Samsung for Christmas.

End of school for 2012.  We drove to Christchurch for one day before flying to Auckland for a family holiday.  It was just enough time to drag my husband to Riccarton Mall and buy me a Samsung SNote.  Oh my gosh.  A gamers heaven.   Computer games for free!  Unfortunately I had to share it with the two sons.  It was great on the motorway however.  The boys actually enjoyed writing up their day as we drove between Red Hills and Central Auckland.  On arrival back in Christchurch we went shopping asap for another (cheaper) tablet so I wouldn't have to share anymore.  I was converted.  My dream class would included tablets and ipads.

It would involve mobile learning.  Students would be able to access the internet from wher they were working.  I was dreaming of easy creating of artifacts to record and reflect on learning.   I was very impressed with being able to take photos from within a document and have them automatically insert in.  I almost wished I would be teaching the 5 year olds.  How easy to make electronic portfolios using S note.  No more plugging the camera into the computer, uploading the photos, finding where the computer stored them and finally inserting them into the document.

\Of course 9 months later I would choose to use evernote to achieve this.  I now think cross platform support is key to a good app.  I need an app to be available online, on android and on ipods.  This is a little limiting but it is reality of a multi platform class.

I am inspired...

ICOT 2013.  Wow!
I got to hear Edward De Bono, spent two sessions and 1 day with Lane Clark, Mike Scadden and many others.   It was so good hearing people whose books I have previously devoured.
I was inspired to join twitter and took part in an EDCHATNZ session.  My virtual PLN started to build.

Stephanie (teaching the teacher)  blogged about removing desks and using buckets for storing students stuff.  I arrived back in my little patch of isolated paradise full of ways to transform the physical space of my class and the thinking of students.

With three days remaining before my first meeting of the year I got rid of the desks, brought in tables and made posters for the wall. My Cyber Safty unit was ready to go.  It required lots of training in how to use thinking tools and group discussion.  A perfect blended learning unit.

First day.  Students come in.   I discover that I grossly overestimated their listening, cooperative, and focusing skills.   The existing motto of the group was "school is for fun".  They only things that fitted the definition of fun were conducted outside.  Sport, motorbikes and farm work all included.  Writing, Reading, Maths, Science and Social Studies excluded.   I persevered, used behaviour management strategies, nagged (opps) and moaned to my husband.  The students moaned, giggled, made jokes, and asked what they needed to do as soon as I stopped telling them.  They repeatedly asked for desks.  I compromised by adapting Stephanie's idea of buckets and buying small containers.  Thank you Warehouse for having online shopping and cheap freight.


Term continued with many changes to the program.  The cyber safety unit was shelved.  Each student started a blog.  At the end of the week I overheard one of the students saying, "I thought we hadn't done any writing this week but look at all".   The quality, quantity and ease of writing on the blogs made me rethink the writing program.    By Week 5 I realised that very little numeracy, reading and writing learning had happened.  Sure there had been some successes.  The students had understood decimals when we used decimats.  They loved the blogs.  Writing was happening.  I had completed running records and numeracy tests.  The students had made excellent progress in their self management skills.  It really had taken 5 weeks for them to learn to listen to me, solve some of their problems themselves and focus on their work.  They could follow the Lane Clark Think it Great process.   They worked out that Cross Classification charts required them to think on deeper levels and consequently declared that they hated them.   I was determined they were not going to ruin my vision of a 21st learning class with self directed enthusiastic students.

I had two parents come and express their concerns to me and we had developed a plan for addressing these.

Onwards and upwards to camp!   The breather of a camp that met the students definition of fun was perfect timing.  One class of 17.  2 teachers.  7 parents (2 Mum's went home on Wed and sent Dad's back).  My idea that Camp would teach independence flew out the window.  Camp was a great success and the great thing about having all the parents was that I spent one evening sharing my vision and reasoning with them.  Given that those parents are friends with most of the other parents of my students I was fairly sure that what I said would be round our teeny, tiny community before the weekend was over.

 To end Term 1 I got the students to complete a PMI reflecting on TERM 1.  We then discussed the minuses and ideas.  I allowed them to bring desks back and put them around the edge of the room.  I was still sure that desks were not the way to go but I was tired of fighting them.  Incidentally no one ever used the desks unless I made them in Term 2.  4 weeks into term 2 the caretaker reluctantly put the desks back in the overflowing storage shed.  Would anyone like 60 desks and chairs?  The PMI was a fantastic way of getting some honest feedback, empowering the students and opening a dialogue on what we could change and allowing me a forum to explain my reasons for the things I wasn't going to change.

Lensoo: Simultaneously records drawing and audio.

Trying out lensoo to see if it is useful.my meaningless scribble trial.

Wonder what we can do with this next week.

Maybe explanations of fire science...
Numeracy problem solving.
Explaining new vocabulary to others.

Today has involved learning two fantastic new apps to use in class next week.  Lensoo and Socrative.

socrative has the potential to be used for quizes and worksheet type problems.  While this is useful for maintenance of maths and some english skills I want to see if I can use it for reflections.

I have a Dream...

About September 2012 the decision was made to change from teaching 5 and 6 year olds.  The new challenge for 2013 was to teach 11 and 12 year olds.   I was excited.  My head was buzzing with ideas and plans.  I knew just how I wanted to transform the classroom into a Modern Learning Space with independent, motivated, self directed learners.  In the three years preceding this decision I had read many exciting books and attended conferences.   I was already using much of what I learnt with the 5 and 6 year olds but couldn't wait to really get my teeth into inquiry learning and higher order thinking.  I thought, “If my five year olds can work independently on literacy and numeracy activities how much more can I do with older, ict competent students.   So off I went to Ulearn 2012 and ICOT 2013 for more information.   I immediately made the plans and resources necessary to transform my teaching and the students learning.

 I decided that Lane Clark’s inquiry model and processes were going to be central to everything we did.  I wanted every student to be competent users of De Bono’s thinking tools.  SOLO (Pam Hook) was going to be used to structure our learning outcomes and reflection.  I was aiming for reflections to happen with every activity we did in class.  I wanted to have modeled and independent reading, writing and maths on a daily basis.  Dream’s are free.

Critical Mistake…what about knowledge of the learner and their community.  Even though I knew most of the children (it is my son’s class after all), I was not prepared for how little I knew of them as learners.   I even knew most of the parents, either through teaching their younger children or through living in the community for the last three years.  My awareness of the parents knowledge about education was to prove woefully lacking.  Note to self:  In the future don’t ever initiate change again without hosting an information evening for parents that brings them up to date with current research and the problems we are trying to fix or prevent.

Turns out the community here knew very little about the changes occurring in society because of digital technology.  They were unaware of how the job market has changed and the impact this has on what students need to learn.  Both parents and students are very limited in their ICT skills.  No digital natives living in this community!