My mate Brian Cosby from Nevada recently posted about a very cool gadget for helping children with proof reading and reading aloud with fluency. With 32 lively children in my class the noise level often rises beyond acceptable levels and children need to be reminded to quieten down- especially as our new classroom is attached to the school reception area and everyone and their dog can hear us.

After reading Brian’s post I whipped out to the local hardware store clutching a photo of the laundry extensions from Brian’s blog. The chap at the hardware store was impressed with the weird things that teachers sometimes ask for.

The next day I gave the new ‘phones’ a try out in class. They were an instant hit- not only for their novelty value but how they helped children to hear what they had written as they read aloud. Using the ‘phone’ children were able to pick up mistakes they might have missed when proof reading on their own. Their voices dropped to an almost whisper as anything louder would shatter your eardrum.

I am giving it to readers as well as they re-read texts from guided reading lessons.

I now need to source a few more so that more children can use the technology.

Our highlight from last week was a Skype conversation with @NZWaikato’s class at Melville Intermediate in Hamilton. Every year at Appleby we take time to learn our mihi (Maori greeting). Drawing, as we do at Appleby School, from a predominately European background I find it difficult to put the learning into a authentic context. At ULearn09 I had the pleasure of meeting Myles Webb face to face and we set up a plan to have the experts in his class teach my class how to pronounce their mihi. My class is familiar with the traditions that underly how a Skype call is likely to go but Myles’s class had never tried to video Skype before.

I recorded the various test calls we made along the way while Myles beavered away behind the scenes to get the technology to work. After a number of trials we eventually got the connection going, much to the delight of both classes. Myles did well to get the audio going on his antiquated equipment but in the end couldn’t get the video to go. On the strength of the experience he has since gone out and bought a new webcam. The video below shows the progression of the call from our end. I was so impressed that Arahina was able to teach our girls their mihi so well. I was able to leave the girls alone to get on with it. You can tell over the period of the call the improvement in the korero. It will be great next week when we are able to continue the learning and we will both be able to see each other- we realised that we get a lot of clues as to whose turn it is to speak when we can see each other.

A friend rang me tonight and asked what we do at our school as regards the use of pen or pencil for general writing. At my school everyone from five year olds up use a pen for writing and a pencil for maths.

I remember when I first started teaching we used pencil pretty much all the time and if you were ‘good’ at writing you got to use a pen and we always used pencil in your maths book. Juniors always had to use a pencil and I spent many happy hours sharpening pencils with my handy Stanley knife. At one stage we accessed a powered pencil sharpener- it only lasted a few days as it was so much fun that everything that could be stuffed in it was and was immediately sharpened to a form a lethal weapon.

In my class now we use pens all the time apart from maths- why do we do maths in pencil? I have no idea really- just because we do! I have a tray of pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers etc for focus learning groups so that children don’t have to waste time trying to find something to write with. We have class sets of art pencils, felt tip, highlighter and whiteboard pens for children to use.

I have a personal hatred of liquid twink and will happily use the dry whiteout roller to correct mistakes if needed. Children can buy their own if they want but most let the school buy it for them.

I take handwriting lessons with my Year Four/Five class on a usually regular basis and recently have started to reward effort and attainment in handwriting by giving them release to practise their typing ability. I have made individual sheets for children to copy the lessons from so they don’t have to peer at a badly written example on the whiteboard and I can model better on a piece of paper than a whiteboard.

John Greatorex and I collaborated a few years back to create a set of NZ fonts for Apple and PC and I have a copy of this on my computer. It is great to put good examples of WALTs etc on the wall in NZ fonts. I had asked Learning Media to come up with a NZ font ages ago but drew a blank response so outsourced the idea!

So that’s what I do! The teacher asked if I could help her find out what other people do at other schools. A tweet was needed! I was surprised to find out that most people tend to use pencil in the younger grades and move onto to pen as the children get older.

So what do you promote in your school and why?

The focus of the day was on practical metacognition, looking at the pieces of the jigsaw that it means to be a fluent and accurate reader.

We, as teachers,  can make a difference- we can help children make accelerated progress to improve reading fluency beyond  what a child will do by maturation. There is a need for explicit teaching. Alison started by posing the question, ‘How much focussed reading time do we spend in deep reading instruction- how many minutes a week would it add up to. I have five instructional reading groups in my class and they get 20 or so minutes with me twice a week. Times that by 40 weeks. I had to do the sums a couple of times- I thought I had made a mistake. Allowing for other events that get in the way of instruction Alison has figured that children get a frankly rather pathetic- 12-18 hours of focussed reading instruction a YEAR!!! So how can we made that eighteen hours the most effective as it can be. We need to make the learning time BEFORE and AFTER the focussed reading instruction as good as it can possibly be looking carefully at what the kids are doing when they are not involved in the direct explicit instruction. The Reciprocal Reading approach came from the metacognition theorists- it hooks into what good readers do automatically and explicitly teaches it.

Knowing when you are learning, knowing when you’re not learning, what to do about it, knowing why you are learning and doing the learning. What strategies (tools) might you use when you are reading?? Like gardening- you have to know there are tools that you could use and then use them- the right tool for the task. Researcher  Michael Pressley found  that there are 40 odd strategies that good readers do to read fluently. Reading is an active activity- not a passive one.

