In a perfect world…

In a perfect world I’d be able to use the ning I created for Year 10.  Unfortunately, I don’t live in a perfect world, and the ning is blocked and will remain blocked by DET.  It seems even a closed private ning might encourage students to create their own! And social networking has to be handled with care. I thought I was…. Oh well… sigh. I got very discouraged and haven’t yet looked up the alternatives suggested: wikispaces and edublogs. I will when my inspiration comes back. Year 10 were understandably disappointed. After all the principal had already joined and had promised he would read some of their entries and I was inviting their parents to join. I think they were secretly quite excited at being treated as responsible young adults with something to say.

One thing that has surpised me is the number of students who don’t bring their laptops every lesson. It seems they are a bit disillusioned with the technology or maybe they are just too heavy? I have seen a growth in the numbers bringing them over the last week, since I am planning my lessons around using the laptops for some aspect of every lesson. I’ve also noticed that when they don’t bring the laptop they make sure they have their notebook and pen and write down whatever we do with the laptops including site addresses and ‘how to’ instructions. So maybe the enthsusiam will return as we progress through the year.

Laptop Mayhem

What fun technology is! I taught my first lesson with laptops this week. I had sent my year 10 class an email and began the first lesson by asking them to check their email. Problem 1 – only two thirds had actually brought their laptops to school on the first day. Problem 2 – about 3 couldn’t remember their passwords and another 10 didn’t know how to check their email. Problem 3 – the DET access failed and no one could use the internet. Despite the potential for disaster we had a great lesson. We talked about using laptops at school and home.  I explained what a ‘ning’ was, since I had created one especially for them (but couldn’t show them on the IWB because the internet wasn’t working!) and began introducing my procedures for the year. Oh, and I have one student who hates using the laptop and had planned to hand it back in because she didn’t want the responsibility and was going back to pen and paper! Can’t wait for next lesson. Always optimistic, the cybergods will fix it all over the weekend, won’t they?

Nings, Laptops and vocab games.

Well, I created a ning for year 10! I’ve set their first task – to join the ning and write about their best holiday experience in a blog post and then comment on a blogpost from another member of the class. I haven’t taught with the laptops yet, just observed and assisted, so I’m keen to see how I am going to adapt my teaching style to the laptops and use the IWB at the same time. For the time being I’ve made the ning private – just between me and the kids and their parents if they want to participate. I plan to hit the floor running and get them using their laptops in class to join the ning and complete their profiles at the beginning of the first lesson. The blogpost will be their homework.  Once I started really thinking about my ‘first lessons’ I actually started to get excited about going back to school.

New year, new challenges

It has been so long since I’ve blogged I’ve forgotten why I’m blogging. I think I began with the idea that it was a useful thing to do given the arrival of Laptops for every year 9 student and a feeling that I would like to share my experience with others. After 30 years of teaching, mortality and dementia may become an issue. The English Companion Ning has largely filled the latter need and I’m not sure  I will even use blogging with the laptops. I read a lot of blogs and really enjoy them and they certainly stimulate my thinking quite a bit. So, I’m thinking that I may need to rethink the nature of my blogs and allow myself the freedom to blog on whatever is occupying my thinking at the time.

I haven’t done much with technology at all these holidays, for which my T4 vertebrae is very thankful. Not by choice – Internet Explorer bugs were just too annoying. Finally this week I went back to Firefox. One thing I didn’t do was find a web hosting site for my website and this may take  some time to sort out.  I’m determined this year to be selective about what I can manage.

School holidays are nearing their end, always a week before I’m really ready to a) think about school or b) do any of the things I need to do before school goes back. After a hectic three weeks of family and social stuff I finally managed to spend some time just reading and relaxing – read lots of crime ficition and fantasy and spent some quality time with the dog, husband, pool and garden. It’s our 33rd Wedding Anniversary today and we are going to see Avatar at the local cinema. He is being very generous since he has no interest in SF or Fantasy at all. At the back of my mind all through the holidays I’ve been worrying about our HSC rsults in 2009. They weren’t what I was expecting and I’ve had lots of moments of extreme self doubt followed my optimisim and ideas for ‘doing better next time’. I’m also going to seek professional help since I have a tendancy to think I know what I’m doing and  I feel I need to check with somebody independent. Whatever happens I will overcome the glooms and return to school with a vision and a plan. Bit like a marriage really.

