There is so much to reflect on I don't knoe where to start. The I.C.T course we all went to in January was a great kick start to the year. Some of the skills on display were mind boggling. It did, howeve,r provide me with many ideas for my sabbatical research and some great places to go to to read about the use of I,C,T in the classroom. Term one was a time to explore interwrite and try and integate this technology into all curriculum areas in the class. I started using it every day during maths lessons and if I wasn't using it then there was sgroup working on an activity set on it or playing a math games to uncrease their number knowledge. Term two I was involved with my report on the use of I.C.T in the classroom.
Term three with the introduction of netbooks in my class my focus extended
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Great to have some PD around Interwrite especially since I have been away for a term . A great refresher. Noticed that children are getting more skilled at using the mobi board however I do have issues with it charging. May need to be checked. Loved learning about how to capture a picture from the Internet. We used the photo of the mountain erupting to write a current events article about it. Must speak to Robyn and find out how to add more stamps as I use these a lot in maths time. Would be good to have some different pictures and photos to use. She had some cute drawings of children.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Week 2 Visitations to schools this week. A real privilege to be invited into teachers classrooms and to speak with them and their students. We can get involved in our own world of our school and class and think that everyone works as we do. Not so. Not that one is better than the other just different and we can all learn from each other. Was very interesting to see how different schools use technology in their classrooms. One school focused mainly on using their blogs to share their writing while we use our blogs across all curriculun areas. The students in the two schools I visited this week were very articulate and were able to speak about how their homepage/blog helps them with their learning. Students all enjoyed having people comment on their work and thought that some comments made them think a bit more about their learning. Students in both schools knew how to make a quality comment and usually asked a question when commenting. However the thing that struck me was that the students enjoyed all comments even the ones that said " Wow your writing was great" I thought that comments like that were a waste of time. Most students still liked them because they said 'It showed that someone was reading their work and thought it was good' I must therefore not underestimate the power of an authenic audience. The students did expect more from their teacher,though, and liked comments that made them think about their next goal /learning step. They also enjoyed comments from people they knew like their buddy blogger or class mates especially the younger students years 2,3,and 4 because they could respond to their comments about their work and also comment on their work and they knew who the people were.
I asked some students whether they would like to do all their work on a computer and they all said no. Their reasons were
· they still liked to write in their books
· they liked to do maths with equipment
· liked to work with other people
· liked to talk to the teacher straight away about their work rather than wait to read a comment
Interesting!
After talking to the students it was evident that while we assume this generation are 'computer savvy' many, if not most,do not have many of the skills required to complete tasks such as downloading photos,embedding videos etc. Many were not confident and often their teacher or a class mate did it for them. They wanted time to practise and 'do it heaps of times so that it stuck in my brain'
More visitations this week to two country schools. Looking forward to this
Monday, 30 April 2012
Sabbatical
It was really strange to wake up on day one of Term 2 and have no class to teach. I decided I needed to ensure that my time was not wasted so designed a schedule to follow. As I have only 5 weeks to collect data and analyse it I knew I had to make each day count and not spend them sitting in the sun drinking coffee.
Week One I started each day with a 3/4 hour walk- weather was gorgeous. Back home to do some readings around blogging/wikis etc What a wealth of information. Really had to think of my methodology because I could start going off on a tangent and the information read may be of little help to my investigation. Searched many New Zealand sites-excellent on line discussions and videos and many were very positive about the benefits of using e portfolios in the classroom. A few, however,were quite controversial and not all in support of 'living your life in a shoe box' Some very brisk discussion was had on line. After reading about an e learning inquiry undertaken by a New Zealand school I decided to use the Effective Literacy Practice framework to guide my questions about effective I.C.T practice. The framework is clear and covers all aspects required to ensure that effective teaching and learning is happening in the classroom. I also read lots on the different types of portfolios and which ones are most effective at different stages of a child's learning. This should be helpful when developing our implementation plan for I.C.T
Week One I contacted schools I wished to visit to make a time to view their schools I.C.T.journey and talk to their teachers and students. Every school was very willing to open their classes to me and I am very grateful to them. Visiting two schools in Week 2 another in week 3 and my final one in Week 4. Still would like to visit Port England school if I have time.
Week One I started each day with a 3/4 hour walk- weather was gorgeous. Back home to do some readings around blogging/wikis etc What a wealth of information. Really had to think of my methodology because I could start going off on a tangent and the information read may be of little help to my investigation. Searched many New Zealand sites-excellent on line discussions and videos and many were very positive about the benefits of using e portfolios in the classroom. A few, however,were quite controversial and not all in support of 'living your life in a shoe box' Some very brisk discussion was had on line. After reading about an e learning inquiry undertaken by a New Zealand school I decided to use the Effective Literacy Practice framework to guide my questions about effective I.C.T practice. The framework is clear and covers all aspects required to ensure that effective teaching and learning is happening in the classroom. I also read lots on the different types of portfolios and which ones are most effective at different stages of a child's learning. This should be helpful when developing our implementation plan for I.C.T
Week One I contacted schools I wished to visit to make a time to view their schools I.C.T.journey and talk to their teachers and students. Every school was very willing to open their classes to me and I am very grateful to them. Visiting two schools in Week 2 another in week 3 and my final one in Week 4. Still would like to visit Port England school if I have time.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
music
Found some great animated songs on the computer Could be great to use for school singing as they are very motivating. My class love them. Need to write out the words though as there are no words on screen. Does anyone know if I can put words on the side or bottom of the screen so that we can have the pictures and words together?