Before the instruction it is crucial to activate Prior Knowledge.

Formative assessment WALTs…  We know we have achieved this when… Because… Success criteria- show me… Self and peer assessment as long as there is criteria to assess that your assessing peer can SEE.
Eg We are learning to visualise what we read because good readers see images as they read. We know we are successful when we tell our buddy what we ‘see’ when we are reading and give a word from the story that gives you a clue to the image that the text invokes.

Eg Leading to what did you hear when you were reading- what do you hear when the text says ‘said’? How much that word ’said’ changes the tone of what is happening in the story? Exchange that word ’said’ with whispered, stated, offered, replied, and the rest.

Importance of prior knowledge- how important that is- give it more of a place in the reading process- before the lesson with the teacher- giving children an activity the activates prior knowledge. When we talk about prior knowledge of

• content- do they know about what is happening in the story
• text selection – eg electricity first lesson might totally on the vocabulary children need to know to access the text
• structure- main characters, characters, setting plot are things that happen in fiction but it won’t be there if you are going to read a non-fiction text. How an explanation differs from a narrative as a genre.
• personal knowledge- the personal and cultural prior knowledge that children bring to the text

Construct generic graphic organisers to give some structure to this. Here comes the plug- buy the ebooks based on our NZ School Journals by yours truly here!

Example One- before reading a book about fishing have children complete the graphic organiser below to activate prior learning about fishing.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Example Two- This graphic was from a story one of my reading groups had used earlier this week- I had already made this one. I must be doing something right!

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Example Three- Children record the vocabulary they think they are likely to meet in the story and tick them off as they do meet them AND they can also tick off synonyms for those words.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Example Four- Give each child a different picture/vocab from the book and get kids think about what they are going to meet in the story- thinking critically about what they are going to read.

Anything that brings kids to stickability so that it becomes automaticity.

Struggling readers use all the cognitive capacity into decoding so that less brain power is available to thinking about what they are reading. They reach a cognitive overload- there is just so much new stuff going on that child reaches overload.

For things to stick it has give kids something to hook their new learning into and it gives you some information on what holes and gaps that they bring to prior learning. I liken this a bit to putting the full stops in when writing. It has to be so STUCK that you don’t even really need to think about it- you just do it.

The Thinking Aloud Strategy- making the strategies accessible to others by verbalising, telling others the processes, thoughts and ideas that you used to make meaning from texts. Describe what you did with your prior learning, make learning process visible to yourself and others- like we do in maths.

Knowing what ‘good’ comprehenders do-

• The ability to decode- phonemic awareness and knowledge, phonics and word attack skills

• Basic sight words- and strategies to work these out- read and SPELL in isolation and in context to automaticity- overtly taught- really high priority- a lot of them are not phonemic- so you have to get them BY SIGHT- they are high frequency in their own right but also because they are inside other words as well.

• Wide vocabulary- oral as well. The words need to be in there to start with!

• Fluency and strategies to be fluent- out loud, absolute need for prior knowledge- REPEATED READING. Kids need this so less of their brain is taken up with the decoding/struggling and more can be left over for comprehending.

• Accuracy and strategies for accuracy

• Comprehension and strategies for comprehension- main idea, summarising…

But each of these bullet points is itself huge.

So when the kids are not with you kids should be…..

Repeatedly reading
Word recognition- what to do when I come I don’t know
Basic sight words
Developing vocabulary
Focussing on accuracy
Maintenance of past taught- like visualisation

WORD RECOGNITION- Pg43 targeted observation of what to do when you don’t know- word strategies- making connections with spelling learning. A note here- I have always been a big fan of whole language learning and this focus on phonemes and the like has me close to the edge of my cognitive overload! I remember when my teachers tried to teach me long and short vowels I just could not hear the difference even though I was OK reader. It wasn’t until I tried to teach it that it sort of started to make sense to me.

Phonemic Awareness  a phoneme is the smallest sound you can hear in a word- eg d, dad, d-a-d. Whereas phonemic awareness is phonics when you see them written down. The 26 letters of the alphabet produce 43-46 sounds- long and short vowels are actually important eg cut/cute AND when you add a suffix that starts with i you loose the e- that sort of thing.

• Teach the most common rules- hard and soft sounds like hard c/ soft c. Understanding that there are exceptions but not that many with the more important ones.
• Segmenting and blending d-o-g
• Multi-syllabic words – list-en-ing
• Morphological – the knowledge of the rules like compound words, suffixes, root words ( I say ‘base word’ cos my kids snigger when I say ‘root’.)
• All of the ways that you can write that long ā sound- slay, straight, made, neighbor, prey, rein, rain, great,
• Make word lists that involve seeing the pattern that the one sound can be represented in different ways, play games based around recognising the patterns.
• Explicit teaching includes demonstration, explanation, information (what, why, when) scaffolded practice- guided to independent use, planned transfer access curricula, student demonstration, explanation and self reflection. Equipping kids with a range of tools they can use when they come to a word they don’t know.
• Onset and rime- there is a list of the most common rimes- Ake, ain, ake, all, ane, an, ank, ap, ask, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ide etc…. I thought Alison had spelt rhyme wrong at this point- just to show my ignorance!
• Peeling away to shorter more understandable words eg un-surpris-ing-ly
• How would you help a child decode ‘hospital’ page 47 or ‘benefit’; beneafit, benifit, beneyfit- are the spelling mistakes kids making phonetically acceptable. Spelling Under Scrutiny is something else I have been exploring this year also.

