"everyday is a learning day"

I know…, you know …, we all known, that self-review is essential for good practice.  True self-review should be the combination of both formal and informal review tools.  These tools may include personal reflections, professional conversations, mentoring, professional appraisal, journals and learning circles.  Personally I enjoy engaging in self-review through reflecting and sharing my practice in a professional blog. My blog is where I engage in my own professional form of ‘just-in-time’ learning; it is here where my self-review with make an immediate impact on my practice. What I am having trouble with at the moment is wondering whether it is appropriate for me to engage in this medium during school time.

The Background:  I am the Principal of a Sole Charge Rural School.  This means that for 0.7 (three and a half days) of my week I am a normal classroom teacher, well as normal as you can get with eleven students, (grin) and for the other 0.3 (one and a half days) I am in the office doing management and leadership tasks.  I do not do any planning or classroom prep. during my 0.3 release, this is all done after the kids have left for the day or in the weekends (like any normal teacher).

The Requirements: As a part of my involvement with the First Time Principals Programme, and as specified in my job description, I am required to engage in self-review.  In fact, I have been advised by my mentor and my appraiser to keep a professional journal.  I would like to use this blog as my professional journal; I can easily keep any sensitive posts private or password protect them (save the trees!)

The Question: Is it appropriate for me to set aside time from my 0.3 release to reflect in my professional journal (this blog)?  Or should I be engaging in this reflection outside of school time, in my own time?

The Guilt: The reality is that I just haven’t done it at home because I am just so tired when I finally get there.  I would like to do it during my release time but I don’t know if this is ok?  Can I justify this as a good use of leadership and management time? Shouldn’t I be using my time for the benefit of the students learning?  But what about me, should I also be making sure that I am the best possible leader I can be? (and not burn out with the effort).

The Ideal: What I really want is to know that it’s ok for me to add regular self-review entries to this blog, which is all about my experiences as a 21st Century Learner and Educator, during my release time and not allow my professional life to invade my personal one.  I want to stop feeling guilty.

I love these two talks.  The first was recorded in 2006 and the second was recorded this year at the February TED Talk.  One day I am going to go to TED!

How can I start a revolution in my school?

Thanks to Brian Lockwood for the link to this very cool video.

I wonder how this effects education and my practice …

A Leading Change Up-Date!

You may all remember the list I made back in October.  Well I am happy to report that I have made some very good progress!

1. Obtain Domain Name details. – Done! Took me three months but finally found it at xtra Business – charging us $45.00 per year for the Domain name, plus $14.00 per month to host the website they were not actually hosting!
   
2. Sign up for Google Apps – Super easy, I switch the Domain hosting to Inspire Net ($45.00 per year total), did the online form for Google Aps, and emailed any technical instructions (copy and pasted from the google site) to Inspire Net.  Was set up in an afternoon, and my free Education subscription was approved in exactly two weeks to the day!
   
3. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget. -Did a bit of that, but then gave up and played tennis.
   
4. Re-assess our ISP – InspireNet, Telecom, or Vodafone? (we have very limited options in Kiwi-land) – Went with Inspire Net.  They were so helpful and hooked us up to their Wireless Network. Cost $350.00 installation, $70.00 per month for 10gig per month, 4mb download, 1.4mb upload -guaranteed! Sooooooo Fast!
   
5. Spend at least 17 hours fixing internet connection problems or just waiting while I am on hold. – Was not put on hold once at Inspire Net, again soooooooooo fast!
   
6. Create a new (official serious stuff) school website  – Self-hosted with Joomla or hosted by InspireNet with Wordpress MU or use a hosted site like Weebly or Google Sites. – Again – Inspire Net is on the job!  They are hosting our site for free, all we had to do was put their little logo at the bottom of our site.  Sweet!  Check it Out!
   
7. Up-load all policy documents to Google Docs and link to school site – Na, scrapped the google docs thing, does make a nice enough looking webpage.  Used Scribd instead, fantastic looking embedded PDFs, very professional – check them out here (click on a folder)
   
8. Write the elearning policy – yik, still doing that …
   
9. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget – decided it would be more fun to go white water rafting down the road instead.
   
10. Start applying for Trust Grants to up-grade the current elearning infra-structure – Didn’t actually need to, after I presented an audit of all of the out of date gear, the BOT approved the purchase of three new iMacs, a Macbook lease and a new digital video camera.  Woohoo!
    
11. Set up school accounts – Flickr, Voicethread, Delicious, Edublogs, GlogsterEdu, etc. – Done, for all except Glogster, will do that later in the year, have to teach the kids how to use their basic blogs first.
    
12. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget. – Smiled to myself, because it turns out the budget was not so small after all!
    
13. Decide if I should go to Learning @School or Ulearn10 and/or the NZPF National Conference. – Not going to NZPF Conference, sound to serious, am applying for a grant to go to Ulearn, I have so many more things to present!!!  Maybe three workshops this time!
    
