Educating the Dragon: primary

Showing posts with label primary. Show all posts

Wearing two hats

by Pinelopi Zaka (pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com, @paz11uc)

With the beginning of the new school year down under, teachers set their own new goals and many decide to apply some new strategies. For some this might involve using ICT and perhaps trying out blended online approaches that combine both online and face-to-face teaching and learning. In New Zealand and worldwide blended education is a fast developing area that is expected to continue growing, especially in kiwi schools with the rollout of UFB. This is an exciting opportunity to experiment with new tools and approaches, but also to motivate teachers to take one step further and investigate how they and their students experience the whole process, through research. Here are some of the reasons:

Knowing yourself! Through the process of researching your own class you wear two hats – that of the teacher and that of the researcher. This twofold role helps you to continuously self-reflect on what you are doing as a teacher and why you are doing it.

Knowing your students! Similarly to knowing yourself, through research you investigate your context in a more systematic way. You collect and analyse your data from your students, either through interviews, surveys or observations in a thoroughly designed way, preferably informed by the literature and other studies looking into similar topics.

Improving your teaching! While you research your class you collect lots of evidence regarding the success or not of your approaches. It is an ongoing process where, at any stage, you can adapt your practices, change your approaches, use different tools or do anything else that you think might improve your students’ experience.

Sharing your results and your learning journey! Nobody can deny how great the feeling of sharing is. Learning about what other teachers did, how they did it and what the results were is always interesting for educators who want to improve students’ learning experiences. A presentation at your school’s staffroom, a poster at a conference, or even better a published article in a research journal, are a few ways to communicate your class story to inspire others and contribute to the body of knowledge for the improvement of teaching and learning. Even if you think that your results are not that impressive, the learning journey you went through and your growth as a teacher is something that is definitely worth sharing!

Resources:

Photo by Jonathan_W
Educators sharing their stories through the CORE Education community
Educators publishing their research in Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning, Teaching, Technology
New Zealand Council for Educational Research
Enabling e-Learning - Research and Readings
Riel, M. (2010). Understanding Action Research, Center For Collaborative Action Research. Pepperdine University

Opening your classroom to the world

by Pinelopi Zaka (pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com, @paz11uc)

Many teachers are using blogs in the classroom, exploring their unique potential to engage learners through sharing their work with a real audience. A recent article in the online journal Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning, Teaching, Technology gives an example of using blogs in a primary classroom from the teacher’s point of view. Gillian May started blogging with her students at the beginning of this school year and through her article she unveils some of the unique advantages that this had for her as a teacher and her students. Some of them include:

· Strengthening home – school connections, by enabling families to have access to student learning.

“Our class blog has changed the way our classroom operates and it has improved the link between home and school beyond our wildest dreams”.

· Enhancing student engagement, by motivating them to share their learning with a real audience.

“It gives the students ownership but more importantly it gives their learning real-life purpose that means something to them.”

Sara Kajder talks about the potential of emerging technologies such as blogs to provide students the opportunity to write for a real audience, share their learning and become active members of online communities (Kajder, 2007). Not many years ago, the web was a place where people could find and retrieve information. Now, the read/write web gives everyone a voice and instead of passively consuming information we can actively create it through online collaboration (Richardson, 2006).

As teachers, we have the responsibility, but also the power to teach students how to effectively and responsibly take advantage of these opportunities that the read/write web offers. Teachers don’t need sophisticated computer knowledge to do that. As Gillian May said

"Prior t o June 2010 I had no experience with blogging. I was introduced to the idea at a professional development session, and decided that I might have a play with setting up my own class blog”.

Trial and error is probably the best way to do it! As we experiment with new tools and as we observe the advantages, especially with student engagement and motivation, but also with parents' involvement in student learning, we get further motivated to continue. Of course, the more we commit to it, the more sensitive we need to become on consequent implication, such as privacy, security and ownership; the web provides many opportunities for professional development about these issues. Lifelong learning - isn't it?

Resources:

Photo by Cathy Cassidy
Kajder, S., B. (2007). Unleashing potential with emerging technologies. In K. Beers, R., E., Probst & L., Rief (Eds.). Adolescent literacy: Turning promose into practice (pp.213-229). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
May G., (2011). A teacher’s experience of using blogs. Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning, teaching, technology. Vol. 23, No. 2.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis and podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Chapter 1: The read/write web. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Corwin Press.
Open content licencing for educators: A free online workshop designed for educators who want to learn more about open education resources, copyright, and creative commons licences. 23-27 January, 2012.