2009 ETA Conference

Ok so I haven’t blogged for a while but I have been having a lot of fun with nings! I’m here in Darcy’s workshop on Blogging and Leading at the conference and we are setting up blogs. Darcy also used a cool tool SurveyMonkey.com to gather information on the participants. More soon,  Have to do something else, Darcy says!

Back from Cairns and laptops arrive

My week off was an absolute delight. We revisited places we had gone 34 years ago (in an orange Kombi, much thinner then). Very nostalgic. The weather was beautiful, I loved swimming with Wally on the Outer Reef and didn’t think about school once.

I did read Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern that I picked up at the Airport. An interesting read. The tip I liked best was to estimate the time things will take and plan accordingly, instead of making a great big To Do list and thinking that you will get through it all, then feeling stressed when you don’t.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. I thought I might share some of these ideas with senior students. Do they know how long it takes them to read ten pages, making notes at the same time, or a summary? Do they know how long it takes them to complete each stage in writing an essay or story? Could be useful when they are trying to manage the competing demands of the HSC. She also had a reverse idea – decide how much time you want to spend on a task and keep within that time frame. I think that’s the one I need to work on, especially when I am ‘playing around’ on the computer.

The week away was quickly followed by Equity2009 conference in Sydney (with a short break at school to finalise Trial marks!). I enjoyed the conference, but the best bit was introducing four delightful students to Sydney for the first time. Great ‘tourist’ route – catch bus down George street to Circular Quay, catch ferry to Darling Harbour (checking out harbour landmarks as you go), walk through Darling Harbour, past Convention centre and Exhibition Halls, through China Town and past Paddy’s Markets, back to Hotel. Thanks to Deputy Jennifer for playing tour guide.

Highlights of the Conference included hilarious presentation by Dr Christine Richmond on Behaviour Management, implementing MeE framework with Wayne Sawyer et al, Dr Jennifer Gore on Quality Teaching and Equity and finding out more about National Partnership funding (yes, we are one of those 512 schools). I’ve been reading Christine Richmond’s books over the last week, between finalising HSC assessments, checking reports, preparing year 11 exam and revising with Year 12 – 2 weeks to go! Teach More, Manage Less is a good starter book on behaviour management for teachers, with some food for thought for those of us who can’t remember the steps to learning how to manage and seem to do it ‘effortlessly’ because we have been doing it for so long.  It has some good ‘checklists’ for self analysing what’s going and wrong and steps to take to improve your management. Lead More, Manage Less is more for Head Teachers and Deputies who have a role to play in supporting teachers’ behaviour management and I haven’t read much of this yet.

Of course, the really exciting thing this week is that year 9 got their laptops. We start ‘for real’ on Monday and the English faculty has decided to begin with Digitally Yours (Thanks Curriculum Support, great resource). We are also reviewing a policy document shared by Jameson High, looking to adapt it to our needs. Kids were excited and keen to get started. As one kid said: ‘I feel really smart using this, Miss!’

Laptop magic

I should be marking trial papers but needed a break. Last week was ‘big’ in terms of professional learning. The VC suite is in my classroom so I was able to assist other teachers to participate in the Festival of Laptops conference. They discovered how easy it is to use and were really happy with the sessions provided through Macquarie Uni on using laptops in specific KLA’s and for specific software. Then the HT meeting participated ina VC presented by Pip Howell on Cool Tools for DERvices. This was a great presentation with lots of really useful links and ideas for any teacher.

The English staff were also scheduled for ‘Moving to Notebook’ Training. Our regional Implementation person, Ross Woolfe, was happy for us to view the Laptops in English session at the  Festival.  Another inspiring presentation from Arthur Phillip High. We then spent the rest of the day learning about Smart Notebook (and unlearning Activstudio).  I am a big fan of Activstudio, but I can see that Smart Notebook offers more for the classroom. I just think the ‘bells and whistles’ are better in Activstudio and are not so visually boring.

Now I just need abit of time to ‘play’ with Smart Notebook!

