Up Here Where The Air Is Clear!

Breath in deep and taste that country air!

Up here at 600 metres above sea level you can see for miles, no wonder it has taken me so long to sit down and write a post! I mean check out my view …

Though I guess I should admit to being a fairly slack blogger during the summer break (well in general really). I am not actually a big fan of writing, I would much rather curl up and read a book, so I really must force myself to sit down write. In fact the only real reason I do this at all is because I know I have an audience. An audience who is choosing to read my thoughts and opinions. Maybe even gaining a bit of advice or a few new ideas from my natter about all things great and small in the world of eLearning.

Yep, I write this solely for a purpose, the purpose to connect with my ever patient and kind audience. This of course does make me wonder … do my students feel that there is a purpose behind what I ask them to write? Does ones teacher and class mates make an authentic audience? And if I have answered ‘No’ to both question (which I have), why am I making them do any writing at all? Hmmmm

This blog has helped me find a purpose and motivation for writing, it has given me an authentic audience.

If I give my students a blog, will they also find theirs?

I must say, all this oxygen deprivation is making my head spin!

October 29, 2009October 29, 2009

Leading Change: 10 students and 0.5 teachers at a time!

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!

I thought I might share my ever increasing ‘To Do’ list with you:

Obtain Domain Name details.
Sign up for Google Apps.
Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
Re-assess our ISP – InspireNet, Telecom, or Vodafone? (we have very limited options in Kiwi-land)
Spend at least 17 hours fixing internet connection problems or just waiting while I am on hold.
Create a new (official serious stuff) school website – Self-hosted with Joomla or hosted by InspireNet with WordPress MU or use a hosted site like Weebly or Google Sites.
Up-load all policy documents to Google Docs and link to school site.
Write the elearning policy.
Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
Start applying for Trust Grants to up-grade the current elearning infra-structure.
Set up school accounts – Flickr, Voicethread, Delicious, Edublogs, GlogsterEdu, etc.
Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
Decide if I should go to Learning @School or Ulearn10 and/or the NZPF National Conference.
Create a school/class learning blog (for the fun learning stuff in edublogs) am thinking I might get the students to create a school mascot to host the blog.
Create an ePortfolio for each child (in Edublogs) and set up their school email accounts.
Clean out the old school room (currently used as storage) and turn it into an awesome Creative Art Space!
Feed the chickens.

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/

October 20, 2009

It was over quicker than a Tua knock-out!

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.

So … ulearn09 was fantastic! As an attendee it was an energetic experience; but as a presenter it was a blast.

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/

September 23, 2009September 23, 2009

Teaser Three – Watching the Progress Bar turn Blue

Lately I have been using Camtasia to create Screen Casts for my eWindows site. Now usually I am a strictly freeware kind of girl (well that’s a little bit of a fib because I have paid for Edublogs, Voicethread, Flickr and my domain names, anyway …) but I am really impressed with Camtasia. So much so that I may even fork-out for it after my free one month trial (this is awesome, try before you buy!).

Camtasia is easy to use, has great support and tutorials. It runs seamlessly with my Mac and uploads directly to YouTube. At one easy payment of $99.00 (Education Pricing) I do believe it may be a keeper, though it may have to wait until after I recover from my little trip to Christchurch (only 9 more sleeps!). O, and after we wallpaper the living room. Below is my weekly-ish offering to the Blog-o-sphere. My third ever Screen Cast on how to add a Wordle.net Word-cloud to a post. So readers, I would really like some feedback here, how did I do? It’s a lot harder than it looks.

August 25, 2009

Teaser One – The Google Empire

Here is my first offering to the blog-o-sphere from my uLearn09 presentation

An eWindow into my Classroom

The Google Empire

“Just Google it!”
Gone are the days when Google was just the provider of interesting facts and decider of living room quiz nights. Google is now a vast array of Web Applications designed to pull today’s web consumers into its clever and enticing ‘Googleverse’. And believe me, this Web Nut is banging on Google’s doors screaming “Let Me In”. In fact, while I am typing these very words I am wondering, why I don’t ‘can’ this wiki, and transfer it all over to Google Sites! Maybe I will; we will see …

Now back on track!
A quick run down on a few of the major players in the Google Empire (and don’t forget, one username will take you everywhere!) –

This little beauty is gold! It’s free, easy to use and one account will service your entire class, or school as the case maybe. Check out the Gmail Page for information on the funky username+studentname@gmail.com format (thanks Sue Waters!).

