I am presenting two workshops on the day.
The first one is on BlogED and how it can be used in the English classroom. I will be using the following resources, sourced specifically from members of my PLN and in particular Darcy Moore, within my presentation before looking at some examples from other educators (again thanks to my PLN including Bianca and Troy) as well as my own class BlogEd blogs and finishing with getting teachers to set up a blog for one of their classes/courses.
1.
4. http://notsostandard.edublogs.org/belonging/
5. http://creativecriticism.wordpress.com/about/
6. http://coffsharbourhighschool.com/7E2010/
7. http://lhsenglishadvanced.edublogs.org/representation-and-texts/
8. https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/blog/25037-year10english2010/
9. https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/blog/662768-advancedenglishsupport/
10. http://voicethread.com/share/40969/ – A Voicethread Tutorial
The second presentation is called “Resourcing the Net” and will introduce teachers to the wide range of Web 2.0 tools available to allow teachers and students to connect, collaborate and create. A huge thanks to Pip Cleaves from the Hunter Region for allowing me to use her resources as part of my presentation! Here are a few of the sites I will be visiting during my presentation. There is just so much out there and this is just a few…..
2. http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100-2010.html
3. http://www.techiebrekkie.net/
4. http://litehouse4skools.wikispaces.com/
5. http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/
8. “http://www.glogster.com/glog.php?glog_id=91929&scale=100”
9. http://kmakatche.glogster.com/Web-20/
10. http://www.shmoop.com/ – This site is AMAZING if you are looking for crit lits on texts. Detailed, written for students, has study questions etc. Highly recommended.
Well, there’s the basics of what I will be doing on the day. Hopefully, there will be enough there for everyone to take something away with them which they will use back in the classroom tomorrow, next week, next term.
Attending the recent Engaging Learners through Innovative Practice Conference in Sydney certainly recharged my “education” battery and renewed my pride in Public Education. My first reflection will be on one of the key themes of the conference – Creativity.
I totally LOVED the focus on creativity. Too often lately all the media’s (and others) focus has been on the “basics”, exam results and the MySchool website. Many have written about the real fear that schools will be forced to streamline the curriculum, giving more time to Literacy and Numeracy at the expensive of the “extras” that actually make learning fun (and I am an English teacher!). This is currently happening in many states in America thanks to Obama’s new education bill, or at least in the way many school boards have interpreted its directions.
The conference showcases on Wednesday and Thursday effectively highlighted the enormous potential and value of the creative and performing arts, as well as sport, in a child’s life. The performers and presenters, both at the conference and on video, were outstanding ambassadors for their schools, their art or sport and for public education. The repeated message? Creativity and freedom of expression are vital for students to reach their full potential, including achieving their best in exams.
Being a Drama Teacher, as well as an English Teacher, I certainly see the truth of this every day. The benefits of these types of subjects are immense – self confidence, self reliance, team work, commitment, organisation, responsibility, creativity, dedication, communication skills, pride, collaboration… the list is endless. These subjects, and the skills and values they promote, are the core of what we want our children to achieve through schooling. Aren’t they?
The creativity of those working for the DETNSW from teachers to SEDs was also well and truly on display at the conference. It was evident in the many presentations they delivered (at their own cost and in their own time) and their enthusiastic pursuit of new tools and methods to engage and connect with the students…But more about this in my next post.
So, it was nice to see the leaders of Public Education not only supporting this view but actively encouraging it through this conference. Hopefully, they will remember this when the next lot of NAPLAN results come out and the MySchool website is updated. There is much more to school, and learning, than the 3Rs and without the creative and athletic opportunities on offer in our schools many more would become disengaged in education – and that is just the teachers!
We are all doing poetry based units in English this term and, predictably, the groans could be heard all the way across the school. Why is poetry seen as such a horrendous thing? What is happening in classrooms that makes poetry such a terrifying prospect?
I personally love poetry – the way it explores a topic in intricate detail and provokes so many different emotions. So much power in such a compact package. I love reading it, analysing it and writing it.
Hopefully, I convey this love of poetry to my students. I give them opportunities to create poems, to put into practice the many poetic devices they have learnt. All students have the potential to find a new way to express what they see, to show how they feel. Forget about rhyme, forget about following a particular structure – just paint images in words for us to see and feel in our minds.
