for the kids....

I have had such an amazing week, some days I can barely believe I get paid to do this, by the end of the week however, I was reflecting deeply on what I truly want to do. The week began with a curriculum day at Ivanhoe Grammar and my brain was invigorated by professional conversations with a range of people, I met up with Joseph Papaleo, our minds and ideas raced faster than we could speak. I presented at Huntingtower and by the end of the workshop had eight staff blogging, groups making podcasts, mini-movies and feeling so much more comfortable with technology.

I liased with the Principal team at Bulleen Special School about establishing the Principles of Learning and Teaching into their setting so that it was non-threatening, sustainable and effective. Sat in on a full day session on Effective Writing in the Primary Classroom (Writer's Workshops) at Templestowe Heights Primary- they are adopting a whole school approach. I was asked to run a half-day Professional Development day for Manningham Park Primary in June. I will run Sessions on Assessment, and using tools for assessment incorporating some protocols. Manningham has also asked me to model 'thinking tools' once a week at their staff meetings.

Thursday I drove to Rowville to meet my mentor Daphne Clements, Assistant Principal at Rowville Secondary College. I have been fortunate to have been selected to be a participant in the Eleanor Davis program. This was just an informal meeting before the program begins but the thought of shadowing her, and getting the 'big picture' experience of how a school operates is exciting and inspiring.

On Friday attended the Assessment PD afternoon at Templestowe College and assisted a small group of LOTE staff with how to incorporate the standards, and a range of assessment tools to determine how to report on students against the progression points. That evening I attended the Year 10 formal, it was then I was overcome with a great sense of sadness and began to question what I was doing ......

Although I don't have classes now, this group had been my year 7 cohort when I was year 7 co-ordinator, the girls had invited me, many of boys sidled up beside me, cuddled me and wanted photos taken. They love towering above my almost 5 ft stature, to show how much they have grown. I watched them dressed in their finery, dancing away, I danced with some, I loved their proud faces, smiling at me, the banter and the 'connectedness' we shared and then it dawned on me, if I keep going in the type of job I am doing now, then in two years time I will have not have a relationship with any students !!!! An overwhelming feeling of melancholy came upon me......

Using a Blog to do the teaching

On Monday 16th April I am presenting at Huntingtowers' Professional Learning Day. My brief is to provide samples of many different ways teachers can incorporate ICT ( Information Communication Technologies) in their classrooms - from Prep through to year 12. I will do my best to try to inspire them with examples of Blogs, Podcasts, using programs such as MovieMaker, Photostory, imovie, Comic Life and embracing mobile technologies such as phones and iPods. After my talk staff will break up into groups and they have an hour and a half to "produce something" using any of these technologies.

To encourage staff to use the technology, instead of producing a handout, I have included the task requirements for one group, here on my Blog. So welcome !.

Your task is ;
1) to post a comment in my Blog about my presentation today - good bits, bad bits, how I could improve, (anything really !)
2) Make your own Blog
3) it must have at least one "post"
4) A link to a website
5) A photo ( it can be of you or anything else)
6) You must include links to the Blogs of the other staff in your group
7) Make a comment in another persons Blog
8) Inlcude information about yourself in the profile section
These are the mininum requirements. As in any classroom offering a "differentiated curriculum", there are many more aspects you may choose to include, if you have time.

You may use any of these free sites, Blogger.com, Edublogs , Schoolblogs.com or Classblogmeister.com. Although at the time I wrote this, there was some difficulty with the Schoolblogs site. You may even be adventurous and find another site to host your Blog. Good Luck and I look forward to linking to your sites.

The last month

Wow! How time flies. It has been over a month since I sat down to write something. What HAVE I been doing !!. I have actually been working in four of my five schools. We have begun the PoLT (Principles of Learning and teaching) process. In the state system this is really BIG. The six principles of effective teaching. . In our cluster we have conducted the teacher interviews ( called Teacher component maps), and surveyed our students both about their learning preferences and their perception of their teacher. It is quite a daunting task for teachers who volunteer. The data will be analysed and Professional Learning Plans developed for individual teachers, for each school and for the cluster.