a blogging environment. You are all welcome to use it to run your own Amazing Race, just drop me a line if you need help setting it up. And please let me know if you think there is anything else I should add.
Yes!!! Writers block defeated! Post is published! Guilt is dissipating and next the topic is forming in my mind!
Images sourced under creative commons licence from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spudmurphy/2219132087/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hynkle/2720388912/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/317055520/
I am writing this post on my school’s ipod touch. It is slow going at the moment as I am still getting use to the type pad. The predictive text is a bit average and the whole process would be a lot faster if the keyboard was landscape. I discovered that the new update gives you this option but you have to pay for it! Why do we have to pay to update? It just doesn’t seem fair. You don’t have to pay to update your iPhone! I am getting faster at typing as I go, just discovered the predictive text works differently to my normal phone and is not so bad after all! In fact it is quite good for the phonically challenged like me. Well that’s enough work avoidance for now. Eight more sleeps until ulearn09! Woo hoo!
This is a Prezi Presentation that will feature on the home page of my ulearn site. Prezi is an alternative to the standard slideshow presentation. I have added a fun little ‘how to’ I found on YouTube for those of you who want to know more. If you do decide to use Prezi as a presentation tool, it is important to remember that Prezi is best viewed in ‘full screen’.
Just click the large grey arrows at the bottom of the screen to scroll through the presentation.
This is a cool little how to video I found on YouTube – Thanks zuilabs