3 HUGE successes in 1 day!

After being off work with sick kids for a few days I returned to the classroom yesterday.

Success Story 1.  After morning Karakia (prayers) and morning notices we headed back to class straight back to class routines.  As we are a collaborative learning space we have 2 teachers (3 from 9 some mornings each week) one teacher takes the morning roll and discusses what will happen throughout the day (also time to share news), The other teacher (me) runs a very short sharp accelerated writing group session (10 mins).  Today after not having this morning writing routine the group of students who I work with were Very eager, Very excited and Very motivated to write!  in their own words "We love writing" and "We missed this writing".  And ALL the students achieved their writing goals during this writing time and were ready to share their examples with the rest of the class to help their peers succeed in their writing today.  4 of these students went on to exceed the writing goals and pushed themselves to write more than they were expected.

What makes this even more of a success story is that at the beginning of this term (only 6 weeks ago) these were our Year 1 writers who we had identified as targets because we didn't think they would be able to write at the level we would want them to be at, by the end of the year.  1 child has been diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, and began school a year later than his peers (still classified as a year 1), 1 child normally spends more time distracting those around him and himself.  All 7 children had previously struggled to either formulate or retain a simple sentence they wanted to write, and only 1 of the 7 children knew all of her alphabet letters and sounds prior to starting with this group.  This meant that sounding out words previously had been VERY hit and miss.

Success Story 2.  This relates to one of our Autism children.  We have had a teacher who has been doing her masters on Austium, observing and doing a case study on this child as part of her masters.  Today her message was quite clear... "I can't help you or suggest anything more than what you are already doing as a team for this child.  He is highly supported and has improved immensely from when he started at Ohaeawai Primary".

This type of feedback affirms and validates all the extra effort and time we have spent in integrating this child into our classroom, and provides reassurance that while we will still have battles ahead, as long as we all keep our mind on the prize we will get there together.  It also helps us as educators to actually sit back and actually go ... Yes, big changes have happened.

Success Story 3.  Recently I posted a blog post to our Kaikohekohe Google+ Community and also shared it on twitter, although I received some feedback from this sharing, following the toolkit a teacher brought up this recent sharing and discussed reading through our blog.  She had been able to find writing exemplars and resources that we had made in class and that we had posted onto our class blog so our students could share and help each other.  This Teacher then went on to ask if I thought it would be OK if she used this to help her class learn about this topic.  My response of course was ...

"OF COURSE - THAT'S WHAT HAVING A BLOG IS ALL ABOUT!"

The first and third success stories relate directly to my MIT inquiry and the tool I am creating help myself and other teachers within the Kaikohekohe Cluster to accelerating our children's writing.



Watch this blog for updates over the next mouth or so for on my tools prototype as I will post it here and ask my readers for feedback/ideas/feed forward on how to make it more useful.  EXCITING!!!

Blogging to Accelerate Writing

Here is another strategy I am trialing for the remainder of this term.  This came about as a result of a combination of things.  Firstly we recently had maths week, and as something different we posted each days questions on the blog so students could access them at home (we had a teacher strike day on that week) and email them directly to me.  This worked fantastic and really excited the children in Team Maunga.  On the Friday I had also planned to be our doing more research and work on my MIT inquiry.  Part of this day I spent talking to children in the class.  One of the questions I was particularly interest in finding out about was "What could I (and the other teachers in Team Maunga) do to help YOU WANT to write?"  Interesting some of the children started by just telling us that the things we normally do in class.  But when pushed to think about things we don't already do there were a few stand out ideas that became discussion points for groups of children being questioned.

Some of their ideas included:  Having more time to write, having their own blog that they could write about anything on, and also writing challenges (similar to our maths challenges).  So ... Last week be began our first writing challenge (based on a topic/idea that they already had covered in class).  This was hugely successful with children enjoying being able to work on this both in school and at home.  Team Maunga all I can say ... IS YOU ROCK MY WORLD.

Here is both last weeks challenge and this weeks one.  Feel free to visit our class blog and comment on it with your own response!

Other Sydney MIT Trip highlights.

One of the highlights of this trip was being with an AMAZING bunch of teachers who are innovative, inspirational and energetic about teaching, education and life in general.

I have to say I loved spending time with you all and sharing this fantastic experience.  Thanks once again KPMG, Pat Snedden, Jenny Oxley, Dorothy Burt, and Anne Sinclair for making this happen for us all.  Lots of learning and for me, pushing myself outside my comfort zone.

I am not a person that shares very frequently and although I have been challenged to present before I have never had the additional nudge that you have all given me.  Thanks to everyone for your support and also to Tania Coutts who has been nudging and supporting me in taking this step.  

I FINALLY DID IT.  

This event also enabled Dorothy and I to come up with a plan for when Team Maunga use a release day, to pop down to visit some classrooms at Point England, to be immersed in 1:1 device environments, to see what one can look like, and to connect on a professional level with teachers to talk about what works and what doesn't work within their digital learning environments.

