GarageBand workshop

Last night was our our Kaikohekohe Clusters Term 3 Tool-kits.  This continues to be a great opportunity to connect with other professionals from within our cluster and across a wide range of year levels and experiences.  Last nights tool-kits included;

Although there weren't a huge amount of tool-kits the tool-kits on offer reflected our clusters current needs and also offered opportunities for professional growth for everyone.  Kaikohekohe Cluster ROCKS!  

On Friday afternoon I got the call from the amazing Raewyn, asking me to run a tool-kit on GarageBand.  So in between having 3 sick kids, doing GST returns, and trying to catch up on MIT bits I also created a presentation to use for this Garage band workshop.

Below is a link to an 'answergarden' brainstorm that anyone who is reading this blog can add their ideas to (for the next week).  It asks the question "How could we use GarageBand in our classroom?"

At the end we had a bit of fun together recording us having a conversation about who we were, what we were doing and why we were in the GarageBand workshop.  Will upload this over the next few days.  

Thanks to all the attendee's

Please make sure you share them to me - I would love to hear your personal & classroom creations!

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.

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.

Session 1 - Google Sheets Ninja Training

Session 1 - Google sheets Ninja training

This was a great workshops to find out a few tips and trick for sheet.  Can’t wait to use some of this

on some documents I already have in place especially assessment data document that we use for

our team.  The pivot tables might come in handy to with taking on the role of Maths Lead teacher

within our school for this next term, as well as analysing data from surveys conducted with parents

relating to my MIT inquiry.

Sir links-a-lot a good app to use

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Drag the top left box down 1 and it will lock that top line into place - so it will always be at the top - will be great on assessment data files.
• Double click on the edge of the rows will make it the size of cell the right size.
• Use control keys to jump up and down… quickly
• Control A - select all. - if you do it once it will select data filled in… and if you press it again it selects the entire sheet.
• SHIFT, CTRL T - reopens a tab that has just been shut down. - GREAT FOR SNEAKY CHILDREN!!!
• Under paint bucket you can hit the ‘alternating colour’ which will colour every other row and make it easier to read. - again great for assessment data sheets - will save me having to do this manually and when adding a cell (when we get a new child) having to re-do it.
• Pivot tables are great too!

Sydney Opening Keynote Speaker

Capes not required

The kids in our classrooms are superheros in disguise.

Flight or invisibility - which one would you choose?

Our role is to bring out the superhero in our students. 

What are the characteristics?

Really they come down to 8 of the 16 habits of mind. However all are relevant.

The Hero’s journey

Many of us would say we are the mentor that brings out the hero, but in reality often the school is actually the test.

Letting our students know what they are capable is essential and a good way to do this is through their stories.

Things we need to do to do this (3 things - bold)

Encourage passion

Jordans lunch box

Technology isn’t the key, it was those people that sat with her and helped her to go over her ideas and posts and supported her to make that connection.

As teachers we need to Develop the passion and guide.- This could happen for all our students if they have the right connections with us. As teachers we need to help our students be connected to their passion and we ourselves need to also be connected to their passions.

If a student feels that school offers our them nothing that’s a big problem

Ideas like 20% time projects - Genius hour - helps to develop students passion - where they can work on something that is completely different to their main focus. And is a huge concept that companies like GOOGLE use to encourage innovation and excellence.

We want what is best for our students but to make this happen we need to make sure we include them in this process - e.g. let the children lead.

Students need to feel like it is THEIR school - that they can take ownership of it.

With great power come great responsibility

Let students guide - Best of westchester winner 2017

When we give the power back to the students they are in control and they take responsibility.

To do this we need to provide support and let them know that they can do it.  - have the mentality... 

(As Lesley puts it in later workshops - having a growth mindset)

SO... Take off the restrictions, we will support you.

Celebrate their scars - blind man riding his bike (Daniels Kish story) - using sound to help him see. - Eco locate

WE put restrictions on children because of their issues/faults … and we need to do the opposite - remove the restrictions. - how do we break that pattern - lift the them up and celebrate the challenges that they have and the scars.

There can be joy in failure - when you think of the things that you are most proud of … its not the things we can do quickly but those that we have to keep persevering with.

Negative experiences need to become positive - The fact we are moving through the negative is the positive - (getting the scars).

Honour individuality

All our students have challenges - Superhero prosthesis - Project unicorn!

Orange street news - Hildie writing about a local murder - both parents are Journalists and this was her normal.

Our job is to get to know ALL of our students. - get to the heart of knowing what makes them tick.

WE are ultimately the mentors - to guide and help them navigate the challenges along the way.

- couldn’t disagree more.

With great power comes great possibility.
How will I unleash my students inner superhero.