Things to do when you know that you don’t know a word

• Sounding out
• Vowel alert-
• Tricky part alert
• Rhyming
• Peeling off the extras
• Look for little words inside
• Look for the syllables
• Read on/ read through

A new section on TKI to help teachers with this learning… Click on the graphic to take you there…

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Vocabulary Acquisition-

Looking up in a dictionary won’t advance stickability. Many new words are learned indirectly. ALL kids need to be read to, older kids just as much as little kids. Ask a bookstore near you with staff who know kids books or the National Library.

Even ‘little words’ have big meanings. For example do a dictionary search for the little word ‘run’ use Dictionary on the Apple and http://dictionary.reference.com/ if you are on line. They give 179 meanings for run- run up, run down, run in, run out…….

Before reading- subject specific vocab- don’t be afraid to teach the vocabulary particularly if its subject specific. New vocab needs to be taught in context AND morphology in tandem to enhance vocabulary learning. Pg 106

• SPOTLIGHTING- Teacher writes a list of the vocab that might be challenging. Spotlight the words- seek and destroy. If there are red words we need to teach the meaning and its root word.
• RED if you have no idea- we need to learn these words
• ORANGE I have a bit of an idea- talk about them
• GREEN-  I am sure I know that word- look at the green words- is it a word with more that one meaning. What is the meaning of that word in this text.

Loosing me a bit here after lunch and being a Friday afternoon and all……. Just found a free wifi access, checking mail, why won’t Twitter allow me to post…. Drifting……. Drifting……. Re-focus……

• FOCUS on the base word eg if you don’t know ’sustainability’ but you do know sustain then you are much better placed to keep the meaning of what you are reading.
• Tier Words- Tier One Words- most frequently used- sight vocabulary- the must haves. Tier Two Words- frequently used- what are the words that are most important for children to know about Tier Three- subject specific- not often occurring in instruction to learn on as ‘on need to know’ basis.

AFTER THE READING VOCABULARY LEARNING

Again some graphic organisers

Organiser One- synonym web- the word in the middle and synonyms spider out from it.

Organiser Two- The Cline- put the words into steps- rate the word on a scale-

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Organiser Three- Word Families- build the family eg happy, unhappy, happily, unhappily happiest, happiness, happier. Then talk about the  grammar of these words- which of these is a noun, adjective etc

Sketch the word. How would you sketch a word like sustainability but as you do you explain why you drew that, write your own definition, write the clues for it when used in a crossword puzzle, cloze procedure and the discussion that surrounds the marking of tense, syntactically or grammatically correct.

Focus on a word- in your teaching group…

• Someone finds the base word

• Someone finds a definition

• Someone finds a synonym

• Someone finds a example

• Someone finds a antonym

Categorising Page 92 eg  focus on the word ‘irresistible’ find a place that is irresistible, a person who is irresistible, an event that is irresistible- cements the meaning of the word into your schema (things that you know)- stickability.

COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES page 127

Teaching Children to use these strategies for understanding reading, to learn a number of different strategies either intentionally or unintentionally, used before, during and after, direct and intentional teaching is effective in promoting reading comprehension.

• Summarising
• Construction of mental images, visualising
• Question generation and question answering during reading
• Activation of prior knowledge
• Prediction of up coming content
• Inference
• Clarification
• Analysis and synthesis
• Evaluation
• Self monitoring
• Ability to correct faulty comprehension

And at that stage we finished up the day. I found the challenging and informative and could well have spent longer delving more deeply but it was time well spent with some easy to construct and useful ideas for taking back to my classroom and sharing with teachers. Thanks Alison

Putting this post together was a bit of a mission but blogging it helps me ’stick’ the learning in my own head if nothing else.

Greg Carroll added a really useful link to his post on a similar theme that I post here in case you don’t have a mind to read the comments directly.

Not sure where to start really as some good things may just yet come out of National Standards if the whole thing is not rushed through and thought is given to the long term consequences and ramifications of National Testing. Unfortunately attending the ‘consultation’ meeting yesterday left me with more questions than answers. I wanted to blog my thoughts right there and then but didn’t want to appear to be a nerdy swat. The atmosphere was warmer than the hall we were in- and that’s saying something. Good Lord- one of the coldest mornings we have had and we are all sat in a huge school hall with NO heating what so ever. By the end of the morning I had lost contact with my toes.

Below is my takeaway from the meeting. I probably got it wrong in places but it is not my job to be a reporter. One thing I do know that at least I will quote myself correctly when I publish- unlike this chappie from the Nelson Evening Mail- apart from getting my name wrong he got what I said wrong as well. My question was ( and I quote ‘cos I wrote it down before I asked it ) “If a child is identified to be at risk as a consequence of National Testing what will be done to support that child above what is already been done now”. That answer was that the Ministry has put aside $35m for National Testing. I replied that I didn’t think that would be enough. Don McClean asked more eloquently than me,

“If we measure a kid’s height it doesn’t make them taller, so how is measuring kids nationally going to make them achieve more?”

