SODA - start of day activity

Posted on April 5th, 2008 in collaboration, teaching by dragonsinger

Busy Teacher’s Cafe — Classroom Management Page….ideas and tips to help manage and organize your classroom

In my classroom I begin my day with SODA - it’s based around Tony Ryan’s thinkers keys - apparently I’ve started a revolution because quite a number of parents (of kids in other classes) who attended a seminar run by one of my parents (on how children learn) and other teachers in my school have come up to me and talked about SODA or asked about it …

bulletin board

this website has a page of free journal activities - downloadable by the month with a journal writing topic for each day - i’m going to adapt what is on these pages and use a monthly planner like this for my SODA - at the moment i have it typed into my term planner (i’m using a self-created electronic planning book rather than a print one) but if i had a monthly planner just for SODA i can then share it with others as well as having it ready for use

sample of monthly journal page

Blogged with the Flock Browser

ICT lead teacher day …

Posted on March 28th, 2008 in collaboration by dragonsinger

pic of my comp etc

  • started with 4-quadrant model - personality styles
  • life with the wright family - fun game
  • classroom snapshot rubic
  • surveymonkey
  • i like survey monkey - i just created a post-test for some learning we did this last week

and the next step

Posted on March 25th, 2008 in 21st century learning, collaboration, teaching by dragonsinger

DLC #3 - literacy - this time about nouns, verbs, adjectives, and simple grammar conventions

[slideshare id=320120&doc=iamliterate-120640967915135-3&w=425]

i think i’ll trial as a whole class activity in the computer lab - working in pairs

the next step on my journey

Posted on March 25th, 2008 in 21st century learning, collaboration, teaching by dragonsinger

DLC #2 Simple circuits

[slideshare id=320121&doc=circuits-1206409682367629-2&w=425]

i’ll trial this with a small group

blogs - a quest for discovery

Posted on March 24th, 2008 in collaboration by dragonsinger  Tagged , ,

i’m on a journey to put together some digital learning centres (or experiences or something) for both the kids in my class and others

my first step in the journey is entitled “blogs:a quest for discovery” and is a PPT/PPS on blogging

[slideshare id=319120&doc=blog-dlc-1206344654315184-2&w=425]

the ppt and worksheet are available for download here

21st Century Learners

Posted on March 24th, 2008 in collaboration by dragonsinger  Tagged , ,

we’ve all heard about 21st century learners and digital natives vs digital immigrants - yet i always felt that i was an oddity having used technology since the late ’70s

this guy has the right message i think …

cautiously excited

Posted on March 12th, 2008 in collaboration by dragonsinger

it’s really hard to maintain momentum and excitement when you’re a lonely voice in the crowd

this week, however, i’m feeling cautiously excited

a phone call from a colleague (who doesn’t teach a regular classroom - she is on study leave from her job teaching foods technology) who was just buzzing about ICT and the things she’s discovered like Web 2.0 and various blogs (hi to Allanah!) and i got all excited again talking to her

the last couple of weeks have seen our kids at school (almost all of the ~550 kids) involved in World Maths Day - we’re still going as well as visiting Rainforest maths (which they love)

i also have two girls who are top of the list for literacy (and maths) extension so i’m looking coming up with some sort of DLC that they can work with during our reading/language time or anything else … maybe i can finally get a class blog up and running …

Mentoring and Motivation

Posted on March 16th, 2007 in David Warlick, NZEI, collaboration, learningatschool, teaching, warlick, wiki by dragonsinger

Full links can be found on my wiki site http://dragonsinger.wikispaces.com

This was a workshop presented by Perry Rush from Island Bay School at an NZEI Wellington District Council “Staff Wellbeing” Seminar.

Just some rough notes until i can get some urls from perry …

He quoted Judith Aitkin?

Chn are compelled to be at school - it is therefore our responsibility to make sure they take something wonderful and worthwhile out of their 10+ years invested in the school system

Educational research from Graham Nuttal and ? EDwards (reminded me a bit of some of the things that David Warlick talked about) - we do what we do because that’s how we were taught / we do what we do because we learned from educators who did it that way because they learned it from educators who did it that way …

Modelling from the top - example of sharing his own appraisal with the staff - using an anonymous survey forum to get feedback; then sharing the results with the staff; sharing his goals concerning the areas he needed to improve in with them - and lastly sharing with them what he has done to meet those goals

the reggio emilia approach to learning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach

http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/

http://www.brainy-child.com/article/reggioemilia.html

Oxford Dictionary definition of teachers : dispensers of facts and knowledge

I note that dictionary.com says
a person who teaches or instructs, esp. as a profession; instructor.

and my Collins dictionary say A person whose occupation is teaching

Teachers, however, are not merely dispensers of fact and knowledge!

We need to:

  • pose provocative questions
  • show the teacher as a learner

There is powerful teaching done through asking questions (instead of telling facts) and even more powerful teaching done by being quiet and letting the children figure things out.

Think outside the box

Dream the dream you are passionate about

Our kids deserve the absolute best

Maximum passion - maximum energy

sharing the information

Posted on March 9th, 2007 in blogging, blogs, collaboration, learningatschool, wiki by dragonsinger

i guess one of the things about learning new stuff is the importance of passing it on … i was informed on thursday that my name had been tossed in the bucket to take a workshop during our skills week - on blogs and wikis … so … over the next week if you keep an eye on my wiki - https://dragonsinger.wikispaces.com/ you’ll probably see me putting my presentation together - all i know is about an hour and up to 20 teachers …