Pre Trial jitters

It’s that time of the year again.  HSC trials on next week and year 12 have been practicing writing in 40 minute blocks. It’s the time when I look back at what I’ve taught and compared it to what they have learned. This is when they discover ‘learning’ also means remembering! And I wish I could restart the clock at term 4 last year and start all over again. However, I can’t,  so must focus on what I can realistically do to support those whose minds have been elsewhere  and those that really haven’t read the text (I couldn’t understand it miss, so I gave up!) and those that think a page and half essay is enough.  Message to self – revision, revision, revision! And enough with the TLC – be a nazi when it comes to homework and participation in class.

There is some light on the horizon – I have been a nazi with my current year 11 and they are keen and enthusiastic most of the time. And year 10 are in the middle of selecting courses for year 11 and year 7 are just plain fun.

I’ve continued on with twitter – and am steadily increasing those I follow. And joined a ning – steep learning curves here. I’ve spent a bit of time this morning updating website – year 11 like being able to check the lessons they have missed and with all the flu going around lots of are trying to keep up to date online. Year 11 have their work placements over the next few weeks and then a trip to the snow (educational of course). This usually means that the less motivated students take time off – leaving a big continuity hole in the middle of term 3.  I am hoping that the website links will keep the Advanced classes on track.

The English staff are off to ‘Moving to Notebook’ training this week – swapping from Activstudio to Smart Notebook. Our school will get an injection of funds next year (National partnerships funding) so more IWB we hope. We are also joining in the Festival of Laptops conference – using the VC suite. A very busy tech time for us all.

Now I am off to do the weekly shopping, enjoy the sunshine and avoid marking.

But I did personalise my laptop!

It has been a while since I posted – too many other exciting things to do, like read and rest and try to stay on top of marking. Laptops have arrived and like many other DET staff I have been playing and thinking about how I will use them in the classroom. I don’t have a year 9 this year and this is useful, since I usually have ‘free’ periods when year 9 are on and should be able to support the teachers in the classroom.  I think we are going to have a lot of fun with sorting out what we are all talking about – have a look at my ‘personalised’ laptop – I know it isn’t the digital meaning but it sure makes it easier to find mine when they all look the same!

But I did personalise it!

I took mine into class on the last day of term and my year 10’s helped me find some things – and showed me how to use the bluetooth – we identified everyone in the classroom who had their mobile phones turn on – talk about Big brother.

I’ve finally signed up to twitter. I think I’m going to have to go wireless. How will I keep up with checking everything regularly and still get my daily dose of family and TV, unless I can multitask and twitter at the same time? At least the laptop would allow me to do that.

I’ve been doing some PL with other faculties and spent a very enjoyable day with one of our HSIE teachers. Mark has put his hand up for the new IWB in HSIE and we are in limbo with Activstudio until we get regional support with Smartnotebook,  so I looked at all the ways you could use the IWB without using a flipchart – turns out there were heaps of interactives and other resources available on the net for his subject area. He also liked the collection of literacy and numeracy games links I have put on the school lesson drive. This has been really useful for other teachers in the school. The kids told them where to find the page! I’m a bit disappointed the DET didn’t stick with Activ studio – so far I haven’t found Smart resources as easy to use or find. Promethean planet has such a huge resource bank and all it needed was for more Australian teachers to upload their stuff.

Well. It is beautiful day outside so I’m off for some R&R in the sun.

Revisit! review! reteach! revise!

As a professional learning task this year our principal asked that we explore Close the Achievement Gap (from the In a Nutshell series, Hawker Brownlow).  I led the discussion on Chapter 4: Revisit! review! reteach! revise!. The chapter explores the concept of ‘leaving nothing to chance’.  For me it was a recognition that I had been leaving revision to chance.

So this year I have consciously revisited, reviewed, retaught and revised. I discovered that a quick quiz at the end of a lesson or a week later was a powerful learning tool, that there are lots of different ways to improve recall, that they have to know the story of a Shakespearian play really well to understand anything else about it, that kids need serious memory training and that ‘re-teaching’ needs to be programmed explicitly.

With this aim in mind I have been working on a ‘jeopardy’ game using a ‘flipchart’ on Yeats’ poetry and ‘memory’ games on key words and concepts.