To write my thoughts I have added my questions/thoughts in CAPITAL LETTERS in a Wes Fryer sort of way in order to separate them from the messages I took from the presentation.

The learned people engaged in reading the Ministry spiel made sure that they stuck to the script so that everyone who came to the meetings throughout the country would hear the same message. Anne Tolley, our Minister of Education started off virtually with a video. In the video she said that formative assessment informs our teaching.

OH SO I GOT IT WRONG. NATIONAL TESTING IS INTENDED TO BE A FORM OF FORMATIVE TESTING!

HOW WILL NATIONAL TESTING RAISE ACHIEVEMENT?

The MOE people reitereated that National Testing is not about publishing league tables and it was all about noble ideals of developing partnerships between school/whanau/community. IT MAY NOT BE THE INTENTION BUT I FEAR THAT LEAGUE TABLES MAY WELL BE THE END RESULT.

The National Standards will connect with NZCEA Level Two and work backwards to what children will need to know in order to be successful participants in society. Benchmarks will be set at the end of each year level. Year 1, 2 and 3 will be reported at the end of a complete year at school and thereafter at the end of the school year.

IF NATIONAL TESTING AND PARENT REPORTING HAPPENS AT THE END OF THE YEAR HOW WILL NEXT STEPS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT BE ACTIONABLE?

ESOL and Special Education children will be exempt from the testing regimin. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO AREN”T SPECIAL NEEDS AS SUCH BUT ARE STILL WORKING AT LEVEL ONE OF THE CURRICULUM? WILL THEY BE EXEMPT? EVEN COMPLETING PAT TESTS IN YEAR FOUR IS A DODGY PROPOSITION?

If I got my listening right it is expected that 75% of Year Six children will achieve the standard and only 50-60% of Year 7/8. SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THE 25% OF CHILDREN WHO WERE SUCCESSFUL WHO NOW SUDDENLY AREN”T?

The mathematics part of the testing is not necessarily based on NUMPA learning but on the ‘big ideas’ in each learning area of maths. LOOKING AT THE ACTUAL TEST SAMPLE IT APPEARS THAT ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS ARE HAND MARKED BY THE TEACHER AS ARE THE LITERACY SAMPLES. WORKLOAD?

I did like that the literacy samples be marked OBJ- On the teacher’s Balanced Judgement. GREAT BUT WHAT SORT OF MODERATION WILL BE IN PLACE TO ENSURE THAT DIFFERENT TEACHERS IN THE SAME SCHOOL AND ACROSS SCHOOLS WILL BE JUDGING AGAINST THE SAME MODERATED CRITERIA?

I did like the use of the term ‘readability level’ of text as opposed to a reading age. I have long held to the belief that it is readability that is more of use in grading a text than reading age that implies that having on its own a high reading age, is more important than a deeper understanding of the reading material in itself. THE LITERACY SECTION OF THE NATIONAL STANDARDS WAS ADDRESSED BY JILL FORGIE AND I THOUGHT SHE SPOKE SOME SENSE. I HOPE SHE IS BEING LISTENED TO.

ANOTHER COUPLE OF QUESTIONS CAME TO MY MIND AS WE WERE TALKING….

WHAT STEPS CAN BE TAKEN TO PROTECT INFORMATION FROM THE ZEALOUS PRESS IN PUTTING THEIR OWN SLANT ON RESULTS? The response to that one was that principal’s should draft their own press releases. MY RESPONSE TO THAT ONE IS TO LOOK AT THE WRITE UP IN TODAY”S PAPER- I WAS MIS-QUOTED AND DIDN”T EVEN REALISE THAT THE PRESS WAS REPORTING THE EVENT!

WHAT EVIDENCE BASE IS THERE TO SET THE STANDARDS AS THEY INTEND TO DO???

I HAVE A FEELING THAT THESE TARGETS ARE ASPIRATIONAL ONES WE WOULD LIKE TO ACHIEVE. THE MATHS STANDARDS WERE WRITTEN I THINK BY MATHEMATICIANS- A RARE BREED APART FROM ORDINARY FOLK. DO WE NEED TO BE MORE REALISTIC IF THE GOAL IS NOT TO PUNISH GOOD SCHOOLS BUT TO RAISE THE LONG TAIL OF UNDER-PERFORMING SCHOOLS? WE ARE ALL GOING TO BE LUMPED TOGETHER.

HOW DO WE REPORT TO CHILDREN THAT THEY ARE BELOW, BELOW, BELOW STANDARD. I AGREE WE HAVE TO HAVE HONEST REPORTING BUT FOR SOME KIDS THIS SORT OF REPORTING COULD BE CATASTROPHIC. I WAS TOLD AT SCHOOL THAT I WOULD NEVER PASS SCHOOL CERTIFICATE MATHS- SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF TRYING? I AM STILL TRYING TO GET OVER IT!