Many students, and teachers, don’t feel comfortable with writing poetry. I have been told many times over the years that lower ability students, especially, can’t get poetry and they especially can’t write good poetry. Of course they can! If only they are given real opportunities and encouragement. All of them can come up with powerful and original images in a supportive environment.
A case in point: This year I am team teaching the bottom Year 8 English class. The other teacher quickly volunteered to teach the novel and left me the poetry unit. It was assumed that teaching them poetry would be like pulling teeth – extremely painful. Well, so far we have had a great time.
First we revised all the major devices and for each one we drew pictures to represent what picture it created in our minds. These became poetry quilts with each picture a square. These have been placed up in the classroom and the students have done a great job overall.
Next we created memory pegs for each of the devices to help them “stick”. These actions were created by the students and they showed good understanding of the techniques in their choice of actions. For example, for a simile the students put out both hands, palms up, and move them together to show different but similar or for onomatopoeia they push their fist in front of them (like a superhero striking a bad guy “POW!). These memory pegs have really helped them to remember what the technique is and what it does.
This last week or so we have been writing poems using these devices. I have been guiding them in regards to the topic of the poem and on what technique to use in each line but the content is completely up to them. First attempt – The Beach. Pretty safe topic given we are in Coffs harbour and the kids spend most of their time there. I handed a sheet of blank paper to each student and asked them to write a simile describing something they would hear at the beach. Then, they had to fold over their line and hand the page onto the next person. This would happen after each of the following lines so in the end they will have a group poem. The second line was to describe something they would see, the third was something they could smell, the fourth something they would taste and the fifth was something they would feel. The last line was to make a statement about the beach. At the end, the poems were read out and we discussed which lines were particularly effective and why. These chosen lines were recorded and I collated them into a class poem, The Beach.
As a lead in to studying some Australian poems we next write a poem each describing Australia. Students had to include one of each of the following devices in their poem – simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration and onomatopoeia. While they struggled initially for ideas (what things to talk about) they soon got into the task and they were developing some great images. Their poems were edited and published and again put up for display. As well, I asked them to choose one line from their poem that they were particularly proud of in regards to developing a clear and interesting image. I collected all these lines and put them together into a poem. The only lines I contributed were the repeated refrain, “This is Australia”.
I got a lot of my inspiration from watching some of the Phil Beadle’s videos on Teachers TV (http://www.teachers.tv/videos/5418). He did some brilliant “POE-TREE” activities with groups of disengaged students in England. That man is my hero! What worked for those students, certainly works with my students too.
I am SO proud of their efforts! The poem is fantastic and was chosen for inclusion in the school’s newsletter to go home to parents. The sense of achievement they feel is immense, they are rightly proud of their efforts. And now that they can write the images, use the devices, we will go on and look at what other poets have said about Australia. No groans, no moans, just curiosity to see what other poets have said about what they have already written about. It might not last for the rest of the unit but they get the power of poetry. Not a bad effort for a class that “would never get poetry”.
For the Staff Development Day this term I presented, with another teacher, a session on Emotional Intelligence. This presentation developed from a keynote address by Mike Scadden at the recent North Coast Quality Teaching Conference. His thoughts really resonated with me, especially since my stint as Deputy where so much time is spent on the negative; from teachers as well as students.
Too much time and energy is spent looking at what is wrong within education (from the school through to the whole system) when, if we examine things logically, the positives far out weigh the negatives. As a group we can get bogged down with the 10 – 20% of students who are causing concern. Why not focus on the 80% who are doing the right thing? Too often we beat ourselves up over a lesson that didn’t go to plan instead of focusing on the five that went well.
The presentation focused on the dangers of negativity, showing how negative thoughts dominate our day and the devastating damage this does to ourselves and our students. Researchers believe we say, on average, 360 negatives for every one positive. It starts from the time we see ourselves in the mirror of a morning and just continues from there. Most of these negative thoughts are illogical but they shape how we treat oursleves and the world around us.
It is time to turn things around! Let’s start being nice to ourselves and each other. Let’s focus on the 80% of students who are doing the right thing, day in and day out, rather than the 20% who cause us grief. Let’s pat ourselves on the back for the five lessons that worked well rather than go home brooding about the one that didn’t go to plan. When we look in the mirror, lets smile and say, “You did a good job today.”