14. Create a school/class learning blog (for the fun learning stuff in edublogs) am thinking I might get the students to create a school mascot to host the blog. – Just decided to combine it with the school one, don’t you think our mascot (the Voki Character) is cute?  We thought we might call her Lady BaBa!
    
15. Create an ePortfolio for each child (in Edublogs) and set up their school email accounts. – Done!  Slowly does it while we work through the necessary skills.
    
16. Clean out the old school room (currently used as storage) and turn it into an awesome Creative Art Space! – turns out this amazing space has no instillation, so maybe a tad too cold in the winter when it snows (and it doesn’t have water or power, but it does have rodents!), anyway heaps of space in the classroom.
    
17. Feed the chickens. – and lock them in their run so they don’t keep coming into my kitchen!!!

And Once more Sooooo Fast!  Thanks Inspire Net!

Breath in deep and taste that country air!

Up here at 600 metres above sea level you can see for miles, no wonder it has taken me so long to sit down and write a post!  I mean check out my view …

Though I guess I should admit to being a fairly slack blogger during the summer break (well in general really).  I am not actually a big fan of writing, I would much rather curl up and read a book, so I really must force myself to sit down write.  In fact the only real reason I do this at all is because I know I have an audience. An audience who is choosing to read my thoughts and opinions.  Maybe even gaining a bit of advice or a few new ideas from my natter about all things great and small in the world of eLearning.

Yep, I write this solely for a purpose, the purpose to connect with my ever patient and kind audience. This of course does make me wonder … do my students feel that there is a purpose behind what I ask them to write? Does ones teacher and class mates make an authentic audience?  And if I have answered ‘No’ to both question (which I have),  why am I making them do any writing at all? Hmmmm

This blog has helped me find a purpose and motivation for writing, it has given me an authentic audience.

If I give my students a blog, will they also find theirs?

I must say, all this oxygen deprivation is making my head spin!

“…almost one in five students are leaving school without the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need.”

Wow, that’s pretty fantastic!  That means that over 80% of all New Zealand School children are leaving school with the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need!

Of the 20% who are not achieving at the expected level for their age group, I will safely estimate that a quarter of them are  special needs or have been identified as having learning difficulties.  So we could probably bump that 80% closer to 90%.

Let’s put this into a real classroom, my classroom.

Fractions, Proportions and Ratios Stages 5-6:

I have 30 students – Year 3 and 4 (7, 8 and 9 years old).

(Well actually I have 28, but we will use 30 as a nice round number, I don’t want to make this to hard for you Mrs Tolley, I know that you are too busy to speak to or listen to us) (Also 30 is closer to the average class size in little old NZ).

1 out of 5 of them is below expected age levels in literacy and numeracy.

30 divided by 5 equals 6.

6 students are below – yep that’s my lowest reading group.

Of those six almost two of them have been identified as having learning difficulties.

(Luckily for me almost all of my students come to school after having a good nights sleep, breakfast, are well dressed for the weather and have a good healthy lunch in their bag).

Which means 4 of them are below.  So that’s 4 out of thirty? (correct me if I am wrong Mrs Tolley).

Yep I knew that!

That’s why I differentiate my teaching.  That’s why I get them as much extra help as possible from the funding that’s available to my school.  That’s why I have spoken to their parents and have given them strategies to help their children.

If the government wanted to know this, all they had to do was ask.

Hey! Brain Wave!

Instead of wasting millions of dollars on reprinting existing resources and renaming them as National Standards.  Why don’t you use that money to reduce my class size to 22 so that I can spend more time with my struggling students.

Makes sense to me …

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will be beginning a new position next year as a Sole-Charge Principal at Pukeokahu School (Pukeokahu means The Hill of The Hawk).  To put this into perspective for you non-kiwis out there – I will begin the year (Feb 2nd 2010) with 10 students aged between 7 and 12 years, with two 5 year olds beginning half way through the year.  I am expected to teach across all age levels with 0.3 release (one and a half days per week) to complete school administration.  One of the biggest appeals about this school is the extremely high level of community support.  The Board of Trustees (BOT) fundraises every year to employ a second teacher for an additional one and a half hours per day (0.2 teaching time) to focus on Junior Literacy (Yeah! I’m not alone!).

Soooo … I have a bit of a challenge ahead of me.  The teaching part will be as sweet as a nut, but I now need to learn all about the compliance stuff!  The paper work, administration, budgets, pay-roll (eek! I have heard many a horrible tale about pay-roll!), and water-testing will definitely be a challenge for me.  Yes, you did read that correctly, I do have to test the drinking water once a month!  But what is life without a challenge?  I say bring it on because I also get to do the exciting stuff, and by exciting I mean super-sized-geeky-fun exciting stuff! I now have a blank slate to create a personalised elearning environment for my school community. Woohoooo!

