End of Year Reflection

Wow!  Can you believe it's December already!!!  What a year it’s been.  In reflection of my ICT journey this year, i believe that i am much more confident with the ICT technology that i have and feel more confident in getting students using this technology to show their learning and to celebrate their successes.  I also have more confidence in begin able to help students if something goes wrong on their blogs – i.e. a post isn’t loading or they have lost their work – whereas last year i would have been suck on how to help them find their work again.  I have found i am also instantly planning for ICT things within my planning programmes.

Goals for next year:
Use the interactive whiteboard more effectively for learning
Learn and use more programmes and apps to showcase students learning on their blogs
Incorporate the ipod/ipad technology into my planning and learning programmes

Tutpup

Just a quick post today to share this cool website i found for children to practise maths, reading and spelling called tutpup!  Free to sign up and works kind of like study ladder.  All students have their own log in and play the challenges to practise various learning goals.  Totally awesome!  Give it a wirl!

Restorative Community Circle

Got a whole bunch of warm fuzzies today!  We had a community circle today, to discuss an issue between two students, which fitting in perfectly with

With our current focus in community circle about how two people can feel two completely different emotions towards something that has happened.  We had two year6 students in our class who went for production parts and only one of them was successful in getting a part.  Of course the other students was extremely disappointed, and then during a learning task the two girls came out had a disagreement, which led to unfriendly words being spoken and both girls becoming upset.  The girls had some time apart during lunchtime and then fixed the relationship independently, but were very happy to discuss the situation during our circle time and explain that one student was jealous of the other for getting a part and the other was just so excited about getting the part that they didn’t consider the other student’s feelings.

It was great because the girls were so articulate about how they felt, it really highlighted the message that during situations people can feel very different emotions and we need to consider and be considerate of other people’s feelings.  We also discussed how even though harm has been done, we are able to fix this harm and move on from it.  Was so proud of the girls for leading the circle and this discussion and also the rest of the class as they were so patient while they listen and learnt from the girls discussion. 

Term 3 focuses and goals

Back again, it's been awhile!  Things just get so hectic and I haven't had a chance to sit down and really reflect and record.  Looking forward to the term ahead, am getting a little panicky at how much there is on this term and how much i have to get through this term!  So reflecting on this and thinking about what happened last term i have decided to really step back a bit on my expectations on how much the kids can do and how much i expect of myself also.  I need to remember that it’s important that the kids produce quality learning rather than a huge quantity of work.  I think in some areas i’m remembering to slow down and let the kids explore and take their time – for example the kowhai art that we have just completed, i gave my class time to explore working with the pastels and spend time shading and experiment, and before they did their good copy.  The result being that each child created a fantastic piece.

I need to remember how successful this was in other subject areas, such as writing for example.  Last week i really rushed though a lesson that was supposed to be fun, and that i thought the kids would enjoy.  I had to rush because due to one thing or another, my writing instruction time was only 30 minutes long.  Instead of breaking it over two weeks i rushed to finish it in the 30 minutes, resulting with the children not producing very good quality writing and myself feeling disappointed in the result.

So for this term i really focus on taking time with my lessons, and not to rush through the learning tasks because we have to go to production practise or cross country training etc.

E-learning goals for Term 2

Welcome to Term 2, and what a way to start with ANZAC Day and a day off on Wednesday!
My e-learning goals for this term are:
Teach my students how to record more better quality video
use my new netbooks effectively within my classroom programme
discover and use more effective interactive learning games to reinforce classroom learning topics.

Lets get started!

New Learning

just thought id share something i found that is a really way for children to show learning on a subject or topic. This is a hitch hike on something room 14 saw when we went to visit our room 2 buddies.

It's using photopeach which i know that many of you use anyway, but there is a part where you can add questions that come accross during your photo slide show. the viewer can then choose from a selection of multi-choiced the answers, making it an interactive task for the viewer. Im going to use this so i can see what my students have learnt about how a dam works, rather than do a pen and paper post test.

if you'd like to see an example of this, check out room 14's blog!

Learning@Schools

Wow! What a jam packed 2 days we had at this conference! I really enjoyed getting together with other teachers and learning! I always find I learn so much from other teachers experiences, and their enthusiam is infectious. I really enjoyed listening to Kevin Honeycutt, and his life experiences were amazing. To come from where he was and then see where he ended up, as an educated teacher and inspirational speaker, was just so awe inspiring. To here him say how he got where he is because of some of the teachers he had growing up really made me have tears in my eyes. You hear all the time that you can make such a difference in your students lifes, but to hear someones actual story about the difference some teachers made really opens your eyes to how you can really change the course of a students very being. So because of this my major goal this year is to make sure that I ensure i give each student each day some kind of positive personal message to really build a possitive relationship - particularly now at the beginning of the year. I also want to make sure that no matter how tired or frustrated i am, I remain positive with each child and the class, 'Act the part' as Asri once told me! I know sometimes i get tired and as a result this comes out in my teaching, so im going to try my best to keep my approach positive this year.