This acceptance of the positive is sure to rub off on the students. We will speak more nicely to each other, we will encourage and praise what is done rather than point out what is not. We will give them a sense of worth they might not be getting anywhere else. We will start combatting those 360 negatives.
So how did this presentation go down with the staff? I am still waiting to hear what the evaluations said but I would have to say it struck a chord with many people. Teachers have stopped in me in the last couple of days to say that they were making an effort to be more positive, to remain focused on the good things. They were having chats to themselves in the mirror, they were consciously praising their colleagues and students and they were focusing on the positives. When teachers were having conversations with each other they were stopping themselves – “No, that is a negative, I won’t say that!”
Bringing the positives to the fore has to be a good thing. While some people will always latch hold of the negative, it doesn’t have to poison the rest of us. There is a positive in every situation, every experience makes us better and we have to be our own best friend.
So, build your emotional intelligence. Start focusing on the positives; they are there if you go looking for them. You will feel so much better and, just as importantly, so will the students in your care.
Interested in the presentation? Have a look – http://prezi.com/zzu1p5he2dqy/
I have been relieving deputy this term and, with the term almost over, it is time to reflect on what I have learnt from the experience.
Here is my immediate list of lessons learnt and ideas reinforced:
Since the start of the year I have introduced a DER User Group (thanks to my Twitter buddy Bianca for the idea) at my school to help support teachers in their use of technology in the classroom, especially with the introduction of the laptops. In my school situation there are many teachers consistently using the laptops in their classrooms but often only for notetaking (OneNote), word processing and powerpoint presentations.
This is a great place to start but there is far more potential for the laptops in terms of engaging students and preparing them for the 21st Century. The common cry from my staff though is, “I don’t have time to go looking for other applications”. This is where the DER User Group comes in. I am no where near a techno guru but I love looking for new things to use in the classroom, always have, always will. And, I love to share what I find.
There were only 3 teachers at the first meeting plus myself, the HT in charge of the L4L and the TSO. Despite the small number we all found it very valuable; sharing ideas and identifying great tools to use. For example, one teacher told us how he gets the students to turn their screens to him while the lesson is focused on the front of the room. Great idea! No more worrying about what they are doing while you are talking, discussing etc. We also talked about the value of Moodle, Wikis and Blogs – looking at examples and discussing how they could be used in their classes. The emails that night from the participants were really positive and encouraging.
We have just had our second DER User Group Meeting and 3 new teachers turned up, adding to our group. This time we looked at Adobe Portfolios, Glogster and Prezi. Adobe Portfolio is a great way to combine files into one document – easier to send, easier to access. Great for authentic assessment, writing portfolios as well as for teachers sharing their unit resources amongst each other.
I love the possibility of Glogster! Glogster (http://edu.glogster.com) is a site where you can create multimodal posters – adding sound, images, texts and video. It is easy to use and a great tool for research projects, visual presentations and more. You can sign on for free under an education account and link up to 100 students to your account.
Prezi ( http://prezi.com ) is a more dynamic form of presenting information than PowerPoint. You are able to zoom in to different bits of information as well as add images and video to your presentation. This tool would be great for teaching and student presentations. Again, as a teacher you have free access to a Prezi and signing up is easy.
Again, all teachers were positive and keen to go explore these tools for themselves as they saw their potential for use in their classrooms. Three teachers also joined up to the school Moodle for use with their Year 10 classes at the end of the meeting. There were more positive emails that night and one teacher has already introduced her Year 10s to the wonders of Glogster.
Teachers will embrace new tools if they are introduced to them and they can see how it could enhance what they are already doing in the classroom. They might not have the time or inclination to spend hours trawling the net to find them but there are always peope like me who will do that for them.
And where do I go to find these tools? I have to admit many of them come courtesy of my Twitter nework. Working together we find the best ideas, theories, tools and videos and share them. Many hands make light work and there definitely is power in numbers.
Speaking of numbers, hopefully the DER User Group will continue to snowball in numbers as word gets out on how valuable this group can be. I’ll keep you informed.
Welcome to my musings on education and the life of an English Head Teacher in the 21st Century. Some of this will be relevant to others, hopefully, but some posts might just be my attempts to collate and comprehend the chaotic changes that are occuring in the world of education today. Either way, let the musing begin!
Madiganda's Musings 