WE WERE TOLD THAT OUR FEEDBACK WAS VALUED AND WANTED BUT FEEDBACK IS DUE ON JUNE 30th- NEXT TUESDAY- ONE WEEK IN WHICH TO SHARE THE LEARNING WITH OTHERS NOT ABLE TO ATTEND THE MEETING. NOT LONG TO GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK ON SUCH AN IMPORTANT CHANGE IN NEW ZEALAND’S EDUCATION GIVEN THE EFFORTS BEING MADE TO IMPLEMENT THE NEW CURRICULUM.

I MAY HAVE GOT THE WHOLE THING WRONG. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO WADE IN THE MURKY WATERS AND HELP CLARIFY MY THINKING ON THIS.

GIVE THE MINISTRY YOUR FEEDBACK BEFORE NEXT TUESDAY!!!!

Other articles you may like to read

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10576265

There’s even a National Standards Ning started by the NZEI http://www.nationalstandards.org.nz/

Greg Carroll has some views also that are worth reading here.

Don’t know who Subversive ICT blogger is but he/she makes some good points also.

“The point is that kids come in a variety of sizes and having a standard “height” for 6-year-olds is absurd. Someone will always come up short – not meet the standard. There will always be a distribution of height, weight – or achievement. Go find your Plunket book. If you set a standard “height”, all those short kids get hurt and resentful, and their parents fret, when it’s just normal for some people to be shorter (or just grow slower).”

Derek Wenmoth expresses himself on National Standards here.

Herald Newspaper Article written in March on Anne Tolley’s election promises.

Isaac Day’s Reflection on National Standards.

MOE National Standards Forum Comments

I am adding more links here as I come across them.

If you know of any other places people can go to find out more then please add them in the comments and I will link from this main page.

Cheers

A discussion between soon to visit New Zealand, Gary Stager, and teacher Tom Barrett evolved when Tom posted a review of the Developing Leaders NCSL Conference and shared his Classroom Without Walls workshop slides. Gary asked where was Tom’s historical perspective and theory?

I know that Twitter is tapping into the wisdom of the masses but in many ways my Personal Learning Network on Twitter and my RSS blogroll are about all I have time for. I have three really good theoretical books that I want to read and need to read that are crying out for attention but the day-to-day stuff of teaching all day, everyday, across all curriculum areas, is more pressing. Every weekend I think- this will be the weekend when I crack into my reading but other things get in the way. I will read them but it won’t be mid-week.

For those that like the theory, all power to them and where would we be without them but apart from some action research- which I really want to know more about, I haven’t the time. I’m sorry, I haven’t the intellect or attention span to digest heavy theoretical works. There are only so many daylight hours and they are already all accounted for, with a few after midnight ones as well. I rely on my PLN to let the good stuff bubble to the surface and bring it to my attention.

Leaping into learning through Web2.0 technologies just seemed right to me in the beginning so I gave it a go. The learning was pretty straight forward and I gathered followers and friends to help ease my path and learnt more as I went along. Too much emphasis on pedagogy alone can leave people frustrated with a feeling they are not going anywhere. Having no theoretical basis leaves people lurching from gimmick to gimmick, with little idea of purpose. Teachers are generally a fairly practical bunch and like to get on with it- I know I do! I wonder where Mr Stager was really heading with his comment?

Today I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in in the Nelson Cluster ICT day.

It was just the thing I needed to reinforce my commitment to eLearning for my children. Also in attendance were some of NZ’s eLearning shining stars. Dorothy Burt kicked things off with her keynote outlining Point England’s eLearning Journey. Dorothy comprehensively hyperlinked her keynote with links to highlights of the learning experiences at Point England. She continues to be my podcasting inspiration.

As usual in these sorts of situations I found it difficult to connect to the internet and the battery on my MBP seems to drain as soon as I power up so I had to just listen to what Dorothy was sharing. Not a bad thing, I hear you say. But I found that writing/tapping as I listen helps me to remember and ‘get’ the message. Without access to recording my learning as it was happening I know that I missed some stuff I should have got- that’s why these sorts of back channels are so good. We should encourage our children to be able to do whatever it takes to ‘get’ our message. This thought reminded me of one of Lisa Parisi’s recent postings- doing what it takes to learn and remember in our own way- to move, to mash-up, to make.

Next I attended an I Can Animate workshop with Mike Foster from Nelson Intermediate. I got some good tips particularly to buy Resene Wham paint for a green screen backdrop. I thought I had taken a photo of his set up but it looks like a didn’t. I think a class visit might be on the cards before I have a go an constructing one for myself.

My mate, Jason, from Sitech called in to my class while he was here so that I could return the IWB he lent me for the term. Having the use of an IWB has been a wonderful, engaging opportunity for my class and I and we will sadly miss it as we go back to having to share our one data projector with the rest of the school. Jason did however give me another gadget to play with for a bit- a wireless tablet. Wacom has given me tablet but I have used it exclusively at home. I will give the kids more of a go with the wireless tablet I think because it won’t be so tied to the computer via the USB like the Wacom is.

I also got a look at this new straight out of the box workstation with a 37inch monitor all ready to hook up to your laptop. I thought it was a great way to bring the big screen to the classroom. I could see how we could put that to good use as well.

I then had the opportunity to share some of my own eLearning journey. Many of the links I used are on my wiki.