I used a  ‘memory’ game on language devices with year 10 who are in the final preparation stage for their SC Literacy test. Who would think that a simple memory game (turning cards over and matching a device with an example) would generate so much enthusiasm from a bunch of Year 10 boys? The whole group of boys became totally involved in the game shouting instructions to the kids whose turn it was at the board. Amazing! Then they wanted to play another one!

Fun with friends

At this time of the year I’m doing a fair bit of professional learning with colleagues. On Thursday I ran a workshop on using cooperative learning in the classroom using some year 7 classes do ‘demonstrate’ how it works. This proved to be a really useful model for working with other teachers. The teacher talk both on the day and since has been really inspiring, with everyone trying out new things in their classrooms. We need to do this more often!

Cool Games and Interactives

I was looking for some games for year 10 and found some fun revision games for year 10 first period tomorrow (in a computer lab). They are a bit sick of the Multiple Choice SC Literacy generator at the Board of Studies site. I plan to use BBC Games for 14-16 years and some grammar games from Learning.org. Judging by their response last time I let them loose with some games there should be a lot of ‘peripheral learning’ going on. We might also have a look at Power proofreading and  an online crossword on technical language at Wicked

I also found ClassTools.net Games for education which has templates so you can design your own. Haven’t tried it yet but I will. This one could be really handy for creating my own resources for the Interactive White board. Another useful site in my search was Teacher Tap: Interactive Tools which had some good links to game sites.

More useful things

The games were a huge hit and not just with year 10. Have been poking around online today and found some other useful sites. I’m preparing Module A: Richard III and Looking for Richard and came across Film Education which has some great notes and study guides on a huge range of films. I think this is a very interesting pairing of texts (and a refreshing change from Blade Runner and Brave New World). I’m planning to show the film first because I think it will engage students in a closer reading of the play itself as well as give them some insights into authentic questions about the play as a play.

Revisited TeacherTube. What a great site this is – have visions of an assessment task where students create a 3 minute video on Richard III and Looking for Richard and post it on TeacherTube!

Bravos and Brick Bats

I’m going to brag a bit here. Two of our lovely Year 11 students are State finalists in the ABC HEYWIRE competition. As there were only 9 State finalists for NSW we are naturally preening at the moment.

We set the Heywire writing brief as an assessment task for Year 11 early in the year and this is the first year any of our students have been selected. Teachers worked in lessons with students on listening to and analysing previous entires as models of good writing and working through planning, drafting and revising processes . The great thing about their writing is the way kids found their ‘voice’, something they often have difficulty doing.

The competition is open to young people in rural and remote Australia and they are asked to write/record a one minute personal comment on youth issues. Both students are taping their entries this week and these will be aired on ABC Local radio. Cause for celebration, not only of their achievement but also the wonderful work of the English teachers I work with!

On the brick bats, I’m going to have a whinge about State governments that change email systems (with not a lot of preparation) and then don’t transfer your distribution lists or provide sufficient ‘help’ to navigate a completely different process for creating contact lists or address books!

I feel much better now.

NSW ETA Annual Conference

As usual, had a great time, caught up with lots of teaching friends, made some new ones and came away inspired. Thanks to Darcy and Kelli for their enthusiastic support of new ways of engaging students. Can’t wait to try out Wiki’s and blogs with kids! Also came back very tired with loads of end of year admin work to do ….

Holiday To Do List

One week til end of Term and 5 weeks holiday! Yippee. I always start the Christmas hols with a wish list. This year’s list:

family time …

eat healthy and get more exercise …

party!

lots of gardening …

lots of reading …

clean up teaching resources and filing

prepare some work for school…

play with new technology…

get a bigger monitor screen …

Yep!

Thought so.

Same list as last year!

7 things you really don’t need to know about me meme

Darcy Moore tagged me for this so I’m having a go.

1. I didn’t know what a meme was until I googled it and then I got too much information

2. I broke my leg in two places when I was 14 (at a Girl Guide camp) and carried a hip to toe plaster caste for 5 months. It weighed more than I did at the time.

3. I’m shorter than I look

4. I used to ride a 5′ red surf board (until a truck ran over it) that had a really weird surface design because the guy who made it (son of parent’s friends) got drunk when he was applying the surface coats. I rode it anyway.

5. I played International scrabble on line until I got bored.

6. I made myself a long black coat with a white peace sign on the back and wore it to a local dance when I was 16. I thought I was really cool.

