23 February , 2010

Up Here Where The Air Is Clear!

Posted by marama28 under 21st Century, Leadership, Managing A School, Nuts and Bolts | Tags: , , , |
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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!

 

29 October , 2009

Leading Change: 10 students and 0.5 teachers at a time!

Posted by marama28 under 21st Century, Leadership, blog | Tags: , , , , |
[5] Comments 

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/