Learning at Schools Conference 23rd, 24th and 25th of Feb

Wednesday

Enjoyed the keynote speaker Scott McLeod, as the message that shone through was that we need to move forward with e-learning and SOLO to give the best learning opportunities for our students, which is our goal this year at Glenholme.

My first breakout was on Literacy. I really enjoyed this workshop and will do more shared reading with the whole class with challenging texts.

The thing that I got most out of the workshop was that the globally low readers usually read easy, non relevant material and don't get the chance to be exposed to more challenging text. The method of teaching as a whole class and reading the text aloud along with the students, exposes poor readers the opportunity to learn challenging text that they may not normally come into contact with.

Also using the activboard to engage the children with reading is a great way to improve their reading ability.

The second breakout was using digital tools for music. Although it was more targetted at music teachers, I was introduced to some very cool software programmes such as guitarband, audacity, skype, using the iPad to give music lessons.

I also sat in on a short activboard session and picked up a few tips to take back to class, included reading cloze activities and recording questions and answers against the backdrop of a picture.

All in all a very enjoyable day. Looking forward to learning more tomorrow.

Thursday

Web Tools for Schools was a great little workshop - Shown tools such as scribblemaps.com which is a programme that uses google maps to work on. You can write information on the map. Would be great for our Identity unit, plotting where we come from. Twiducate.com is a social networking tool for the teacher and students only. A great way to post homework, ask questions and collaborate. The children learn social media networking skills through this programme.
Friday

Building a 5th Wall in your Classroom by David Kinane was a fabulous workshop. Stand outs in this workshop was to rearrange the layout of my classroom computers by turning them into a rectangular position and putting the computer at one end, leaving space for five children to collaborate around one computer. This has worked really well in my classroom. The children all share the keyboard and it's just fantastic.

Another tip was to make children e-Learning experts for the class and for staff. Trying to make the children independent of the teacher. This is something I really want to get up and going in Glenholme School.

Attended Willow's SOLO Taxonomy workshop. I wanted to see if I would learn anything new to implement in my classroom, but they just went over what I already know. I was very proud of the girls presenting. They did a really good job.

Overall, the conference was fabulous, picked up some great ideas to use in my classroom. Have already rearranged furniture for computers and starting to train experts in my classroom. I have used scribblemaps for our identity unit. I am fired up and really keen to utilise and teach what I have learnt.

SOLO Taxonomy Workshops with Pam and Julie 21st and 22nd of Feb 2011

Susan, Lisa and George attended two SOLO catch up workshops. These two workshops were the initial courses that our staff attended at the beginning of 2010 when we first started our learning journey with SOLO Taxonomy.

Blog It Workshop with Paula 17 Feb 2011

Susan and Iain attended the Blog It Workshops this afternoon. Both have now set up their class blogs.

Voicethread Workshop with Paula at Westbrook 10th of February 2011

Today I attended a workshop with Paula on Voicethread. This programme enables users to record, upload pictures, videos and images from sources and the final product can be embedded into our blog.

I am hoping to use this to improve literacy through retells and sequencing. There are many uses for Voicethread and I need to take the time to look at the many examples that may be beneficial to my students.

It is a very easy programme to use and I like that once we have created a voicethread it is easily uploaded to our blogs.

I have shown the children in my class how to create a voicethread and over the ensuing weeks, I hope that they will have uploaded some types of learning using this tool on to our blog.

e-Leader Release Wednesday 9th of Feb 2011

Today I met with Paula Jamieson our new e-learning facilitator. I took her around all the classrooms and introduced her to teachers.

We had a look at her wiki page www.paulaspages.wikispaces.com which has workshops she is running this term. Both the Town and Cluster and RCICT Cluster are included on this wiki. Each school has their own page which will record e-learning happening throughout the year.

I'm so glad we finally have a facilitator and can't wait to learn from someone who knows what they're doing instead of trying to muddle my way through things.

SOLO Planning Glenholme School with Pam and Julie 27 Jan 2011

Today we met with Pam and Julie to go over the HOT maps that we didn't manage to complete in the previous day's workshop.

Katherine, Shari and I worked with Pam who helped us plan our Identify unit. It was a good learning curve to see Pam work through the NZ Curriculum document and focus on the achievement objectives at each level throughout the school and then match up SOLO HOT map activities.

SOLO with Pam and Julie at Westbrook 26 Jan 2011

Today the cluster schools met up at Westbrook School and went over the HOT maps in depth. I felt the first session I went to with Julie last year was a lot clearer and easier to understand. Perhaps it was because we had a smaller group of people last year and more time to work with the maps more deeply and thoroughly. However, it was a good refresher and great to catch up with the cluster team.