Science

Here is a short video clip of Jai in R8 doing a little science experiment -burning a piece of magnesium ribbon. Look at his face when it lights up and watch the 3 girls in the background.

Science Fellowship

This is starting to get closer as Bob and I have a meeting on Monday with Andrew from Scion and John has sent the paperwork etc through from the Royal Society. I am getting so excited about it.Will I look like this when I get into the world of the scientists- All I need is a white coat.

My inquiry presentation

Today I was able to work on my presentation for week 9. I am really proud of what I have done. It might not be as good as most of the other staff but I am happy with how far I have come from my first time -where I held up paper charts and couldn't remember what I said, I was so nervous. I spoke about Travel Buddies, that time ,something I was passionate about. This time its about how I see science at Owhata School and I am passionate about science. I wanted to do this before I actually start my science fellowship next term.

Dream Classroom

The blue writing did work when I published my one - it was just waiting to be real and still not in edit mode. Wow I have learnt something else.

I need to work on my science inquiry for a staff meeting in week 9. I want to use ICT stuff and get my message across about SOS = state of science at our school. I reckon I will learn heaps on my science fellowship so I will have heaps to offer our school in 2011.

Dream Classroom

This weekend I am going to put some thoughts down about My Dream Classroom." This is for the activity about ICT Dreams and Realities that J wants the staff to do. I came across a blog http://www.kimcofino.com/blog where she talks about how us teachers see technology as a tool but where the kids see it as an environment. It makes for interesting reading (I thought that blue writing would be a direct link into the blog but its not) She has written this neat article and some of the comments that have followed have been very interesting also Her blog has another name I will look for it. I can get into her blog through the teaching sagittarian one which is in one of my ealier blogs.

Other ideas for me to expand on
connecting globally
PLN
access to equipment - has the time come to spend less on text books, library books, pupils books and to get some laptops for the pupils

No Photo

I didn't get any photos about e learning today but 3 exciting things happened.

1. About 8 am when I was out on the deck of the class I am using I saw Riva, a 7 year old boy in the Junior Bilingual class as he ran to catch up with another early bird boy in the next class. "Douglas, dont change my picture on my page!!" he said. I had a chat to them about what he was talking about. They lost me. I asked was it like Bebo. he said he had a Bebo page, but this was better as you can win things.???

2. A note came around from a teacher in Y3 asking could anyone help Joss to put text into Imajin? I thought she meant a teacher so I said No. But Joss said could I ask a kid. Jasmine said yes and off she went to do it.

3. I got asked to present a workshop in August a tPeak - ICT Conference in Kawerau. I know its because I am old and I am excited about ICT. I emailed my DP just before and said the last 3 years have been the most mind changing in the last 20+ years of teaching. Maybe I should take Riva and Jasmine with me to the conference to show its the kids who are the teachers as much as we are?

Dream Classroom

Jo - leader of out ICT/inquiry/E learning team has asked us to share what we see as our dream classroom. I am looking forward to this activity. I am going to have a real close look at that Blue School, Reggio schools ,ECE learning - what else???

I am also working on my action inquiry about science and I will share what I have done at a staff meetig in week 9 before I go off on my science fellowship. I want to present using as much ICT as I can. (I have to get that easispeak worked out so I can include the children's voice).

books on line

Room 9 are reading Cry Baby Moon. We found it on the Rellco wiki under resources - Books on line - International Children's Digital Library. We saw that it was available in Maori as well.

ICT and SInging

Room 4 are using lots of ICT to help their learning with Mr. Powley. They are learning to sing - people are using the microphone, Maata is using the laptop to put the words up big on the screen and Mr. Powley is using his sounds machine.

"ICT helps us with singing because we can see the words on the screen, " said Mehaka.

"Being on the microphone builds your confidence ,"said Israel.

ICT and Learning

This pupil from R6 is using the visualiser on our science trolley to get a closer look at the caterpillar. She noticed all the little hairs on the caterpillar's body. Her new learning is finding out what those hairs are used for.

Power of Blogging

I have just been back through my 179 posts on my blog -(only since the middle of 2009 when I learnt about blogging -relectively and for teaching learning) and at last I realise how powerful it is. Here are a few ideas which I can share if I go ahead with cluster share:
sharing chns.learning with parents
using whanau connections
asking myself questions
challenges from people who visit my blog
notes after school visits
feedback and challenges from our ICT facilitator
linking to things I have learnt from other blogs
times to moan about things to help me move on
sharing times I have used blogging - like travel buddy and responses from the other side of the world
sharing my kids learning

I can go on and on . Wow how powerful blogging is for my own learning. What a powerful form of PD. Do we all use it? Why? Why not?

The Blue School

By reading Bruce Hammonds blog http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/ I have come across a great school in US called The Blue School. Look for BH's post about this school and also link into the school itself.

If we want all this work we are doing on ICT, inquiry,questioning to be useful to help our children to learn (especially our young ones) I feel we need to start thinking about our teaching (and our pupils learning) in ways this school is doing. They also draw from The Emilia Reggio Schools approach - something I blogged about ages ago. They all talk about letting the children be inquirers.

Here is Khatana presenting our 2009 inquiry to our Principal. Because of this inquiry on What Makes a Great New Entrant Room the 2010 NE class is now a large double room. These children learnt that the children at Owhata School do have a voice and when it is listened to by The Big People it can make a postive change to a school and the children's learning.