The ultimate in collaborative documentation. Create documents, spreadsheets and forms then share with collaborators or embed them into your site. Students can use Google Docs to draft their writing, then share that writing with you to provide instant editing and feedback. I thought this collaboration gem deserved a page of its own as well! (thanks Nick Rate!)

A wonderfully useful application that allows you to set up an editable calendar. Keep parents up-to-date with events and deadlines. Add the class birthdays, or maybe a famous date or two your kids and parents may find interesting (thanks Sue Waters!). Link to my classblog.

I can only describe Google Maps as super cool. Find your school’s neighbourhood, add your markers and embed it on your site! What can be better than an interactive map that uses real satellite pictures? The only draw back is that it is a little tricky to embed and edit. This however, this can be over come with a little practise. Link to my classblog.

Search hundreds if not thousands of local and international news organisations. Newspapers, Radio Stations, Television and Web-Based News Sites. Google News allows you to search a relatively narrow field of sourced information.

A simple Web Site creator. Embed other Google content like calendars, maps and Youtube or add other third party content. Google Sites is a new alternative to Wikis.

Have you heard of RSS? Are you unfamiliar with the term “Read my Feeds? Do you have lots of sites that you like to read but you can never get around to checking them all? If this sounds like you need to check out my Google Reader Page. I can’t get by without my Google Reader! (thanks Common Craft)

YouTube has had some bad press in the ‘Edu-verse’ lately. Many schools choose to use alternative sites like TeacherTube to avoid the perceived evils of YouTube. However, YouTube wins hands down when it comes to ease of use, quality of playback and upload speed. Why bother with an inferior product when the Rolls Royce of video playback is at your door step. Just follow a few simple rules and all will be well. Link to my classblog.

Google Apps is a free web-based IT infrastructure. With Google Apps you are able to create and manage email, messaging and shared calendars for all of your school community. Up-load videos and documents, which only your school community can view. No advertising, and a safe place for your students to learn about creating their own online identity. Check out this video for a short explanation or this video for a more thorough Webinar.

August 25, 2009

Preparing for ulearn09

elearn09 is approaching rapidly and I am feeling a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Excitement because this is my first ulearn experience and I get to have some face to face time with the many awesome NZ Educators. Anxiety because for some strange reason, must of had one too many coffees that day, I applied to be a presenter and was accepted! Eek! 😮

My presentation is called An eWindow into my Classroom (Breakout Five for any of you who are interested in attending).

Join me as we create a classroom blog that allows parents and whanau to be an active part of classroom learning. We will be using a variety of Web2.0 tools that are free and easy to use. There will be tips and tricks on how to make your blog appealing to students and informative to parents. I will also talk about ways you can engage an audience in the global community. Your classroom blog can be so much more than another publishing platform, it can be an interactive environment that enhances student learning.

(Believe it or not it took me four hours to write that synopsis.)

I am hoping that by the end of the session we will have constructed a mock classroom blog and or set up the bones and a few fancy bits in my ‘victims’ own classroom blogs. I will set up a fairly open rotation where participants can engage in a variety of cool web2.0 tools that will enhance your classroom blog and to make it ‘blog-i-licious’ (blog-i-licious – my term for a blog that is engaging, fun, funky, collaborative, communicative and of course enhances learning, thanks Fergie!) My brainwave for this presentation is that all of my presentation’s content will be sourced on a Wetpaint Wiki. That way participates will always have a point of reference to go back to after the intensity of the conference.

I have found Wetpaint is an easy to use platform, possibly less finicky than Wikispaces (of course this is only my opinion). My only real bugbare is that you are unable to view the html code, but I can get over that. Each page on this Wiki will explore a different Web2.0 app. I will include tips and tricks on how to use each app. in your blog as well as include examples of how I have used it in my own classroom blog.

As you have all probably guessed by now; this post is basically shameless self-promotion on my part. But it is also me feeling a bit guilty for neglecting my blog for this my newfangled wiki of mysterious means (I am keeping it private until the conference). Therefore I, in another self-promotion tactic, will be releasing sneak peaks to a few of my wiki’s page as my blog posts during the lead up to ulearn09. I will have omit a one or two links and leave out a some of the workshop content, but I hope these sneak peaks will pique your interest in attending my workshop (remember Breakout Five) or at the very least consider playing around with creating your own classroom blog, or maybe adding a bit of ‘Bling’ to your existing one.

