School Holiday Power Blogging - Post No. 1

Helped present at our Cluster Share afternoon with Victoria. Was very scary even though my only job was to make sure I clicked at the right times for Vic and then spoke very briefly on our Inquiry section. Well done Victoria on completing the presentation on behalf of our school it was great and good to see you using a new tool that you saw in use at Learning @ Schools in Rotorua this year. Here is the link to our presentation.

Was interesting to see what each school has planned for 2010 and the similar pathways that Botany School are taking e.g. dabbling in SOLO taxonomy to lift our students level of thinking.

Belinda introduced our Cluster Share and purpose of afternoon and importance of "sustainability" in light of the contract ending.

She showed a you tube clip which I found extremely relevant in terms of gathering "followers" It talks about the IMPORTANCE of being a "1st Follower" it is an under-appreciated form of leadership, the "1st Follower" transforms a "lone nut" into a leader. We are need more 'FOLLOWERS" desperately.

ICT Lead Teachers Reflection

Well here we are in our 3rd year of cluster. Feel like have come a long way but wishing that there were 3 more years to come. Shared from the Learning at Schools Conference, found breakout by Elm Park on e-portfolios really interesting, shared the purpose of these, benefits, positive and negative aspects of them, left me asking questions and seriously questioning the value of paper porfolios. As a result also has inspired me to develop my knet pages and create areas for my students to share their learning and evidence of this.



Looked into a variety of Action Research Topics this morning and then discussed with Victoria her action research "Digikids" that she has started. Certainly a worthy topic to research and investigate ways of supporting our staff and students. Have discussed with Victoria and I will support and establish digikids in pods 3 and 4.

Again another yummy morning tea was devoured. Thanks Belinda

Inquiry Learning

Also in my travels on the same blogsite this morning found an interesting post on 2009 National Testing or Inquiry Learning? Is a really good read and further makes me realise what needs to be done and what is actually be done ....

3 Cheers For Blogging

After a few days of disillusion and not really feeling whether I was on the right track in terms of teaching and learning. Have had a great CRT morning reading through Bruce Hammonds blogsite Leading and Learning. I have found it so informative and really easy to digest, so much so have just purchased his book and two others that he recommends "Powerful Learning and Teaching the Best Practice Way".

Am really happy now, am going to continue to chip away at my own personal development and hopefully gather up a few other "likeminded & openminded" colleagues along the way!!!

What a gorgeous day ...

Am sitting in the sun on the most glorious spring day updating my blog. Have planned my afternoon/early evening so will be free to watch the All Blacks thrash those Aussies. Have spent the last few days updating our school wikispace and thought I would embed a slideshow onto my blog that I used to help me update it...

I needed to get our slideshow and video presentation on the wikispace and hadnever uploaded these before. Am very blonde when it comes to these sorts of things and thanks to Belinda she pointed me in the right direction. I managed to upload our slideshow presentation onto slideshare.com and our videos onto divshare.com. Now came the tricky part (well it was for me) embedding them onto the wiki. Spent ages trying to link them externally etc etc, then decided to google (why I didn't in the first place I don't know) and below is the result of my google. Thought I would embed this slideshow into my blog because hay who knows there might be some more blondes out there. At least on a blog they call a video a video which is commonsense, these stupid made up words like widgit ....

Hope someone out there that is needing to embed some videos and slideshows onto their wikispace finds this helpful.

P.S : Just one more thing when I am uploading videos from divshare I would probably edit the Html code to make the screen a little smaller in width and height. It comes out quite large when you upload.

How To Embed Slideshare Into Wikispaces

View more documents from diannekrause.

Eastnet Cluster Expo

It's a week down the track and am still very excited about the cluster expo last Thursday. A huge thank you to Louise for letting me push her out of her comfort zone and present me with me, she was fantastic, enthusiastic and just as crazy as me - wanting to make sure our presentation as just "right". What a lot of work, after presenting on a smaller scale at SPS, I was feeling really nervous about the thought of standing up in front of total strangers. But guess what ... it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, in fact was probably easier. I even said at the end Louise - "What about Learning at Schools 2010" - wash your mouth out Kathy P!!! I seriously hope that those people attending our workshop as least got 2 or 3 ideas that they will be able to integrate into their planning.

Came away with some really great ideas, loved Susie Vesper's workshop on Voicethread, have got my voicethread organised for next week already and looking forward to the results. We are doing opinion writing as our literacy focus - what a great way to integrate "Voicethread.

Enjoyed Rachel Boyd's presentation and workshop, came away thinking, ummmm I think maybe am on the right track. Need to get those computers named Elliot 1, Elliot 2, Elliot 3, Elliot 4, Elliot 5 (is sick at the moment).

Thanks also to Belinda another great event, well organised and extremely motivating. Am going to end with the video that Suzie played at the end of her key note - loved it!!!! Until next time .....

Have been in ICT hibernation

Here I am at our eastnet lead teachers day and am feeling very guilty that this is only my second posting. I could create a huge list of ICT/Inquiry learning activities that what have been keeping me occupied for the past 3 months but instead am just going to share a few things from today before I head off in 15 minutes to present to my school at our "unconference" afternoon. The second PD session that has been organised for our staff.

Has been good today to work in groups with other lead teachers from other schools as opposed in previous times where we have ended up choosing to work with collegues from Shelly Park.

Thanks Kerry for showing me Glogster.com a web 2.0 tool that I can use on my knowledgeNET page. Will develop my own one and then introduce to children. They have only just recently created their home pages on KNET so am a little reluctant to get them to change these at this stage. Could be something they work on next year and develop, especially at senior school level.