ITC

I was pleased to be given a day to update our web page to include 'Kidszone' and our Infocentre presence. I am getting good feedback so hopefully our web page is being used more regularly by pupils and our school community.       www.stjohnshill.school.nz
Podcasting and minicasting is going really well. Unfortunately the blogs have suffered a little because of this focus but I think the quality of writing has improved showing the influence of the Gay Byers programme. See http://www.stjohnshill.school.nz/kidszonepodcasts%20and%20movies.htm 
http://karakakids3.blogspot.co.nz/
Being able to publish the lyrics and music for our production has given the pupils access at home to help practise the songs.
Mimio:
Looking forward to a Literacy based course in a few weeks -should be really helpful.

Leading From the Middle -MOE

An interesting read looking at the partnerships and networks we are involved in:

• use of current evidence based information
• understanding of change processes work and the schools capacity for change
• problem solving
• place of pedagogy
• what leadership is
• need for opportunities for PD
• voice for the team
• empowering team
• careers and aspirations
• being supportive
• innovative approaches to improve learning.

Another interesting doc to consider:

www.accel-team.com/_pdf/teamLeaderSkills.pdf 

use of current evidence based information -I think we do this quite well as a team.Alison makes this easy for us re data. I think we use Maths data well to for grouping and reporting. With writing our team has healthy debate during moderating.

understanding of change processes work and the schools capacity for change - a gray area here for me.

problem solving -I feel that our team is quite talented in this in many ways -I feel our sharing is positive and affirming.

place of pedagogy -I feel this is embedded into our practice -we may need however to discuss current practices/PD and how we synthesise this into our practice -class visits as we do at times with Mimio

what leadership is - facilitating, organising, preparing, supporting, being informed,shared vision,                           Communication, Integrity,...  

An interesting article:

What Leadership is not:
About saying the right thing, it is about doing the right thing. Read: The Leadership Minute 4 – Integrity
About knowing what should be done. It is about (always) doing what should be done. Read: Be The One – Thoughts on Leadership
About making decisions. It is about making intelligent decisions and understanding the consequences both good and bad. Read: Every Decision Has a Consequence
Learned in a classroom. It is learnt from falling on your face, brushing off the dirt, and doing it again. 4 Reasons to Embrace Adversity
About telling people what to do. It is about inspiring them to act. Read: The Art of Empowerment
Achieved by reading books. It is achieved by applying the knowledge ascertained. Read: 5 Leadership Lessons You Can Only Get From Experience
About your ego. It is about your lack of ego. Read: The Leadership Minute – Humility
About never failing. It is about failing with a purpose. Read: Why Fail Gracefully
 
Still need to consider how I fit with these these issues:

voice for the team

empowering team

careers and aspirations 

being supportive

innovative approaches to improve learning.



The Voice. Plunging into PODCASTING

Have spent many hours with a few of my class learning to operate 'Audacity' a great program once you get with it! I am keen for the kids to get a better voice in our web so have started on the path of interviewing and recording ideas aurally. What considerations they have have found out about.
Simply plunging a microphone into someone's face does not give the expected results at all! They are now learning about how to use their voice, how to sort out what their end product should be and how they are going top achieve it. This includes preparing questions and sharing them with the interviewee and also the roles of the reporting group.
Our first pod cast has been made and hopefully it will become a pupil lead means of recording the amazing things we do at our school.

The Ubiquitous Library 24 May 2012

Attended a really motivating course run by Debbie from National Library Service. Aimed at creating a real and engaging presence on line as well as in the school, we looked at how other schools embed their library as part as the culture/presence of their school.
The main foci:

• Developing, organising and promoting your school library online and connecting with your school community.
• Investigating and evaluating school libraries online – how visible is your school library and what are the attributes of an effective school library homepage?
• A hands-on workshop to investigate, organise and plan a range of content for your online school library.

It was a great reminder, as the blog I had running for last years Librarians had 'fallen off' and I had not included the Library as part of the school web - some thing I manage! DOH!!
Hmm action is required Jan!
We started the session looking at defining our library and the web 2.0 tools we can use.
We then went online and had a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the online presence of some NZ schools, noting what worked really well and things to be aware of  when we plan our 'presence'.
The bottom line is to get a Library web page up and furnish some links from it... e.g. our vision; info for parents; our librarians blog and maybe a 'What's On' link.
This is all stuff I will need to set up but will have to do it as I have time.
The blog page is there ready for the Librarians to get started on to be monitored by our Infocentre Manager.
I can see the SJHS 'bookworm' being useful wee icon to use on the web page as a 'links' button for these pages.

ANYWAY A FEW BOTTOM LINE MESSAGES:

• Keep pages updated
• Get pupils to drive the blog content - they know their audience!

Think about  using delicious or Diigo for online bookmarking for favourites etc. I am go to explore using the educators facility for my class research on the Whanganui River.

Cathy Cranston ..Gaye Byers...Personal Recount Writing -A slice of life.

• Model given -A3 size or mimio -kids don't all have models initially.
• Teacher's own writing is best.. 4 examples are on T Share in Recount folder
• Highlight the language features... question -fire at them  -what's that? onomatopoeia, hyperbole, etc,..  why do we like the first statement - it's a hook etc..
• 3 part structure -Intro, middle, strong ending
• Writing a slice of life.

What is a slice of life?

• Not a dawn to dusk story -cut out the details...One exciting part - exaggerate.... plenty of detail.. as though the reader is there -one moment not a whole weekend/day etc..
• paint a picture for the reader
• It is PERSONAL recount not a factual recount/report

The model is to help:

• Vocabulary -extend
• Phrases -overuse;
• Sentence beginnings -avoiding starting with 'The" Underneath , Beside..
• Focus on  a specific thing - adjectives; adverbs etc.. Use of ellipsis......
• Clearly and concisely get the message across - word choice.
• Why is it cool??

Structure:

• 10-15 minutes of priming -mat
• 5 minutes of planning (1,2,and 3) e.g. getting the present, 2 guessing what it  is 3, what it is.
• 20 minutes uninterrupted writing.
• 5-10 proofing/re crafting; sharing.

1. Description of unknown
2. Senses
3. Goodnight

Going to bed:
Shopping
Haircut
Grocery Shopping
Diving in
Washing hair
Caught in the rain
First ... Game
First tooth
Fish n Chips
Out for Tea
Wind
Snow
First day at class (Room 3 )

Ideas for recount writing:

I.T. Update!

Well a magic happening! I have managed to stumble my way through and ... MADE A PODCAST!
Here it is, starring some writers from my class!

I decided to do this to publish Cameo writing in a different media .... I like it and so do the class!
Early days yet but one more step on the way to creating Podcasts from my room!
I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo excited!
Will describe the steps involved sometime after Appraisals, reports etc....

ICT Update

I was very pleased to be able to help produce this wee movie about the Battle of the Mountains. It has been a great learning experience -especially for the two narrators -they have had to be very critical about their delivery, expression and volume. We used Windows Live Movie Maker and Audacity. Our next step is that the class is dividing up into small groups to produce their own movie about Maui Snares the Sun. Aleady they are talking about things they need to be aware of when narrating- watch this space!

My major learning curve was to get a handle on using Audacity. I had spent a few hours at another school looking at the software they are using. Weebly looked quite good and I thought I might use it instead of Blogger for the class homework. I tried a few things but found Blogger is more flexible - especially when  wanting to embed HTML scripts. e.g. using Linoit