An Evening with Dame Alison Holst

CANCELLED

Join the Napier Central School PTA for a fabulous night with Dame
Alison - she will be talking about her memoir, A Home Grown Cook. Bring your Friends, Neighbours, Aunties, Mothers, Grandmothers and make an evening of it. Tickets are only $20 and include home-baking and $10 off her book. There will also be raffles and the chance to win a bakers dozen of Dame Alison's Cookbooks. So come and support Napier Central School and meet the Queen of the New Zealand Kitchen

We are excited to be able to support this event and Beattie&Forbes have plenty of her books for you to buy - a great Christmas present for only $30.

Tickets from Ticketek - Please Tweet or like and get the word out as this all goes to support the school.

A fable from fablevision: Above and Beyond

These are such need little tales. I wonder about the rich discussion they may prompt in our New Classrooms. I would even offer opinion that they touch on different aspects of Key Competencies and values.
If learning takes place in the discussion around shared resources and experiences then the use of these video may go someway to tackling some of the more abstract concepts. It may be worth you subscribing to fablevision for yourself.

Mangakahia Area School win gold

A Northland area school has scooped up a prestigious gold medal in environmental education.

Congratulations to Mangakahia Area School for their win.
"The caretaker suggested the students were trying to put him out of work. They have managed to reduce the volume of waste going to their local rubbish transfer station from one ute-load a week down to one every three weeks."
The environment is such a precious resource. There are so many schools doing so much in the way of promoting recycling and engaging the community in 'Making the world a little cleaner, and greener'

Further information:

100 Ways to Save The Environment - A neat way to prompt class discussion and social action.
Education for sustainability- Enviroschools newsletter and information.
Waste education for schools - some initiatives for schools to get involved with.

Training your kid to cross the road is harder than you think

There are many courteous road users in the provinces compared to the main centres of New Zealand but its not always the most helpful.

Understanding traffic and road safety doesn't necessarily come naturally. We need to teach our children how to be safe pedestrians. It's not just about telling them what to do - children learn from what adults do, so you need to model safe behaviour.

So with that in mind we took to the streets this afternoon. Whilst trying to train my 5 year old to cross the road with care I got somewhat frustrated by the number of drivers who saw I was with a child, slowed to a stop and waved us across.

They are good and kind people but I do not want to give my child the impression that cars stop for you when you are wanting to cross the road. Under no circumstances do I want him to be under the illusion that it is the drivers’ responsibility to ensure his safety.

We walked the city centre of Hastings looking for crossings and opportunities to talk about ‘sneaky driveways’, different places to cross and dangers of parked cars. I’m hoping he is a little wiser today but the trick to this is to take EVERY opportunity your can to reinforce these lessons. Here’s hoping we can take five more minutes in our journey to do it right.

Little eyes are watching and learning from actions.

Resources are available to assist us in educating our kids:

Literacy to You

CORE Education in conjunction with South Pacific Press have developed a new online professional learning programme which begins shortly. The Literacy to You programme focuses on increasing teacher knowledge of how to effectively teach reading comprehension strategies to students in the middle years (ages 8-13).

The Literacy to You programme offers each participant:

10 modules on in-depth literacy learning
Individual support and feedback from expert facilitators
Access to a wide range of digital texts for classroom use
Strategies to increase student engagement
Instruction to meet the needs of diverse classroom settings
Increased knowledge on interaction and reflection during literacy
Practical classroom approaches grounded in the latest research

Find out and Register here

NZC Online

NZC Online has a newsletter which comes out regularly. I have identified a few lead stories but there is far more contained within each newsletter than I can reproduce here.

School stories

The NZC Online team interviewed educators at Learning@School 2011 in Rotorua about the curriculum based workshops they were presenting at conference.
Willowbank curriculum map
Jane Danielson and Julie Cowan explain how they used a map analogy to guide their curriculum development, because on a map you can go to different places, get to different points, take detours, and take different ways of travelling.

