6 weeks in...

I have now been teaching for 6 weeks and boy am I exhausted! I am exhausted but am loving every minute of being a teacher. 

Thinking back over the first 6 weeks there are a few things I would like to reflect upon.

1. There are not enough hours in the day, week or, I suspect, year! I am going to have to keep developing my systems and put in place ways to get everything I need to get done, done.  'Work smarter not harder' is something that I keep repeating to myself.

2. A support network is essential.  My network includes my family (immediate and extended), friends, colleagues (current and past) and my PLN, based in real life and in various social media arenas. The support these people offer me not only makes me feel good but also gives me things to think about, share and work on in the future. 

3. My learning is in its infancy. Which both excites and frightens me. Excited, because I did wonder how I would do out of uni not having projects to work on (silly I know). Frightens me because there is SO MUCH to still learn.  I am so pleased to be able to use said network to learn through and with. 

4. Balance is essential to maintaining sanity and health. Both of which have been sacrificed recently. I have not had balance but it is very early days and I am so excited about every day at school that I don't really mind at the moment.

I made the right choice, I found the direction I was seeking and as I head out tomorrow for an all day TPL session I will be thinking of my class and will wonder how they are doing. 

Gosh my room has changed since this first day!

4 years...completed!

About 5 years ago I was looking for direction in life and thankfully I returned to my dream of becoming a teacher. I made the decision to apply for uni and on the recommendation of my son's teacher applied to UTS.  To my relief I was accepted! 

When I started uni I thought I would be the oldest person by many years and would not make any friends. I was SO wrong. I was not the oldest person (but just about!)...and I have made lifelong friends, I have learnt a lot about being a teacher and many other things as well. I worked hard, I achieved well and loved just about every minute of it. 

I have spent the last 6 weeks working as a casual teacher.  I am growing in confidence every day and am enjoying myself immensely. I love how children's minds work.

Last Wednesday at 2:50pm the DEC called me to say they were offering me a full-time permanent position at Newport Public School for 2014. I was amazed, I found it hard to breathe as I hung up the phone and I am still on cloud 9, dreaming about what class I might have. 

On this coming Friday I will visit the school and meet the Principal and staff and I CAN'T WAIT!

Watch this space as my planning begins...

First 3 days as a professional

Last week I had the great pleasure of teaching my first 3 casual days. 

I got paid and I loved it! PHEW!

I went into a school I had never been to before (thanks to a friend from uni) and had the privilege of teaching a class who had not had their regular teacher for at least 6 weeks plus the school holidays.

It was daunting, exciting, invigorating and heaps of FUN!

The class was a 3/4 composite in a school of composites. It was by far the most diverse classroom I had ever taught in, culturally, academically and behaviourally. 

I had to think on my feet, I had to come prepared as there was nothing waiting for me...this made it a much more challenging and rewarding experience.

The one thing that I was very relieved about was how welcoming the staff at the school were.

All in all a wonderful first professional outing where I learnt about myself and about and from the students.

Here is a sample of art the students did inspired by the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds, these are buddy dots half a dot by each student - the children loved choosing half dots to match up, sorry about the dodgy photo!

#satchatoc

Today I was lucky enough to take part in a conversation on Twitter with educators from around the world. The theme for the chat was supporting new teachers.  Every few minutes one of the moderators would post a new question that everyone would answer.

Not only did I make quite a few new connections, I also learnt that there are many teachers out there who are willing to help new or early career teachers. 

One of the questions asked during the chat was how could universities equip new teachers better for their career?  This struck a chord with me as throughout my degree I have been disappointed by the number of lecturers who are not connected via social media.  So many still warn us about the dangers we may face.  Also not that many of my colleagues are active on twitter, nor do they understand the support and learning that can happen in 140 characters.  

From what I can see and from what I have experienced, social media can be so helpful, not only in answering the many questions new teachers can have but by providing a network of like-minded people who are passionate about their profession.  These are the people I want to work with, collaborate with, learn from.  

So if you are a new career teacher or a teacher who is new to social media, get involved, join the conversation. You will be pleased you did :)

Thanks to @stringer_andrea @mrshollyenglish @pjfairbrother for today's #satchatoc  

Morning Mashup

While thinking about ways to connect with the students in my class I came up with the idea of having a morning mash up. A 5 minute brainstorm session on things that are of interest to the students and to me. It could be something we heard on the news or radio, a question, a concern, a high five moment. Anything that we would like to share that would be of interest to the rest of the class.

I started to do this in the week during my practicum when I only had the Year 5 students (Year 6 were on camp). They loved it! We had all sorts of items mentioned.  One item that led to a further discussion was the news of a 100 car pile up in the UK.  The questions the children had about this one ranged from which car in the 100 would be most damaged to how could that many cars not see what was happening in front of them?  We then spent a few minutes trying to figure out the answers.

I guess that it may not always be practical to do this each day. However, these sessions told me a lot about my students.  It taught me that one boy was obsessed with cricket as he wanted to relay the Australian team's current standing, and that an Australian cricketer had broken the record of the highest score in a Twenty20 match.  It taught me that one of the girls in the class was interested in sharing her own achievements, did this mean recognition was one of her love languages and/or that she was not getting that recognition elsewhere?