July 16, 2009July 16, 2009

Have You Signed On?

A new climate change campaign has just been launched here in New Zealand. This campaign is called:

Sign On - The World Needs Us

The aim of this campaign is to support our government to make a bold and positive choice to significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Climate change is happening faster than anyone expected. In December this year world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to Sign On to a global agreement for action. For NZ to do our bit to help avoid catastrophic climate change, John Key needs to go to Copenhagen and and Sign On to reduce New Zealand’s emissions by 40 per cent before 2020.

So, I hope all of you educators out there will indulge me and Sign Up to Sign On! After all of the children we are learning with are our future and we need to let them have fair go of it.

June 22, 2009June 28, 2009

An eWindow into my classroom

With only one week left in Term Two my classroom blog, The Wocket Spot, is in full swing. As I mentioned in an early post the goal of this class blog is to provide parents with link into the goings on in our classroom – an eWindow 😉 The hook I decided to use, to entice parents to comment, was a “My Mum is Smarter than Your Dad” post. While the kids were over the moon at being able to prove they were quicker than me, it has taken 6 weeks for a parent to post comment. While I find this disappointing, I am more puzzled about the fact that the parent are on the blog, they have told me while picking up their kids, and they are quite chuffed about beating my score but they still will not add a comment! Why????

It is really frustrating. Students are constantly telling me how much they and their families enjoy our blog. One student even brought in their father’s printed out certificate from the Basic Facts Challenge, yet still no comment. I know it is being used and valued by our class families, they tell me every day, but why won’t they comment!!!! It’s sad but I chase comments like the paparazzi chase Brittany.

Anyway, it is time to get over myself and talk about the good bits!

Motivation to write and interact with an audience outside of the classroom has been at an all time high since we went live. Comment boxes are just the right size for Year 3 and 4 (Grade 2 and 3) students. Five super juicy, interesting sentences are always better than two pages of waffle. We have published two comments this term – one was about their favourite part of The Witches, By Roald Dahl and the second was a descriptive paragraph about a piece of art.

Time to show off a clever idea! I was playing around with Flickr and embedding slideshows. I had originally just intended to use the slideshow to display the students art. However, when I had embedded it realised that I had forgotten to label them, DOH. Now wait for it … here comes the clever idea! I decided to turn it into a guessing game. The students had to describe their art, a loopy lizard, in a juicy and interesting way so that their parents could guess which one was theirs. Eureka! The kids loved it, and their writing was fantastic (some of it was a bit over ripe, but who am I to fence in an artist!). Why not hot have a go yourself, some of them are quite funny in an other written kind of way “It’s eyes are like a crazy cat’s claws closing in the dark stormy night.”

Apart from the comment deprivation from the parents, comments from teachers and other classes are growing in momentum. Early on in the life of The Wocket Spot, I decided to add a Visitor’s Book. While perusing through other class blogs, I noticed that there was never a place where I could add a general “Hello” comment to the blog. The Visitor’s Book was my solution to this little problem. Now our visitors have a place to say hello, and add a face to those anonymous spots on the Clustr Map. This page is now the most popular page, with the students often checking who was the latest to visit our little blog. It is here that I must say thank you to my Tweeps (friends) on Twitter! I have tweeted requests for other teachers to visit our site and now have several very interesting people in exotic places around the world visiting the kids. Thank you all! They really do love it!

As well as adults we now have lots of other classes link to our Friends Blogroll. I think that this is the most powerful part of blogging – making connections with other kids and their learning. Here is a list of our friends in case you would like to visit them too (go on … you will make their day, especially if you live in an interesting place!)

While I am still pondering the parent conundrom, I believe that I have finally hit the nail on the head when it comes to a Class Blog that appeals to parents, students and teachers alike. It provides parents with an eWindow into our classroom and allows the kids to continue interacting with their learning. I will keep working on those parents (maybe I need to hire a PR guy) to add comments to our blog, however I won’t be too fussy. Verbal comments are just as good (I can’t share them and show off that’s all) and after all I am doing it for the kids …

May 23, 2009

eLearning with South Park

This is so funny … and sadly true.

Thanks @dajbelshaw for the link.

Disengaged Students from jarrod robinson on Vimeo.