Getting Organised

Yippee!!! I'm well underway with a new filing system at BDS for ICT! I love stationary :) I have different coloured folders... and i'm in the middle of creating "How to" sheets for systems at the school, passwords, contacts etc... This will help who ever steps into ICT... incase i get hit by an ice cream truck (Touches wood!)to continue running it smoothly.

Ive also extended the "how to" sheets into programmes used in class... so teachers and ICT expert students can use them and photocopy them.

Just need ALL staff to pull together and create a how to sheet on the programme they work confidently in..... hmmmm there lies the tricky bit... no response from my email even after asking ever so nicely :-(

Looking forward to the cluster share tomorrow... my speech is all prepared!

Staff presentation and Lead T day

A variety of ideas for grouping children

Syndicate
Year Level
Birthday month (continum)
Cards with stickers
Favourites- chocolates- All the people who chose a picnic go together
Things that go together
Animals (All the people who own dogs, go together)
Ability groups- experts....
across teams/with in teams
decades you were born
coloured cars- all the people with a red car..
Countries
favourite food
Name badges- different stickers on the back
Walk in an area... call out numbers- "2" find a buddy, 5... grab groups of 5 etc
Jigsaw-- Pictures- piece them together
letters to make a word- words written on board
colour groups
Continums height/ability/birthday month etc
Animals pictures: Make the animal sounds- find the group that makes the same sound....
Pillow case over head- sensory- find the animal making the same sound...
Self selected/ Teacher selected
Table groups
Match the celeb

Room 20 Possible Action Research

I may get room 20 looking into the variety of search engines available, pushing them and me out of our comfort zones of just using www.google.com
Other search engines available are (TAKEN FROM EASTNET.WIKISPACES):
GOOGLE ADVANCED SEARCHES

Google Tips

Tips_Tricks_17x22.pdf

Advanced Tips

Once you know the basics of Google search, you can try Advanced Search, which offers numerous options for making your searches more precise and getting more useful results.
Go to Google (www.google.co.nz) and click on the "Advanced Search" link.

The Advanced Search page looks like this:


With Advanced Search, you can search only for pages

• that contain ALL the search terms you type in
• that contain the exact phrase you type in
• that contain at least one of the words you type in
• that do NOT contain any of the words you type in
• written in a certain language
• created in a certain file format
• that have been updated within a certain period of time
• that contain numbers within a certain range
• within a certain domain, or website
• that are available for anyone to use, share or modify, even commercially
• that don't contain "adult" material

wikipeida for kids http://schools-wikipedia.org/

Yahoo for kids http://kids.yahoo.com/

Ask kids http://www.askkids.com/

Any Questions http://www.anyquestions.co.nz/

Kid Rex http://www.kidrex.org/

Kids Click http://www.kidsclick.org/

Quintura for kids http://quinturakids.com/

Boolify http://boolify.org/

I'm adding these to our school wiki now!

Action Research Planning Process

How to Get Started on a Project

Borrowing heavily from Hollingsworth (1994) and Hopkins (1985) I offer the following practical suggestions for the teacher research process:

1. Decide on a focus
   • Start with autobiographical data by locating your best professional self. Some questions you might ask - What are your broad interests in teaching and learning? What are your specific interests? What are manageable questions? Choose something you feel passionate about.
     
     
   • Justify that the project is your best solution to the problem.
   
   
   
2. Develop a plan to gain insights
   • Develop a time-line to gather evidence or data to examine what you are trying to accomplish/resolve/do in light of "what you do not know yet".
     
     
   • Decide what evidence you want to collect. Evidence includes such things as questionnaires/surveys, observations (video or written notes), collaborations ( i.e. video or audio tape of meetings, peer coaching) interviews, tests and records, student work, video and audio tape transcripts, personal journal, library readings, etc.
   
   
   
3. Analyze the data by looking for patterns, or themes across the evidence
   • keep logs and journals, periodically read over the evidence, code data from themes and patterns, draw or chart patterns, try to summarize what you have learned as you go, by noting images, metaphors, and any new questions.
     
     
   • check out your understandings by triangulating evidence (same theme, code, pattern appears in more than two types of data), and by talking to peers, students, friends.
   
   
   
4. Report on what you have learned
   • to your colleagues, to parents, at conferences, in journals.
     
     
   • summarize what you learned -- in an essay, narrative, poster, video, . . . poetry.
     
     
   • tell how the problem changed, didn't change, or became worse because of changes in your practice.

A key component of Action Research is sharing what you have learned. A number of techniques ranging from videos to formal presentations have already been suggested, but consider the following as potential audiences as well:

1. Colleagues at a staff development day
2. Parents and students
3. Email discussion groups (see On-line Resources)
4. Publications from professional organizations
5. Journals such as "Teacher Research: The Journal of Classroom Inquiry" - a journal by teachers, for teachers. Brenda Power

Once teacher research is shared it allows for further action on the part of the teacher, or the broader educational community to continue. The educational community has become increasing supportive of teacher research. At a recent meeting on science education in California that I attended Bob Polkinghorn, the Director of the Statewide Subject Matter Projects in California called for the documentation of evidence of change in practice at the classroom level by teachers. If you have not undertaken teacher research in your classroom now is the time to try!

This is directly taken from http://www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/AR/
9/03/10

Action Research- Long but great!

This is a very good explanation on Action Research. What it means and where to from here. Its 10 minutes long, but well worth watching if your feeling a little lost about what it is and what is involved :-)

Richard Sagor- Action Research

Action Research- USA

Model of Action research (Wikipeida)

Action Research Definition

Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice. As designers and stakeholders, researchers work with others to propose a new course of action to help their community improve its work practices (Center for Collaborative Action Research). Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term “action research” in about 1944. In his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems” he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_research
9/3/10

Working in ICT

ICT at BDS has become very busy. It seems that many items decide to stop working at the same time! We have our phone system out of use, our server kept playing up and to add icing to the cake the internet seems to be getting slower!
On a positive note... we have been gifted 3 extra mimios from the PTA! Its very exciting :-) Our "huge "to do" list seems to be heading in the right direction.
Anna and I are presenting on Tuesday following our ICT conference in Rotorua, so i'll let you know how we get on.
We have our first ICT lead teacher day at Elm Park... more blogging then I see!!
See you soon, enjoy your weekend
B-)