The conference finished off with a final keynote from Derek Wenmoth. In it he shared his wealth of knowledge and thoughts about the future for us all. Dorothy, Derek, Suzie Vesper and I had a very stimulating conversation about Derek’s latest posting, Without data, you’re just another person with opinion. As I get the last say ‘cos this is my blog- I think that the direction that NZ’s new government is taking to stir up the press to publish school league tables is NOT a positive move although I do believe that we should be rigorous in assessing the value added learning that children attain while in our care.

Derek is off to the UK tomorrow. Ka kī atu a au kia hoki ora atu a ia ki te kāinga.

@markw29 (Mark Warner) shared this Google Doc on great ideas for story starters and motivation for great imaginative story writing. It is well worth sharing and Mark is open for more people to add to this great document.

Edublogs still won’t let you embed iframes so you will have to click on the link to see the document.

The things you discover on the internet! As you do on a Saturday morning you have a little time to play while the washing machine finishes its cycle. Via my friend @tricias in the UK I came across this little piece of magic that I just had to follow up on.

The idea is that you print out a piece of paper and hold it up in front of your web cam and a whole virtual reality world opens up in front of your very eyes with spinning wind turbine, 3D and the sun shining above. They have two scenarios- the other is showing solar power! It’s just magic! Do it. You’ll love it. No idea how it works though but think of the possibilities. Here’s a little video to show you how it works….

Virtual World Video

To get the link to the piece of paper that you print off and to see the so easy instructions click here. It only took me a minute to print and play!

Piers and his Mum had a bit of a play with it as well. Have a look at Piers’ blog for the video the made.

While at the Learning at School Conference Wes talked a bit about The Element by Sir Ken Robinson. I tried to buy an audiobook version in iTunes but it is only available through an American account. In my quest to find out more @teachernz put me on to this video. Thirty-nine minutes very well spent.

For the month of March, a group of educators and lifelong learners will be picking a “Tweet of the day” and ReTweeting it with a tag: #gr8t
Hopefully, you will join us in doing this too.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to participate:
• To share what you value about twitter.
• To see what others value about twitter.
• To celebrate the power and wisdom of your Personal Learning Network.
• To find interesting people to follow on Twitter.

My choice for what to retweet with #gr8t will be a Tweet that I find interesting, or insightful, or humorous. It might link to something I enjoyed reading, or it might have something profound or even fortune-cookie-like that appeals to me:

There aren’t really any rules to participate: Find a tweet you value, and share it!

For Example, here is a Tweet I’d like to share:


And so I retweet it with #gr8t:

John Sutton wrote an insightful post that turned up in my RSS feed from the UK this morning about internet use agreements.

At Appleby we wrote ours a few years ago now. We review it every year and ask children, parents and teachers to sign it each year agreeing to the policy and asking parents if they allow their child to access the internet at school and to ask their permission to publish their child’s images and creations on the web.

If you are interesting in reading our AUP you can download it here in pdf form.

Most parents agree to their children’s images and work being contributed to our blog sites etc but a few do not want their children to have direct access to the internet for whatever reason.

John raises an interesting point in his post. By not allowing children access to the internet we are restricting children’s learning opportunities. At school we access Google Docs to share digital portfolios, we are part of the e-AsTTle on-line assessment programme, we blog, I podcast and generally collaborate on line with other classes in other parts of the world. By not allowing children to participate we are limiting their ability to learn using 21st century technologies.

Maybe a way forward is to inform parents of our policies and educate children proactively about safe internet use and just get on with it. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. What do you think?

I had the good fortune to do a little travelling over our summer holiday spending time in Hong Kong, London, Portsmouth, Abergavenny in Wales, Londonderry, Ireland and Bangkok, Thailand. Until 2008 I had only ever been to Australia which you can hardly count as being overseas- a bit like visiting your cousins! It doesn’t really count.

My holiday snaps are here in a Flickr photo set slideshow if you would like to lurk a little.

While I was away I managed to meet with a few people who are in my Personal Learning Network.

My first meet up was with Paul Harrington in Wales. Paul and I first contacted each other through our mutual interest in podcasting and our two classes collaborated on a number of occasions over the years. As I expected when he met me at the Abergevenny Railway Station for the first time, we not strangers even though we had only just met. It was incredible to think how far we had both come on our journeys through cyberspace. Paul took me to Cefn Fforest School where Mini-Dylan and I surprised his students with a real visit. His excited students met me with real enthusiasm and I enjoyed their happy faces and beautiful accents. While in Wales we had a great conversation with Joe Dale from the Isle of Wight, another great podcaster and inspiration to me.

Unfortunately Doug Dickinson, ICT consultant, was called away at last minute to organise some stuff for BETT but Tricia Neal drove all the way from Leicester to Cardiff and back again so we could meet up. How cool is that!

On the way home I called in to spend some time at the International School of Bangkok staying with Chrissy Hellyer and meeting with Jeff Utecht and Kim Cofino.

These people have all influenced my learning network in some way and I was honoured and privileged to meet them all. The thing that struck me is openness of the people who help me on my journey. All of these people lead busy working lives but always give freely of their time and expertise to mentor and support fellow teachers like me.

I have never once come across anyone since I first started learning on line who has ever turned down a request for assistance or advice and I try to ‘pay it forward’ myself and do the same. These people help to form a wonderful support network for me as I venture into cyberspace. Thanks guys- for your hospitality and support.