Team Maunga are super excited about this as we are seeing more and more opportunities for devices to be used to extend and enhance learning, but as we are not 1:1, we don't know what we don't know.  

The only way to change this is to immerse ourselves in experiences, literature, and inquiries, that will shift our current ideals of how to use devices to improve learning outcomes for our students.  As a team we are already doing things that extend us in all of these areas but we feel that this visit might be a catalyst for further change and shifts in our teaching practice/ideals.

Further things to take away from this experience...

Share More:  Both the positives and the struggles.

Although within the Kaikohekohe Cluster I share HEAPS, I need to push myself to present more at these kind of events.

Tell my story and encourage students in our learning space to tell their stories.

<<<Other things>>>

Sydney's train system is FANTASTIC

Uber app now installed on phone (Don't think Kerikeri is ready for this however), but though it might be useful when getting from Parramatta to Sydney Airport by 7:30 Wednesday morning, and also when attending next MIT meeting at KPMG

I MISS MY FAMILY

My room buddy was amazing to talk to.

PBL in a digital world

Session 5 - Kimberly Hall - PBL in a digital world

(lots of links from to other sessions in the top drop down menu).

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter which model of inquiry you use - but consistency within a school is key. It should be similar - and the process need to be similar to encourage collaboration …

Start with a challenge or question that we are wanting to delve into - must be one that has depth and also one that is something that people want to find out about . - see doc for collated list of things you can do.  

Google Feud

Hyper docs

Answer garden

Live word cloud - collaborative - Screen

Plant a seed (idea) and watch it grow

Really cool - Love it !

Major setting to change is the spam - turn it on (defaults to off). - If you change this to on, you automatically remove some questionable responses/words getting through.

Change discover-ability to hidden rather than public - due to it being used in an educational context.

Inside search

googles inside search -

Search for a person place or thing

The bar on the right of a google search seeks to answer the next logical question that you will ask next - e.g. it answers questions you haven't yet asked.

A great place to broaden understanding of a person place or thing - links connections that you may not have already had.

Padlet

recently updated

Lots of new bits - can link record add photos ...

(comments can also be added to individual stickies).

Terms of use require us to directly supervise children's’ use of this tool - Permission and use from under 13 year olds is OK if supervised.

I loved revisiting this as part of creating my presentation for yesterday. Loved how you could also use your own background image - to personalise it more.

Canva

Make things that look beautiful. - including certificates, posters … Vouchers …

Piktochart

Rewordify

lots of opportunities for our readers.

dotEPUB

an extension that will take a website and convert it into an e-book.

Wikiwand

converts ugly wiki information into something that looks nicer to read - install the extension (downloadable to chrome).  But only works on wiki

Read and write

link to free version for teachers - takes 24-48 hours to authorize premium access.

Premium tools - fill in the form and you get it free.

This can also make a word list with word, definition, picture and place for notes

Highlights can then be added directly to a document (with links back)

Can simplify a webpage to make it accessible to everyone!

TAKE AWAY IDEAS!

So many cool things to use back in my classroom.  Its more a question of where will I start, but we need to start somewhere ... SO here is my plan.

Answer garden - for whole class Inquiry

Canva - for both class and MIT Inquiry

I liked the sound of dotEPUB so would like to investigate this further

Keynote Speaker - Day 2 EdTech Team - Sydney Summit

My take on Keynote speaker - Lindsay Wesner- Once upon a time

In order for our students to feel OK with failing, we need to show our students how we

ourselves fail. We need to do this by normalising it as part of what we call innovation, and

also by doing it on a regular basis so they see that it is just apart of everyone's learning

journey.

In order to do this well we need to ...

BE BRAVE - even if your not … Be the goldfish with the shark fin on!

By doing this we force ourselves to go outside our comfort zone.  When we do go outside our

comfort zone we go to where the magic in education happens.  Not just for ourselves but also

for our students and their whanau.

Lindsay also talked about the intersection of education, technology and passion, and how in

the middle is the sweet spot - and how its where things become more personal as well.  This

also links into Jesse’s Keynote about finding the superhero in our students and that to do

this we need to find the passion and ignite/foster this passion.

What is INNOVATION - and what does it mean.

• Innovation is things that are not necessarily new, but that unlock new value - e.g. what is the new value, what is the point of it. This links to David Andersons “parrot of purpose” and also John Hatties “Know thy impact” type ideas.
• Change is hard - it creates conflict, and challenges our thinking/standard practice. Some change works some does not. For me it's knowing which changes to persevere with and which ones are not.   This comes back to the they key idea above of knowing your impact or the impact (or possible impact) this change will make.
• As a teacher we are or have been at a point of conflict for others in their educational journey- if we navigate the conflict we determine what the conclusion/climax are.  This relates both to ourselves, other educational professionals and also to our students.
• When we challenge students but support them to navigate these challenges their learning and experiences propel them forwards.  