I thought I might share my ever increasing ‘To Do’ list with you:

1. Obtain Domain Name details.
2. Sign up for Google Apps.
3. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
4. Re-assess our ISP – InspireNet, Telecom, or Vodafone? (we have very limited options in Kiwi-land)
5. Spend at least 17 hours fixing internet connection problems or just waiting while I am on hold.
6. Create a new (official serious stuff) school website  – Self-hosted with Joomla or hosted by InspireNet with Wordpress MU or use a hosted site like Weebly or Google Sites.
7. Up-load all policy documents to Google Docs and link to school site.
8. Write the elearning policy.
9. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
10. Start applying for Trust Grants to up-grade the current elearning infra-structure.
11. Set up school accounts – Flickr, Voicethread, Delicious, Edublogs, GlogsterEdu, etc.
12. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget.
13. Decide if I should go to Learning @School or Ulearn10 and/or the NZPF National Conference.
    
14. Create a school/class learning blog (for the fun learning stuff in edublogs) am thinking I might get the students to create a school mascot to host the blog.
15. Create an ePortfolio for each child (in Edublogs) and set up their school email accounts.
16. Clean out the old school room (currently used as storage) and turn it into an awesome Creative Art Space!
17. Feed the chickens.

As you can see, I have quite a lot to do and a few decisions to make before the beginning of the new school year.  I will be blogging as I go to let you all know how I go.  Hopefully I will have plenty of tips and tricks I can share with you all as I bumble along.  I would also appreciate any wisdom and in-sites you could share with me

Images sourced gratefully under creative commons licence from:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33852082@N00/323568343/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sflovestory/3746500354/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themonnie/2735689978/

I must first apologise for neglecting my blogging obligations.  It would seem that life is flashing  by and piling up at a furious pace.  Between attending and presenting at ulearn09; preparing my class for term four; PAT and STAR testing for school reports and preparing for my new position as Principal at Pukeokahu School, I have been avoiding this blog with vigour.   However, guilt has raised its furry head and I have decided to just get on with it.

So … ulearn09 was fantastic!  As an attendee it was an energetic experience; but as a presenter it was a blast.

Early on in the year I decided that my Professional Development Goal would be to take every opportunity to present  to a professional audience.  When ulearn09 came up I saw it as a fantastic way to extend my presentation experience.  Though in hindsight, I must admit that the decision to present at ulearn09 was kind of like jumping into the deep end without my floaties!   But, all in all, after all of the stress and sweaty palms, everything worked out well and it was over quicker than … well you can read the title.

My hands-on workshop was about using Web2.0 tools to enhance a classroom blog, like I had done with my classblog – The Wocket Spot Blog.  I decided to design my workshop to be run like the Amazing Race.  Collaborative groups would required to complete as many tasks as possible within a given time frame and publish their completed tasks to a mock classblog – you can check out the finish tasks here.  The point being that Web2.0 tools are quick, fun and easy to use.

All of the information needed to complete the tasks can be found in a website I have developed – Creatingewindows.com.  It was my hope that after my workshop the attendees would be able to continue using the site and share it with their colleagues and perhaps even run the Amazing Race for their own staff (I have left The Race page with all of the tasks on the site).

And of course now I offer to you all access to my wee site.  I hope it is helpful and fun to use.  I will be adding to it as time goes by and I discover other funky little Web2.0 tools that enhance learning in a blogging environment.  You are all welcome to use it to run your own Amazing Race, just drop me a line if you need help setting it up. And please let me know if you think there is anything else I should add.

Yes!!! Writers block defeated! Post is published! Guilt is dissipating and next the topic is forming in my mind!

Images sourced under creative commons licence from:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spudmurphy/2219132087/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hynkle/2720388912/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/317055520/

I am writing this post on my school’s ipod touch. It is slow going at the moment as I am still getting use to the type pad. The predictive text is a bit average and the whole process would be a lot faster if the keyboard was landscape. I discovered that the new update gives you this option but you have to pay for it! Why do we have to pay to update? It just doesn’t seem fair. You don’t have to pay to update your iPhone! I am getting faster at typing as I go, just discovered the predictive text works differently to my normal phone and is not so bad after all! In fact it is quite good for the phonically challenged like me. Well that’s enough work avoidance for now. Eight more sleeps until ulearn09! Woo hoo!

Lately I have been using Camtasia to create Screen Casts for my eWindows site.  Now usually I am a strictly freeware kind of girl (well that’s a little bit of a fib because I have paid for Edublogs, Voicethread, Flickr and my domain names, anyway …)  but I am really impressed with Camtasia.  So much so that I may even fork-out for it after my free one month trial (this is awesome, try before you buy!).

Camtasia is easy to use, has great support and tutorials.  It runs seamlessly with my Mac and uploads directly to YouTube.  At one easy payment of $99.00 (Education Pricing) I do believe it may be a keeper, though it may have to wait until after I recover from my little trip to Christchurch (only 9 more sleeps!).  O, and after we wallpaper the living room.  Below is my weekly-ish offering to the Blog-o-sphere.  My third ever Screen Cast on how to add a Wordle.net Word-cloud to a post.  So readers, I would really like some feedback here, how did I do?  It’s a lot harder than it looks.