Friday: Staff Day. NZ Curriculum.

On Friday we met as a staff to take the next step in implementing the NZ Curriculum which as 2010 begins is now the official NZ Curriculum. It is an excellent document, it looks to now and the future. As our facilitator we had one of the people who worked on this curriclum and we had an excellent morning with her. While the curriculum is there as a national document each school is able to take it and implement it in their own way according to the make up of the school communitiy. So as a school we have to decide the weight we give to some of the learning areas as we can't give equal emphasis to it all, there isn't the time. We have to take into account our vision and values as well as the national requirements for Literacy and Numeracy.

This document also names 5 key competencies that every student needs to develop to grow into successful learners and people. For those of you who would like to read about the five key competencies you can visit the NZ curriculum site. These competencies thread all though the day and are part of every learning area and activity. These key competencies are not new! Any adult will recognise them as important aspects of living and working in todays society. However they are so important they cannot be left to chance.

In term one as a school we will continue to explore Thinking, with an emphasis on the reflective and critical and responding aspects of thinking. We will also be focussing on participating and contributing. From managing self we have highlighted the importance of high standards and setting personal goals. Other key competencies of course are still being developed, but if we don't highlight some each term its easy to forget about their importance.

I Have a Webcam.

Today I bought a webcam. Stella in Australia tried to send us a comment last term, from Brisbane, would have been good it it worked, but we were only able to see her, not hear her. In chatting with Kim in Washington DC over the last few days, via comments, we have decided to try making comments via camera.

I got the camera in a sale. Great, love sales. Too busy to get it organised as yet. Hope it works. Will be fun if it does, and when my class gets back in February, there may be other ways to use it too. Hmm. Good day, and thanks to Kim for getting me started down this track.

Today I have meandered!

Today I have figured out a little more how Blogger works. I am still inclined to like wordpress better for blogging, but after I figured out how to configure this page a little better, it's growing on me. Of course the big plus is there is no cost! I will still renew my subscription to my class blog this year in edublogs, especially as I have most of my last year's class returning.

I have spent quite a bit of time mucking around on the internet, I have a few blogs I like to visit, I sent a reply back on our class blog to Kim, who has moved to Arlington, Washington. She has been sharing a little about what it will be like in school over there. When she starts I hope she will tell me more. One of the advantages of blogging is that students who move to another country can still keep in contact for as long as they want. Stella moving to Australia is another.

I found a teacher's blog in the U.S.A that I enjoyed reading. My Reading Today arrived in the mail and I browsed that, but I don't want to start thinking about going back to school yet for at least another week!

Christmas Play December 09

At present I am testing out Blogger to see how it is the same and different to Edublogs and Wordpress. So far I like the way it presents a video. That is one advantage over the other two.