7. I can recite The Man from Snowy River

I tag

Penny Ryder

Lauren O’Grady

Mr B-G

Thinking Routines

It has taken me a while to get back to this. The beginning of the school year is always busy but this year was busier than most – might have had something to do with my New Year’s Resolution: have more fun. The moral of the story: if you party with friends all weekend you don’t have much time left for school work and blogging!

The last edition of Metaphor had some great articles (Well done Mel Dixon and team!) and I was ’specially interested in Thinking Routines, an article by Matthew Bentley, so I spent some time checking out the Harvard University’s Visible Thinking website.  It is a great resource, easy to navigate and ‘plain English’ explanations of the theory and the practice. I plan to try out a few of the routines in the weeks ahead.

Our Year 10’s are working on ‘Voices of a Generation’ this term. The main concept is that language enpowers us and throughout history people have used language in many creative ways to change their world. We begin with protest songs, take a look at Romanticism and move on to to famous speeches. Kids are asked to consider how they can be the voice of their generation and the ‘tools’ they have to do this. So I am going to try out the Thinking Routine ‘HereNow/There Then’ after we compare Dire Straights’ Industrial Disease and William Blake’s London. Should be fun!

Another great little site I’ve been using with the Interactive Whiteboard is SpellingCity.com. It’s a handy site where you put in a spelling list and the site generates about 15 games as well as a ‘test’ feature and a ‘teachme’ feature. Have a look, it’s free and easy to use.

Poster fun

I discovered Glog’s today – what a lot of fun this will be in English lessons. Many thanks to the OZteacher mailing list and to Judith Way.

My first Glog

Judith pointed me towards the Global Teacher blog. Looks like one to visit often.

Revisiting Animal Farm

Still feeling snowed under but having fun just the same. I began a unit on Animal Farm with my year 11 Advanced course class this week. I had forgotten how good it could be in a classroom as I haven’t taught it for about 15 years. I started with some work on fables and fairytales and the kids responded well to the challenge of going beyond the simple and obvious and delving deeper into the nature of these tales and how they reflect values and ideas about human society.

If you haven’t had a look at Teachers Love Smartboards I have to recommend it as a source of terrific sites, especially if you are starting out with an IWB – so many great resources. In the last post there was a link to FlashcardDB – an interactive site where you can create sets of flashcards that work well on the IWB. I started with a small set on some technical terms for year 11 and plan to create their revision quiz on their research homework with it. It is very easy to use and kids should have a lot of fun with it.

I’ve also been poking around Australian Screen. This is the Australian National Film and Sound Archive site and it is truly tremendous. So many resources for Australian teachers and many of the clips have teachers notes as well. I was looking for something to inspire Year 10 who are creating their own presentations on ‘Voices of a generation’ and found a 3 minute clip on Oogeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), a short clip from Forever Hold your Peace showing a High school student delivering a speech at an Anti-Vietnam war rally and another on Helen Lothan Robertson (1848–1937), a pioneer of female trade unionism in Australia. That should shake them up!

Another high note this week was seeing one of my colleagues using the IWB with a year 8 class. One of our regular relief teachers, Anna, found herself last period with Year 8 in the Connected Classroom. She had done a quick search at lunchtime and found an interactive site, Myths and Legends from E2BN. With only a quick look at what the site could do Anna and Annie, a beginning teacher on her first day in our faculty, were able to engage the class in working together to create a story using the IWB. The kids ‘held the pen’ and demonstrated the golden rule of IWB – the kids must have the power to engage with the technology.

I also managed to set up Google Reader, sign up to Delicious to manage my increasing bookmarks and set up a Contact email list for my Year 11 class. Darcy would be proud of me!

Creativity, Procedures and ‘old dogs learning new tricks’

What a lot we pack into our days! Last week we hosted a visit from acclaimed author, Jen McVeity. Jen has delievered her workshops  ‘Seven Steps to Success’ both in 2007 and 2008 and we asked her to come again this year. Jen’s creative writing workshops are fun, stimulating and the emphasis is on inspiring creativity in kids. Her mantra is a simple one: keep it short, make sure it’s fun and teach the microskills. Just as we learn a skill in sport, writing narratives needs to be broken down into the ’serve’, the ‘lob’ and the ‘backhand smash’. If you sign up for the newsletter Jen revisits each of the steps in her course with great classroom ideas.

