Connectivity may be an issue at the Learning At School so this post may never see the light of day. The day started busily with a quick visit to Appleby for an interview with ERO about Professional Learning & Development and life & living at Appleby. The whole stress of an ERO review didn’t affect me at all- it’s a wonder what seven days at a new job can do for a girl!
After listing your professional development completed in the last 12 months they asked good questions. I directed them to my Professional Development tab at the top of this blog- that saved me half an hour! Interestingly many of my learning experiences were in collaboration with my ‘connected’ friends who weren’t in close physical proximity.
Then they asked how these experiences had been effective in helping me make important improvements in my classroom teaching?
My big question that I am grappling with was how does using ICT make measurable changes in student achievement. I was heartened by their willingness to vailidate non-mathematical measurements erring more on the wisdom of the pre-school Learning Stories- I have heard great things about Greenwood Kindergarten’s work with this while in the spa last night so I will make arrangements to visit with them on my return to Motueka.
Moving on to Learning At School……
Ten of us from Discover IT Tasman are fortunate enough to come to Rotorua and learn together. I going to record my notes on
and on Thursday at 11:15am I am going to try and do a live blogging session with Simon entitled “ Did you Know, New Zealand?” based on Carl Fisch’s video and how it relates to the New Zealand circumstances. Do join us if you have a minute on Thursday.
http://bling4yrblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/live-blogging.html
OK – off now to find an internet connection and do a little face-to-face networking. You couldn’t get a better job than this! Haven’t got time to make my post look pretty.
make the most it Allanah – looks like you’re in for a great time! Very disappointed that I can’t be there this year – so will be reading any comments you make about the keynotes and workshops with interest 🙂
If you are interested in a primary school using Learning Stories we are happy to share what we are doing. We have a broad theme for the year (2008’s theme is “power”) Each term we focus that theme in one or two curriculum areas. Term 1 for us is “Learning Power” and an health focus on Food and Fitness Power. We do some initial teacher directed lessons setting the scene and then move into an inquiry phase where the children will explore their own questions around these broad themes. At the end of the Term we or they or both of us write a learning story that describes their actions and learning for the term. This is their curriculum assessment for most areas except literacy, numeracy and PE. I’d be really interested to hear from any other schools who are doing something similar.