Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Student Lead interviews

In week 2 this term we had Parent Interviews, a 3 way interview driven by students. At the interviewWe discussed the reports, students shared their work, goals and achievements with their parents. The parents were encouraged to be active in their students learning and discuss student learning and goals openly. This was very positive! Parents were amazed to see the amount of work that the students do in class. Not alot of discussion was needed between parents and teachers as the reports were so informative.
At the end of each term we sent books home for parents to sign and leave a positive comment- this is just a snapshot of the work students do! I love watching the kids show of all their hard work, they are so proud :o)

ICT lead Teacher day

We needed to bring along one (or more) good idea, website, web 2.0 tool or software application to share. 5-10 minutes each. This is sometimes called a Smackdown!
Bridget: http://toonlet.com/
My Poor Ears!story: http://toonlet.com/archive?m=s&i=60196 All ages!
It is free
It requires registration
It provides a simple to use editor
It has a set of different frames and characters to choose from
It lets you tell your story using speech bubbles
You can share your finished strip via a direct link or embed it in your blog or wiki
Lyndal: All ages!All ages! Shared SOLO at BDS- Notes sent home to parents, a walk through the classrooms and whats been hapening in room 22 with SOLO. Great way to grab ideas.
Belinda: Educamp: Link to share All ages!
Fabulous MATHS WIKI with links! http://mathzlinks.wikispaces.com/home also http://litworks.wikispaces.com/ Library http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~valmstrum/s2s/utopia/library4/src/library4.html and http://www.zooburst.com and http://educampnz.wikispaces.com/
SARA: http://www.studyladder.co.nz/?lc_set=
Veronica: http://www.snacktools.com
Ruth: Year 1-2 interactive activities, http://demo.iboard.co.uk/curriculum.htm# Digital learning objects for all ages: http://digistore.tki.org.nz/ec/p/home Interactive maths activities for years 1-3 and http://digistore.wikispaces.com/ http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au./countmein/children.html Useful site for ESOL day: http://www.learningchocolate.com/?st_lang=en Developing vocab.
A blog to check out: http://kauri3wps.blogspot.com/ and http://www.readwritethink.org/

SMACKDOWN: http://acesnet.wikispaces.com/EduCampAKL+Smackdown+2011

We had a play with some of the new ideas / discussions about how these could be used to improve learning.

Class Visits: Visit some classes at SPS check out a variety of rooms, look at ACTIVboard activities Pod 3 - Michael and Edwina using Activboards in Maths, Pods 1 and 2 - reading slot, have a play on Activboard in Ruth’s room :o)

RSS Feeds:
what are RSS Feeds?? A way of keeping up to date with websites and blogs. RSS means you can susscribe to a blog and it will alert you when there are updates. Google.com/reader FOLLOW THIS BLOG -->this is where they go! Create groups- cluster blogs, educator blogs, class blogs, school blogs, leader blogs etc...
igoogle.com- personalise your own home page and add all your favourites.
ALSO...Google Alert= Grab an email every time BDS is mentioned on the web, what is being said, who is writing it...
- why use them? We wont forget to look on blogs to check out whats happening. This will email you when one of my fav blogs are posted on...
- how to use them? How not to use them, Google is MASSIVE!!! seriously the things you can do! Add a funky background, set it up , track things, add blogs, get notifications, track people.... I know!!
Trim down the blogs to the ones you want notifications of regulary.

We got to set up our own RSS Feeds!

Dear Abby:A great discussion over lunch, sharing problems and solutions, overall... we are all on the same page and have it pretty good!

Blog Reflections: Thanks Shelly Park for hosting us all day, was lovely to have a walk through classrooms and see some solo displays, art work and ACTIVboards in action! You are alot like us where you use the small amount of equipment to its full potential. :-)

Monday, August 1, 2011

Here we go....

Welcome to term 3!!
We have parent interviews, a middle school production on Little Red Riding Hood and our new Inquiry unit starting in week 6 YAY!!!!
It's going to be a great term :o)