This year Jen delivered a workshop on ‘The Final Four’ to a mixed group that inlcuded teachers of English, Drama, Aboriginal Studies, History, Visual Arts and Geography. Jen’s steps are about narrative but aren’t just for English teachers. The steps can be applied to all topics for writing and writing narratives is a great strategy for increasing literacy and deep knowledge in any subject. In fact, some really interesting things happen when you apply the ’story graph’ Jen uses for planning to writing a speech or a reflection on learning!

Now, about ‘old dogs learning new tricks’. I bought myself a copy of Harry and Rosemary Wong’s The First Days of School after reading about it on  Marie’s Learning Curve blog. I thought it would be useful for the beginning teachers I work with as well as offer me some fresh ideas. You can read Harrry’s column on effective classroom management at Teachers.Net and there are lots of great ideas. I meant to just ‘dip’ into the book but ended up reading the whole thing. While the chapter on effective classroom management is a winner, it mainly confirmed the things I do (teach kids the ‘routines’ that make the classroom run more smoothly).  I realised that I do these things because I learnt the hard way, through years of experience and days of frustration in the early years. Harry’s message is that all teachers need to learn these things early in their teaching carreer, or we lose those teachers because the classroom becomes too frustraing and not at all fulfilling.

The chapter that really got me thinking was about ‘writing good assignments’. Once I figured out what Harry meant by ‘assignments’ – lessons! – I was confronted with what is probably a self evident truth to everyone else out there: telling the kids what the lesson concept is, identifying the learning objectives clearly and then matching both the lesson strategies and the ‘test’ to these objectives guarantees better results.

Now I know I do these things most of the time in most lessons but just the same, I started to think about how well I was doing it. First thing I did was help some year 10’s with an assessment task on researching a ‘voice of a generation’ and then preparing a presentation for the class. The original task had 6 broad ’steps’ to guide students. Taking Harry’s advice I broke down each step  using ‘verbs’ from Bloom’s taxonomy and then finishing the sentence. There were 15 things kids had to do to complete the task effectively!

Here’s an example: ” Step 3 – Reasearch the life and context of the world your composer inhabited” became:

• List the main events in the person’s life.
• Describe the historical events that impacted on the person’s life.
• Explain any social changes during this peron’s life.
• Explain any events that influenced this person in a significant way.
• Describe the medium this person uses.
• Describe the audience this person addressed.

I was a bit stunned – no wonder some of the kids were having trouble with the task! I’m sure I verbalise these substeps when talking about the task but we all know how well teenagers listen!

Needless to say, I’ve been looking at all my lesson preparation in a whole new light! So, we are never too old to learn new tricks. Which is just as well, since the DET in all its wisdom and after spending lots on training Connected Classroom teachers to use Activstudio software, has decied to change to ‘Notebook 12′ for Smartboards. Just when I thought I had mastered Activstudio!

Thinking about laptops and learning

Lots of rainy days these holidays so I have been revisiting my website and thinking about how we are going to manage classrooms with laptops.

My first real foray into using technology in the classroom occurred when I got a new computer some years ago, complete with MS Frontpage. With the help of the Ozteachers mailing list I learnt to create a website and spent another rainy holiday immersed in thinking about how I could use it in the classroom. The website has been through many revisions since then and with the purchase of a new monitor (I had been using the 17″ for a really long time!) and a  wide screen I discovered the site didn’t look so good and had really small font. I also realised the site was being accessed more by teachers than students at my school and that it had become a ‘filing cabinet’ for websites I’d found that would be useful later.

This holiday I learnt to link to a word document in the website. About time some would say especially when it is so easy to do. Anyway, I’ve spent some time tidying up pages, linking to word documents  I had saved that will be useful in the classroom, as well as putting in some units I’ve used a few times to share with other teachers. This led me to thinking  about how I might use the website and the linked documents when year 9 get their laptops some time in term 2.  I am wondering how others will approach their use in the classroom and can already imagine some great teaching opportunities and engagement of some students as well as the need for some new classroom procedures! Being able to put a lesson plan with embedded links on the website may be very handy when students are able to go directly to the page.

TeacherTube.com

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via TeacherTube.com.