"everyday is a learning day" » infra-structure http://maramastewart.com Exploring and Challenging Learning in the 21st Century ... Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:09:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 A Bit of List Ticking http://maramastewart.com/2010/02/23/a-bit-of-list-ticking/ http://maramastewart.com/2010/02/23/a-bit-of-list-ticking/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:33:00 +0000 marama28 http://maramastewart.com/?p=198 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!

]]> http://maramastewart.com/2010/02/23/a-bit-of-list-ticking/feed/ 0 Leading Change: 10 students and 0.5 teachers at a time! http://maramastewart.com/2009/10/29/leading-change-10-students-and-0-5-teachers-at-a-time/ http://maramastewart.com/2009/10/29/leading-change-10-students-and-0-5-teachers-at-a-time/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:38:44 +0000 marama28 http://maramastewart.com/?p=153 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/

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