Call To Prayer Recording
1.3MB 1 minute 24 seconds

Not happy with that last recording so I cleaned it up with Adobe Soundbooth and got rid of the white noise and a few of the extra clicks and clunks. Much nicer.

Call To Prayer Recording Cleaned Up

Staying in Bangkok was my first time living in a culture that is so very different from my own and it was fascinating and wonderful. Every morning at 5am you could hear the Muslim Adhan-call to prayer. It was beautiful and I was lucky enough to capture it on my iTalk microphone on my iPod. Our class podcasts will be starting up as we go back to work this week. I wanted to publish this recording to Edublogs to take advantage of some of the extra storage space now that I have paid for hosting in order to get rid of the ads!

Today I had the pleasure of attending Te Whakatipurangi’s Cluster Conference in Papamoa in the Bay of Plenty. Paula Jamieson, the cluster ICT facilitator, had been following my stuff for a while and had been at ULearn08 in Christchurch last year.

I did a couple of workshops- one on podcasting and another on Adobe OnLine. The feedback from the podcasting sessions were very positive with people enjoying the conversations and fun of it all.

Quote- “Podcasting looks much more straightforward than I thought. Great! I will try this!”

Unfortunately we had a bit of a problem all logging on to the internet at the same time in the second workshop but at least we got some useful tips on how to make good use of Google Docs. If you would like to look at what I was going to talk about in Google Docs as a presentation click on the graphic below and follow along by clicking on the arrows on the bottom left hand corner of the presentation.

The conference was held at Te Akau Ki Papamoa School. What a wonderful set up that was- the school has quite a distinct character and vision. Their vision comprises seven waves with the proximity to Papamoa Beach being recognised. Each wave is a separate learning goal. That visual symbol of the vision is great for learners to identify with.

	Vision – Clearly define our preferred future. Provide a clear learning continuum.
	Think – Focus on Higher Order Thinking, critical self-reflection, Essential Skills, individualised learning, in depth learning and research.
	Learn – Provide the environment and opportunities for our learners to develop the skills, attitudes and values to contribute to society and to be self-motivating, life long learners.
	Nurture – applying a Whanau approach in all we do. Providing a safe physical and emotional environment. Applying “good choices” and “restorative justice”. Nurturing each child as our own.
	Grow – Assist learners to discover, develop, demonstrate and celebrate their talents. Apply Benchmarks to measure progress. Focus on goals and ways to achieve them.
	Communicate – Celebrate the excellence we achieve. Share what we expect, stand for and believe in. Consult with our community regularly.
	Shine – Focus on “Best Practice.” Identify, harness, develop, utilise and build on individual strengths.

Here is a link to one of our early Skype podcasts as we tried to learn more about neighbouring Brightwater School’s logo in order to help us think of ideas that we needed for our own .

Here is Appleby’s newish logo. We were trying to articulate and represent our new vision statement in our logo. Has anyone else got any good visual symbols of their learning vision?

Yesterday was our ICTPD Home Group Meeting in Palmerston North where a group of passionate ICT facilitators under the leadership of Marg McLeod come together to talk about their progress and challenges. I was introduced to the ideas expressed by UK’s Professor Guy Claxton. I think I was the only person in the room who had never heard of him- does he blog or Twitter??? He talks so much sense and thanks to @craigsteed I was able to access his interview on Radio New Zealand as he visited NZ recently. It was great to listen to the man talk about Building Learning Power.

To listen to the audio click here.

He talks about building reflective practice, developing emotional habits of mind, strengthening cognitive flexibility and encouraging social- collaborative action.

I totally agree when he discusses ‘brittle learners’- the ‘good’ girls who fall apart at first sign of failure, the ‘clever’ kids who fear making mistakes, who fear trying for fear of failing and letting others know that they are not ‘perfect’. Making mistakes is something to learn from and to grow from and not a sign of failure.

Listening to this audio leads me to want to read ‘Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners‘- me actually read a book- with paper and pages??? Haven’t done that for ages.

Does anyone have a copy I can borrow as part of my holiday reading?

This video found by lurking on Dean Shareski’s blog blends and fuses art in the 21st century. Bill Hanson’s work is amazing.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Here is another great find that came to me from my Twitter network- Timez Attack via Barbara Read, @Barbs1.

It is a downloadable game for PC or Mac. I downloaded the free base version. The full version has the same basic facts learning but without the extra levels of complexity. This maths game would really appeal to my gaming Year 4/5 boys. It is really built like the old game Wolfenstein 3D game without the killing. Every now and again you come across an ogre that you neutralise by knowing your tables. I was very impressed with the graphics and the attempts to build number knowledge as well as straight recall. Give it a go. I am sure you will be hooked. I would like to hear what the paid for version ($40US for home use) is like if you decide to buy it. Something for my next year’s class maybe.

New Zealand is hosting the Time4Innovation Conference. Many NZ educators are participating through viewing video and adding to the discussion boards. Last week I enjoyed hearing Janice Gulbransen talking about leadership.

