ICT 2012 Elearning Journey

This year the main challenge for me has been time. In future I want to make regular blog posts on my personal blog and also take more time to comment on my students blogs. I have developed my ability to let go of the 'apron strings' and allow my students to have more responsibility with our class blog. The introduction of the 4 netbooks and 2 new PC's has made this more achievable and I am now confident to let students do things with out me :) This has also created more responsibilities for a variety of students. I have used tech sperx as teachers and the children are now confident to sign up for new tools, independantly use photo sharing tools such as photo peach and animoto and use recently introduced new web 2.0 tools to help support our learning. I have been very proud of the way our class blog as developed now that I am not the only one responsible for adding posts.

In reflection to the new tools that I signed up for at the end of last term and in the holidays I have found Bit strips to be an absolute success, however we only had a 30 day trial. I have tried to sign up for little bird tales but the csv code wouldn't work. I will have another look at this tool over the xmas holidays.

I also need to find time to teach other members of staff that had requested how to use Audacity.

Interwrite reflection

Since the interwrite session I have managed to implement several aspects into our classroom programme. I have had one group working on the teaching station with me and the mobi pads during rotations in maths. As a whole class oral lanaguage activity we have been capturing photos and using these photos to discuss what is happening in the pictures. We have created speech bubbles, captions and brainstormed ideas. We found this really fun to look at images of the Tongariro eruption and images of athletes expressions around our big idea of performance.

Room 9's next steps is to get the children working on the teaching station and on mobi pads independantly. I would also like to use the interwrite software during all rotations.

Reflection mid way through term 3

It is hard to believe that it is almost half way through the term. Our production practising is well underway and I mentioned in my last post that I was having difficultly converting music files, which I managed to do through you tube.org into audacity.
It has been hard being away for two days this week with illness. Great to see the hype around the school with maths week and the middle syndicate challenges are going well.

Reflecting on my term 2 goals
 -To personally get back involved with tweet conversations to update myself with new E-learning.
-Use my teaching station and mobi pads to engage students and maximise learning.

My class goals for Room 9 are to have children regularly contributing to their E-learning blogs and commenting on each others blogs in effective ways to help each other and support learning.
Encourage students/families to get more involved in commenting and viewing blogs .

In reflection to these goals the class has managed to have regular entries into their individual blogger and thier comments with their buddy class, room 15 have improved. Room 9's next steps is to help make more regular comments and entries into our class blog.

In reflection to my personal goals. I have been updating myself with new E-learning through Edu feeds but not got back into twitter, one of the reasons for not using twitter has been through all of the hacking and viruses that has been going around.
I can use my teaching station more effectively and the class is loving using the mobi pads trying to fit in the teaching station into all rotations.

Beginning Term three Reflection

First week back went really well, we had some exciting Olympic mathematics to kick start the term. We are trying out  a new reading contract. I am having difficulties with converting music files for composing my aerobic dance groups performance.

Restorative Behaviour

Since coming away from the PD in the holidays I have done alot of thinking around "punishment" and the way I issue consequences. This has applied to things such as children that continue to have incompleted work. I immediately kept these children in, however my reflection has been around the discussion I had with these students regarding how they were effecting others, and how thier use of time has huge implications for my lessons. I have found that the "punishment" of staying in is far less powerful without the in depth discussion. In the playground whilst on duty, I also discovered that the restoritive approach created a more genuine apology from both parties involved. I seen that both children could actually empathise with how the other child was feeling once I had used the restorative question prompts and scaffolding.

Term 2 E-learning goals

This term in E-learning my goals are:
 -To personally get back involved with tweet conversations to update myself with new E-learning.
-Use my teaching station and mobi pads to engage students and maximise learning.

My class goals for Room 9 are to have children regularly contributing to their E-learning blogs and commenting on each others blogs in effective ways to help each other and support learning.
Encourage students/families to get more involved in commenting and viewing blogs .