Middle schooling

Once Upon a School is a site designed to collect stories of how individuals engage with their local schools. This is a global project, inviting people to share their own stories of how 'private' individuals connect with 'public' schools.
EDtalks: Using teaching as inquiry to guide an eLearning action plan
Claire Amos is Director of eLearning at Epsom Girls' Grammar. Claire talks about how the school is using a 'teaching as inquiry' cycle to inform the eLearning action plans that will be implemented by professional learning groups in each of the school's curriculum areas.
Youth Mentoring Network - He Ara Tika
He Ara Tika is a programme that mentors Māori students, and is run by the Youth Mentoring Trust. A Gisborne secondary school has picked up this programme and, instead of using it to focus on Māori students, they have used it to give all students from year 10 upwards a teacher mentor. These mentors become the first port of call for parents, and follow the students right through their schooling.

Secondary

Secondary Education Gazette stories
These articles have a secondary focus and are published in the New Zealand Education Gazette. Each link will take you through to the story on the Education Gazette website.
Secondary Literacy Website
The new secondary literacy website has been launched on Literacy Online. It provides literacy in the learning area; leading literacy in your school; professional readings; links to Literacy Progressions, NZC, ELLP; NCEA and literacy; and much more.
Understanding NCEA: A relatively short and very useful guide for secondary school students and their parents
New from NZCER, this book explains the NCEA system in plain language and includes stories drawn from the real-life experiences of students who have followed different NCEA pathways.

Using Youtube in the classroom

Engaging the class, the parents and the wider community has been the place for websites and blogs for sometime. Youtube, Teachertube or schooltube can be the place for supporting videos.
Youtube has added a number of new annotations and features which allow greater flexibility in the use of video. One teacher below has put these to great effect to have students show their thinking in Maths.

Breakfast v Pies... again

Emotions run high when faced with ‘pie-eating’ school kids and with the Red Cross potentially pulling out of Shannon school and their ‘breakfast club’ it is a real possibility that old habits will return.

And return they will if further intervention is not forthcoming. However, the provision of breakfast meets the immediate need but goes little towards addressing the underlying cause.

Parental choice and budget management issues often lead students to needing support through schools to address their basic needs.

Yet I feel we’ve had this discussion before and perhaps we can go around the roundabout one more time.

Pies= cheap food.
Fruit, cereal, milk and toast = expensive

The immediate ‘hungry tum’ needs to be addressed for many parents and the shifting mind-set toward the long term implications are just that, long-term and way, way into the future.

“Perhaps we can address this issue later, when we have a little more money available and a little more time” but the reality is oyu blink and your kids are grown, habits are formed and ‘traditions’ passed on… including eating pies on the way to school.

It nice to identify the issue but WHAT ARE WE GOING DO!!!!?

Child Protection Training Programme adds new dates

South Auckland – 18-22 July
Central Auckland 25-27 July
North Shore 7-11 November

Further details...

New Zealand is one of the only OECD countries that does not have mandatory child protection training for people working with children. Many of the key people in NZ working with children have not had sufficient training in knowing how to identify suspected child abuse and act confidently. Professional training in child protection WILL make you more effective in keeping children safe

Staff PD is now cost effective

CORE Education are responding to a need schools have for accessible professional learning and development (PLD).
Far too often the shrinking time and budget puts pay to professional development but CORE Achieve seeks to address this problem with their innovative, flexible courses.

The internet provides a range of delivery methods, both synchronously and synchronously, which CORE have tapped into.

The courses are modulor and can be delivered to individuals or a whole staff via the online environment.

“Achieve allows individual teachers to study their choice of topic at a time and place suitable to them, with the focus being on participation, collaboration and interaction rather than just delivery.”

Don't forget to register.

Things to do:
Discover CORE’s approach to PLD
Find out more about cost effective PLD
Register with CORE Achieve.

Cyber-Safety: What can you and your school do?

Brett Lee is fast becoming a leading expert on Cyber-safety and what young people need to be aware of while navigating social media sites.
His unique experience in the cyber-crime unit enables him to share with teachers and parents some of the dangers facing students today and some of the simple precautions they can take.

Back in February he was the keynote speaker at Learning@Schools conference in Rotorua. View his keynote address below.

Things to do:
Use Brett's keynote to provoke staff meeting discussion this term.
Book Brett to visit your staff and parents
Subscribe to Edtalks
Subscribe to Brett’s newsletter
Join the Software for Learning discussion about Facebook

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