Janice’s Video in Google Video

This weekend I watched to TATV – a group of Te Awamutu students shared their voice. To hear what the students have to say about how they want to be taught and what they want to be taught click on the 2008 folder and view the video “You Have a Message.” Both videos are thought provoking and worth taking a moment out of your busy day to watch.

Via my aggregator (sorry I clicked away from it before I recorded who gave me the link) I came across this little beauty written in the form of a webquest- All About Explorers. It helps students realise that all that they read on the web may not be entirely the real thing! A bit like the story of efforts to save the Pacific North West Tree Octopus!

Just because it’s out there doesn’t make it good!

All about Ferdinand Maggellan…

“This Portuguese explorer was born on October 12, 1492 in southern Spain. It is an amazing coincidence that he eventually became a world explorer, because that is the day Christopher Columbus first landed in El Salvador, thus discovering a New World. Magellan is best known as the first person to travel completely around the globe.

Early in his career, Magellan was first a soldier. During the Battle of Hastings, Magellan was seriously injured. His leg had to be amputated as a result. The wooden leg that replaced it never fit him properly, and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He also lost an eye after being shot by an AK-47 during the same battle.

It was not long before King Ferdinand of Spain noticed this rising young star with whom he shared a name. In 1519, at the age of only 27, the King enlisted the support of several wealthy businessmen, including Marco Polo, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton, to finance an expedition to the Spice Islands.

But Magellan, was not content to travel the ordinary way. He had to be different. Magellan took his five ships, led by the Trinidad, west instead of east. In the process, he discovered a new route through the Panama Canal, which shortened travel times to Asia considerably. In the process, he also discovered the Pacific Ocean, which he named after his daughter.

While in the Orient, Magellan traded with the Chinese for spices, silk, and small plastic toys which he could bring back to Europe and sell at huge profits.

In another bid to buck the trend of the day, Magellan continued west after this, and his expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the globe on February 29, 1562. Magellan, unfortunately, did not live to see the completion of the trip. He died of old age only six months earlier, but his accomplishment still stands today as a testament to human willpower and the spirit of discovery.”

Terry Freedman, blogger and podcaster from the UK has just posted this on TechLearning Blog.

“Here in the UK we use the term “ICT” — Information and Communications Technology — rather than “educational technology”, and in many schools it is taught as a discrete subject. So what is it that makes an ICT lesson excellent?

In this list, I have tried to suggest some of the characteristics that may be present — although I hasten to add that one would not expect to see all of them in the same lesson!

This is taken from a much larger list that I published in my newsletter, “Computers in Classrooms”, back in December. You can download the newsletter from here, if you wish to look at the whole list. Look at the list below and tell me what you think:

• The lesson forms part of a unit which forms part of a scheme of work. There is a good starter activity, one that gets the pupils settled down and in the right frame of mind to do the work the teacher has planned for them.

• The teacher spends time at the start letting pupils into the secret of what the objectives (intended learning outcomes) of the lesson are, ie what is intended to be achieved by the end, and how this lesson fits in with the preceding and following lessons

• Pupils are given open‑ended tasks (as far as possible), or at least not tasks with a glass ceiling. (Even lessons designed to impart a set of skills can still be more interesting than “drill & practice”).

• There are plenty of resources for the pupils to use, enabling the teacher to give quality guidance, ie not confined to explaining how to save the document! Such resources will include “how to” guides and posters, on‑screen help (which the pupils will have been taught how to use), and each other.

• Ample time is allowed for the plenary, thereby allowing it to be somewhat more useful than the POLO model: Print Out and Log Off. The plenary is an essential part of the lesson, used to check what learning has taken place, consolidate learning, and prepare pupils for the next stage. In fact, a lesson might have two or three plenaries rather than just one at the end.

• Homework is set in order to consolidate and extend the pupils’ understanding of the work they have been doing in lessons.

• Pupils are given plenty of time on the computers, with the teacher helping individuals and small groups.

• Work is set at an appropriate standard, taking into account the pupils’ prior learning and attainment, and what is expected of their age group in terms of national standards.

• There is a lot of questioning – probing questioning – and assessment for learning techniques are in evidence.

• There is a good range of material to provide for differentiation (higher attainers and children with special educational needs) and personalised learning.

• The teacher is aware of individual pupils’ needs, such as their individual education plans – and makes use of the assessment and other data she has – remember: data only becomes information if you do something with it!

• Not all work takes place at the computer: there is ample opportunity for discussion and reflection. What is important is not the use of technology per se, but the appropriate use of technology.

• Pupils respect the equipment and the room. For example, they do not leave discarded print‑outs on the floor.

• Pupils are happy and confident enough to try out things which the teacher has not actually shown them: they ask help from each other or look at the posters and manuals that are available for them.

• Pupils keep looking at the clock on the wall, because they want to get to a certain point in their work before the end of the lesson. They have a sense of urgency.

• Pupils want to work at lunchtime and other non-lesson times.

• Pupils want to show off little tricks they have discovered, such as keyboard shortcuts.

• Pupils ask questions that the teacher is unable to answer.”

I feel bad because I have taken Terry’s post in it’s entirety to post here. I do so because it is such a great list and I identify so much with his points and I want to encourage people to read it who may not necessarily follow my encouragement to click and read. Posted with permission from the man himself- thanks Terry.