ICT and Learning-an AHA Moment

Sometimes very simple things that are connected can lead to something quite powerful.

For a while now I have struggled showing (even to myself) how (and if) all this ICT has had a real impact on my children's learning. At last I think I can. From a simple idea from the Rellco/Best weekend where it was suggested taking a daily photo of learning, to Lorraines challenge to give this learning a focus on ICT in action already I can see it does really help with learning.

So each day I am going to capture ICT use in action FOR LEARNING. Because of this simple activity I am already more aware of the amount of ICT I use for teaching and learning-I think I am taking some of it for granted.

This is a photo from Hira School - I will use it for motivation about The Seasons. That sounds simple enough doesn't it BUT I met Tia ,the teacher on her blog when she was an e-fellow in 2009. Because I was following another e-fellow from our school I discovered Tia's wonderful work on Picture Books. Later in the year I flew to Nelson to visit her and kowhai kids. I shared lots of great things with my kids in 2009 and therefore that helped their learning.

We often clicked onto their classblog (listed in one of my earlier posts).

Oral Language

Now that I have worked out how to post some of my very basic video examples of the children's learning, I am going to put some on. This is Traci leading the class in The Little Red Hen and we performed the play live in assembly. This video helped us with our learning as we could self evaluate our effort before the real performance.

Key Competencies

I am on a mission to record photographic examples of the pupils in my class using ICT for their learning. We shared these photos of them using the KC's and it was good for them to self review what they were doing and learning. The IWB is a very powerful learning tool also

Digital Camera

Joss is using the digital camera to take a photo of his art work to see if he met all the learning intentions. He did.

Draw an interesting house and tree.

Outline with a black crayon.

Colour in using only house group colours.

LEARNING

I have just returned from my brother's capping at Massey University - he received his Masters Degree in Education. They know how to celebrate learning and it was wonderful to see the look of pride on every students face. What can I do at school with my students so I can see that same look on their faces?
Lorraine has been reading my latest blogs and as usual she has challenged me on to another level of learning. Her challenge is to look for examples of children learning by using ICT.

Visualiser

Jayden in the NE class was out with his petrie dish looking for bugs. He got down low and searched under the fallen autumn leaves until he found an ant. We returned to the class and viewed his ant under the visualiser on our science trolley. It sure looked big.

The class also observed worms wriggling, spiders crawling and ladybirds scurrying.

Te Whaiti

This boy (Te Whaiti ) is my learning boy today. I always have a soft spot for him because my Dad used to live at Te Whaiti. He is pracitising his ball skills so he can be a good team player. He is actually in the school's rugby team but Te Whaiti has great ball skills overall.

To be honest he is one of the reasons I love teaching at Owhata. I loved it that one of Te Whaiti's big sisters was working in town last week and she came out of her way to come up and give me a big hug.

We did some science experiments today - it was so cool to see the kids awesome responses.

Day 5 Learning

Destiny is in Junior Bilingual class and her learning is about leadership. She has 2 younger tamariki to help to learn. She had to give clear instructions, let her group have a go and help them if they needed to be helped.

I also heard her praising her little ones. She had to make sure that she was doing the task well herself - and she was -so leading by example.

As a teacher it has been great to focus on the learning that is happening in my classroom. Sometimes we get hung up on the activity and we need to keep the actual learning that we are expecting (so Learning Intentions ) and what learning we see happening. This has been a worthwhile activity (Daily Learning) so I am going to continue next week (and beyond??).

Day 4 Learning

Shaniah is learning to read better by practising.
R19 loved exploring the science trolley with me yesterday. Lots of good oral language and questions. I am still waiting to hear from The Royal Society to find out who my host is going to be for my Fellowship next term. I like it that I have the opportunity to 'play' with science thinking while doing my classroom release.

Day 3 Photo of Learning

Sonny is using the IWB to help him learn his blends and this will help him with his reading too.

Room 4 (Y5/6) and I had a explore of the science trolley yesterday. You would have thought it was a chest full of treasure ,the excitement it caused. (I suppose in a way it was that?). The kids knew some of the names for some of the equipment and it was great to hear and watch Sonny explaining what a funnel was used for. For me another oral language/science link. For phase 3 of my release classes next week we are going to DO some science. I can't wait. Kids are saying that when you go to Whaea Tricia's class you do science.

Day 2 photo

OOPS I just posted something on the wrong blog -another step backwards!!!!

James is showing learning by using the magnifying glass to do some careful observation.

Bob said I can have the Sitech science trolley in my room for a while so I am looking forward to exploring that. Apparently the kids are saying that when they go to Whaea Tricia's class they do science - so I had better do some hands on.

Rellco/Best

I had a great 2 days of learning and returned to school today with new things to try out. I liked the idea about taking a photo each day that shows learning, thes Share this with the class and get their thoughts about the leaning they see taking place.

Day 1's photo was of Herepo and the learning that was happening was - Herepo is learning to sing solo in front of an audience, and she is using a microphone.

We also did some work on asking questions and started on Habits of Mind. We persisted with our tasks today. Having a different class each day is going to be difficult to do things in depth, but I am going to enjoy trying out things.