A key point for me in this process is capturing these moments and experiences and ensuring that these are shared. I am fantastic at capturing pictures of children succeeding but not so good at capturing them struggling.  A NEW GOAL.

This leads onto 2 questions Lindsays' challenges us with;

• Students are wanting to digitally document - tell their story. - How do we harness this?
• What would the world look like if we gave our students the opportunities to tell their stories?

The next ideas she shared challenge us personally as educational professionals;

• If you look at how many pictures you take in a day - how many do you share?
• When you scroll through social media threads you can’t see the difference between ours and people in other professionals.
• What is the picture that others have of education/teaching? The stories we tell as educators will shape the perception that others have of education.
• We all share the good stuff - not the nitty gritty bits that actually make up life. - We have an awesome story to tell.
• Tell the stories of students getting hooked, stories of students engaging with the changing world, stories of their light-bulb moments, stories of their challenges/struggles/successes.
• Use buzz words like - unpack, stem, future focused, growth mindset, coding, computational thinking

It's about finding the things that our students want to solve. - if we do that then we will have good stories to tell, and so will our students.

We have the power to create change within our classrooms, within our communities and within the wider world.

“Yes BUTTTTT…”

These types of comments are the enemies of our stories …

Lindsay then discussed …  

The Enemies

Time	you develop way to get time back students can do lots when you invest time you create that development/progress	I can make time
Curriculum	Our responsibility is not to cover the curriculum but to engage students within curriculum	The curriculum needs to be the catalyst
Fear	Reminder of shark fin When you feel like you can’t... strap on the shark fin and pretend you can.	Change is hard and messy.

Our Weapons

Vision	Develop the vision of what we want it to be like
Community	We have each other Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world.
Our stories	Never underestimate the power of our stories and the stories of our students.

We have the power to make education in any country GREAT.  To make it bigger than the landmarks that are iconic for different countries and nations.  

But…

It is about sharing our stories.

It is up to us to do this.

So … MY CHALLENGE/TAKEAWAY

Share more, share the hard bits, share the successes - making sure to show that challenges that have been encountered along the way.

Time to earn my EdTechTeam Presenters Badge

Session 2 - Mine

Presenting for the first time at a EdTech summit or any summit for that matter.  The workshop I ran was not large. I had a total of 5 attendees’ each attendee was diverse and unique from the rest.  One was a principal from a large high school with 150 staff who was very interested in blogging from a professional portfolio point of view.  Another was a lady that works as an Educational Liaison person within an Inner Sydney Hospital, where she works with children who have long stays in hospital due to the nature of their treatment.  Another was a teaching principal from a rural area outside of Sydney who had 12 students within her school.

Although there was not a large number of attendees having the opportunity to share the stories of Ohaeawai Schools students and parents within blogging was inspiring.  As the number was so small instead of presenting as I had first anticipated/planned it became more of a discussion around the slides that I was presenting. It allowed for us to cater and tell the story but also link into how blogging could work specifically for the participants of this workshop.

The workshop ended up focusing on the fundamentals of why we blog and having examples of professional, parental, and student voice was fantastic in helping those who attended, to connect with the ideas we were talking about.  Although the plan was to begin with discussions into why we blog and then to use additional resources within my presentation to help create a blog or a blog post these were things we didn’t actually get there due to the in-depth discussions that were having.

Key points to take away from this experience

• Connection in education is 1 of the keys to unlocking the potential of everything in education - I always knew this was the case with students and with mentor teachers, but hadn’t forced myself to do this kind of connection with educators I had never met  before.
• Sharing not only makes us stronger as educators, but it also helps promote growth an educational community both for ourselves and for other educators.
• The thought of sharing is actually harder than the reality of sharing.
• People attending EdTech Summits like being able to take resources away that they create.
• Although I view my own teaching practice as normal and nothing great, the practices that I use on an everyday basis is still unimaginable to may educators - Although I can see many areas I want to improve on (typical of all teachers I know)  I need to be more prepared to share my story - in education, with education and for education. Also even though I have area’s I know I want to improve on and inquire into, many of the things I already do are inspiring to others and for this reason I need to be more prepared to put my hand up and share my ideas.

A HUGE THANKYOU goes to the MIT team, especially KPMG, Pat Snedden, Jenny Oxley who are the people who worked behind the scenes to make this happen. Pat I would love to meet you in person and be able to express my gratitude for helping me grow professionally within this inquiry, and Jenny, it is always a pleasure to catch up with you when we all meet together at KPMG.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Also a bit thank you to the MIT team. It is great working with such a dedicated and inspiring group of people who are also kind and friendly and make all feel welcome. Dorothy and Anne it is always a pleasure to be challenged by you both.