My personal BLOG about teaching. learning and all things education. I started Dictionaries and Dongles as a way to share my classroom work and it has evolved to ideas, thoughts, rants and everything in-between. Mostly it is a place to just share things that I love. To share the stuff that makes being a teacher and educator great...the FUN stuff the stuff that engages and connects students to what is being leant and pushes them to want to continue learning in their own individual ways.
On Feb 4th we start back at school. Summer was one of the best ever and it is going to be hard going back to school, but it is going to be an excitinf time for me and my wonderful students in Room 8...We are going to be one of if not the first Northland classroom to go 1 to 1 with Apple iPads. This is now becoming a slightly mind bending challenge.
-Where do I begin?
-What will work ?
-What wont work ?
-Saving, Cloud, App use, sharing, Blogger ??? There is so much to think about. One step at a time though as for most of these kids it is new technology and a new experience for them and ME. One that I am very excited to be a part of! Bring on 2013.
This is something that I will show the students. A timely reminder for myself as well.
I am really into the Magic of Stop Motion Animation. These are a couple short clips that I helped students put together at the 2012 Techquest event held in Whangarei.
These are the videos that inspired me and the students with their own ideas.
What happens when 14 Whangarei schools send their most creative and talented students in ICT to meet some talented presenters and teacher in ICT. Techquest 2012. 2 Fantastisc days of workshops aimed at inspiring, introducing and educating students from all over Whangarei in the lastest and greatest ICT programs and technologies.
Techquest 2012 is over for another year. Without doubt some of the best kids that we have ever had. Quiet, hard working, keen, and very creative. The presenters were fantastic too. Great to have some new blood in the mix with new ideas and inspiration i.e. Manga drawing, Music making with Audacity. It is great to be part of a team that is able to offer such a wide range of ICT experiences to the awesome kids of Whangarei. The kids were just buzzing so well done presenters.
Techquest just seems to keep getting better each year. Check out the Techquest website for what the kids got up to.
Staff meeting tonight was led by Robin Boswell. She focused on identification, teaching and the learning environment for Maori students who are gifted and talented. While the process of identifying gifted and talented students or traits within our students is not clear cut we are able to treat each student as though they all have a gift or talent.
It is so important that as teachers, educators or mentors that we must first identify where are are from. We must have an awareness of our own culture first. As Robin put it "Identification is key. We must make connections with our Maori students, but we must understand our own connections first".
Other key points from her talk where...
-Ethnicity is fixed, culture is dynamic.
-One culture has the power to enrich.
-Special talents are often only valued or noticed within their own cultures, and thus are often missed or left unidentified within the classroom.
-How do we rocognise talents outside their own cultures at school or in the classroom.
-Start any lesson or unit by firstly identifying WHO we are teaching.
It was eye opening once this info had been given to us to then be asked "What are we doing in the class to identify or foster Maori students with gifted or talentedness". It was without doubt one of those moments that make you self-reflect and question your own practice.
I was left with the thought "So what do I do first?". I guess I need to understand where I am from and identify my connections before I can begin to connect with my students. Thanks Robin...
We also watched a very good clip from the documentary 'Maori Boy Genius' which everyone should watch. Here is the official trailer.
The ARTS is our school wide focus this term. Our guiding question is "How do The ARTS change over time and enrich our lives?" With this question in mind in Room 8 we plan to look at how The ARTS in all areas (Visual art, Music, Drama, Dance) have changed over time i.e. from cave drawing, carvings, paintings and graffiti to electronically generated art. We will also look at the ways the different art genre makes people feel and how The ARTS do enrich our own lives.
As a way to start the unit and to look at the idea of CHANGE we began by looking at the YouTube hit "The Evolution of Dance." This was a perfect way to promote dance in a fun positive light, and also to show how it has morphed and changed over time.
We have just started playing around with a great new app called Haiku Deck. Haiku Deck is the simple new way to create stunning presentations – whether you are pitching an idea, teaching a lesson, telling a story, or igniting a movement, it's fast, fun and simple for anyone to use. We have used the app to present our "Back from term break" stories. We wrote descriptive sentences to describe places that we love and why we love them. Check out the app at https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/haiku-deck/id536328724