Monday, 30 January 2012
Learning @School Conference - reflections
How to use Solo Taxonomy to 'feed up "to raise student's achievement.
While this title sounds a little heavy solo is actually a very simple way to assess children's learning at different levels. I had heard Pam Hook speak a few years ago and liked what she said although it was pitched at a high school level. This time I could see how to use this taxonomy in our primary classes. While I don't like the names of each of the stages,prestructural,unistructural,multistructural,relational,extened abstract, the signs that can be used by the children to help explain their level of understanding are great. The idea of solo is to provide the child identify their learning strengths and needs with clear stages of understanding by writing a clear rubric for the topic. They can see very easily how they can move from understanding nothing or one thing through to knowing a lot of things and then being able to use that knowledge and apply it to another situation or creative idea to show that they have a deeper understanding of the concept being taught. The children become more skilled in making Where to next? decisions. I am going to try this taxonomy when teaching the golden rules. I will share this with my team and get them to trial it to see if it works with our kids. I know Danielle and Robyn are keen to trial this too.
Hooked on Thinking - Pam Hook will be on line in a few weeks . pamhook.com
While this title sounds a little heavy solo is actually a very simple way to assess children's learning at different levels. I had heard Pam Hook speak a few years ago and liked what she said although it was pitched at a high school level. This time I could see how to use this taxonomy in our primary classes. While I don't like the names of each of the stages,prestructural,unistructural,multistructural,relational,extened abstract, the signs that can be used by the children to help explain their level of understanding are great. The idea of solo is to provide the child identify their learning strengths and needs with clear stages of understanding by writing a clear rubric for the topic. They can see very easily how they can move from understanding nothing or one thing through to knowing a lot of things and then being able to use that knowledge and apply it to another situation or creative idea to show that they have a deeper understanding of the concept being taught. The children become more skilled in making Where to next? decisions. I am going to try this taxonomy when teaching the golden rules. I will share this with my team and get them to trial it to see if it works with our kids. I know Danielle and Robyn are keen to trial this too.
Hooked on Thinking - Pam Hook will be on line in a few weeks . pamhook.com
Friday, 27 January 2012
Learning @School Conference - reflections
Sitting down with a glass of wine and reflecting after two full on days at the Learning @school conference. As with any conference you end up with an overload of information and you need to take the time to work through all your notes and handouts.
Day one I went to breakouts that focused on quality feedback and feed forward and how this can help our children talk about their learning on their blogs. The first breakout was on metacognition- thinking about thinking. The presenter explained the need to teach specific reading strategies and how to do this successfully. While many of the ideas presented we already knew due to our PD with Alison Davies there is always things to learn.
The main ideas I took out of this presentation were
the need to model one strategy at a time
to work together with your class or group to practice this strategy
to give children the time and opportunity to practice this strategy independently in a range of contexts.
By providing this scaffolding the children should be able to use this strategy confidently and you can then move on to teaching another reading strategy.
When modelling teacher uses THINK OUT LOUDS. This is when the teacher puts down her book and models what she is thinking. "I am inferring that...."
Teaching of reading strategies must be planned for to be effective. Postit notes on the book with your Think Out Louds written down will make the lesson flow.
Teaching in this way enabled children to be articulate about their learning "I am learning to make inferences about texts" and they can then use THINK OUT LOUDS on their blogs to articulate their thinking. Other class members and teachers should be able to respond with quality feedback and feed forward because learning is specific and learning intention is clear.
Will definitely use this in my class and on our blogs.
Ideas to help children reflect on their learning that I am going to try in my class are the
Exit Pass -post it notes after lesson before they leave the room. or
3-2-1
3 things I found out
2 interesting things
1 question I still have
Stop and Think Card and Think marks
Day one I went to breakouts that focused on quality feedback and feed forward and how this can help our children talk about their learning on their blogs. The first breakout was on metacognition- thinking about thinking. The presenter explained the need to teach specific reading strategies and how to do this successfully. While many of the ideas presented we already knew due to our PD with Alison Davies there is always things to learn.
The main ideas I took out of this presentation were
the need to model one strategy at a time
to work together with your class or group to practice this strategy
to give children the time and opportunity to practice this strategy independently in a range of contexts.
By providing this scaffolding the children should be able to use this strategy confidently and you can then move on to teaching another reading strategy.
When modelling teacher uses THINK OUT LOUDS. This is when the teacher puts down her book and models what she is thinking. "I am inferring that...."
Teaching of reading strategies must be planned for to be effective. Postit notes on the book with your Think Out Louds written down will make the lesson flow.
Teaching in this way enabled children to be articulate about their learning "I am learning to make inferences about texts" and they can then use THINK OUT LOUDS on their blogs to articulate their thinking. Other class members and teachers should be able to respond with quality feedback and feed forward because learning is specific and learning intention is clear.
Will definitely use this in my class and on our blogs.
Ideas to help children reflect on their learning that I am going to try in my class are the
Exit Pass -post it notes after lesson before they leave the room. or
3-2-1
3 things I found out
2 interesting things
1 question I still have
Stop and Think Card and Think marks
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