We have been back at school almost three weeks. Twelve days to be exact as each of the weeks has been four days. Tomorrow we are off to the Waikane Pools as a school. That surely counts as a four day week!
I believe the class is settling down. I think I have almost 'let go' last year's class and begun to enjoy the ones I am with! I only have 25 of them. I think that makes a difference, I would imagine that 30 going towards 35 would take be a challenge for me, so 25 is a very nice number. I am still trying to catch up with commenting and responding to student writing. This week we had a visit from ERO (Education Review Office) and while it is an advantage to have it completed, it did leave me feeling like I just couldn't catch up with all I wanted to achieve.
In the last three weeks I have been able to manage to have Daily Five or in our case Daily Three up and running. We have now reached the point where students are making choices each day and it is running smoothly. I still have not settled into conferencing or taking groups. Rather I am roaming and checking in with students. At present they are in goal setting mode, and when they choose writing some of them are writing goals. I am spending some time chatting with them about the goals if they are choosing to write them during Literacy time. It may be another week before I start conferring or working with groups. Although testing will loom in Week 6 at the beginning of March and disrupt some of them momentum.
We have opted to introduce BYOD this year. We had a rocky start as the wireless network was not up and running. However Norcom now have this operational and about 5 or 6 of the class are bringing in their own devices. This is great as it supplements the computers we have as a class. One student is working on her iPod touch. In fact she produced a really great video last week that took a session of planning and a session of videoing and then editing. Simone took her own photos, personally I just love the one she snapped of Kapiti Island. It is one of my favourite views.
While we didn't really make iPod touches an option, I can see that the latest one takes very clear photos and has possibilities. I noticed today the owner of the iPod had borrowed another student's wireless keyboard, and was working with it and the iPod touch.
We are working with Google Docs and I think this will work well. We have Teacher Dashboard set up, I am still exploring this, and as the year goes by hope to incorporate this more and more into my interaction with students.
This week as I mentioned above, we had ERO in our school. They were very pleasant and professional gentlemen. However I think the one that came into my room was somewhat nonplussed. I was showing my class how to put an image on their blog and to do that correctly using creative commons. Somewhere along the line I mentioned digital citizenship. Later at a meeting I attended he asked where did the idea of digital citizenship come from, was it a word I coined!
Later that evening I decided I had misheard. This morning I checked with the other staff member who had been at the meeting. She confirmed that what I thought I had heard was what she heard too! I can only say I am still struggling to comprehend this. Even though I have only been to one elearning conference in my life - Ulearn 11, I would have thought that ERO would surely be keeping up with this aspect of ICT? I am still thinking I misunderstood. Surely!
I believe the class is settling down. I think I have almost 'let go' last year's class and begun to enjoy the ones I am with! I only have 25 of them. I think that makes a difference, I would imagine that 30 going towards 35 would take be a challenge for me, so 25 is a very nice number. I am still trying to catch up with commenting and responding to student writing. This week we had a visit from ERO (Education Review Office) and while it is an advantage to have it completed, it did leave me feeling like I just couldn't catch up with all I wanted to achieve.
In the last three weeks I have been able to manage to have Daily Five or in our case Daily Three up and running. We have now reached the point where students are making choices each day and it is running smoothly. I still have not settled into conferencing or taking groups. Rather I am roaming and checking in with students. At present they are in goal setting mode, and when they choose writing some of them are writing goals. I am spending some time chatting with them about the goals if they are choosing to write them during Literacy time. It may be another week before I start conferring or working with groups. Although testing will loom in Week 6 at the beginning of March and disrupt some of them momentum.
We are working with Google Docs and I think this will work well. We have Teacher Dashboard set up, I am still exploring this, and as the year goes by hope to incorporate this more and more into my interaction with students.
This week as I mentioned above, we had ERO in our school. They were very pleasant and professional gentlemen. However I think the one that came into my room was somewhat nonplussed. I was showing my class how to put an image on their blog and to do that correctly using creative commons. Somewhere along the line I mentioned digital citizenship. Later at a meeting I attended he asked where did the idea of digital citizenship come from, was it a word I coined!
Later that evening I decided I had misheard. This morning I checked with the other staff member who had been at the meeting. She confirmed that what I thought I had heard was what she heard too! I can only say I am still struggling to comprehend this. Even though I have only been to one elearning conference in my life - Ulearn 11, I would have thought that ERO would surely be keeping up with this aspect of ICT? I am still thinking I misunderstood. Surely!