Once the Year 6 students returned from camp they enjoyed this time as well. It actually took away some of the time spent each day with disruptive questions to the class as they had already had some voice time. One morning I shared a video I had found with them, called Little Video, Big Messages, I think, I hope it had some impact on them.

I will definitely be using this with my class the next time I am teaching. Why not give it a try?

Approved!

So today after almost 4 years of study and practical experience I received my interim approval to casual teach in NSW public schools. 

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!! 

I have loved every minute of my pracs and just about every minute of my time at uni. I have learnt so much from everyone; my university colleagues, my supervising teachers, tertiary advisors, lecturers, students and of course my fabulous PLN on Twitter.

It has all been worth it and as I thanked my boys this morning for all their help during this final internship it occurred to me that I have changed all of our lives for the better by taking this risk, this leap of faith to a new career path.

I will spend my working life teaching and learning and I hope I don't have to wait too long to before I find a school and a class of my own.

So thanks to all those who have helped, supported and encouraged along the way.

This is the wonderful card I received from my class - they are a stellar bunch of children!

Time to get serious...about blogging!

It has occurred to me a few times during this final year of university, my final year of being a pre-service teacher, and while following so many dedicated and inspiring teachers, that I should revisit my blog and contribute to the ongoing conversations about education. Conversations that I listen to and at times take part in, not only in the blogosphere but in the Twitterverse as well.

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This blog was started as a requirement of my first ICT subject in the 2nd year of my degree. I revisited it, oh so briefly, during another specialist ICT subject earlier this year, but for the most part it has sat dormant.

Some of the most inspiring bloggers I follow and read on a regular basis are teachers.  Teachers who are actively learning while teaching. Teachers who are willing to share their story, their knowledge and their time to help other teachers.

This is the kind of teacher I want to be.

During my internship (one week to go!) I have had the privilege of working with a wonderful teacher who is all these things and has been so willing to share his knowledge with me. He has taught me how to simplify my approaches to behaviour management, he has taught me that even on days when you are interrupted 50,000 times the students can still be engaged and learning. My supervising teacher, like me, came late to this career, but he is one of the most respected and loved teachers in the school. To me one of his greatest attributes is his willingness to learn.

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So, I will endeavour to update this blog once a week, I hope to share snapshots from my own learning as well as articles, stories, information and links. It will be a place for me to do more than just retweet, although I will continue to do that as well. 

Flipped!

Ash, K. (2012). Educators evaluate'flipped classrooms'. Education Week, 32, s6-8. 
Berrett, D. (2012). How ‘flipping’the classroom can improve the traditional lecture. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 
Brunsell, E., & Horejsi, M. (2013). Flipping your classroom in one "take". Science Teacher, 80(3), 8-8. Fulton, K. (2012). Upside down and inside out: Flip your classroom to improve student learning. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(8), 12-17.
MacMeekin, M. (2013, April 13). Flipping the classroom. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/flipping-the-classroom/ 
Strayer, J. F. (2012). How learning in an inverted classroom influences cooperation, innovation and task orientation. Learning Environments Research, 15(2), 171-193. 
Tucker, B. (2012). The flipped classroom. Education Next, 12(1), 82-83.

Say no to drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and...social networks?

It is interesting to me as a parent to see the change in the dangers we need to warn our children about.  When I was at school it was all about drugs, then it was smoking and more recently the ads on TV about alcohol and not introducing it to kids too early.  


I now have a teenager in the house and a pre teen, and the one thing that I am being told to talk to my children about...the danger of social networks and cyber bullying. 


The experts are right, we need to talk to our children about this, in fact all the above mentioned dangers need to be openly discussed, but how do we go about it? How do we prevent our children from falling prey to any of these dangers without sounding like over protective, boring parents?


I say go where the kids go - YouTube! There is a wealth of videos out there aiding parents to deal with these issues. Many produced by government bodies designed specifically for parents and teachers.


Here is one that has caught my eye a couple of times, for some reason I can't seem to embed it but click on the link and that should work.


How Cybersmart are you?

Google + what's the fuss?

I have been caught up in the wave of Google +, after my friend John mentioned he received an invite (after pestering many people), I couldn't help but get one too.  The fact that he was promoting this on Facebook had us all giggling a bit.

What is Google Plus? Well, Google + is Google's version of Facebook.  Yes, another social media tool for us to follow, join, tweet about and endure.  But I like it! It seems that those in education, who are into such tools, are happy about the fact that it offers more privacy and security and therefore may be more suitable for a school environment.  One aspect of t Google + is the ability to categorise people into different circles and thus not sharing everything with everyone.

Doug Peterson talks more about it here and it's implications for education.  There are many people tweeting about this and the reviews are positive for the most part. I have been enjoying having a look see but Jeff Gibbard's article Google Plus (Google +): The Painful Realization highlights to me some issues I had yet to realise.

I can see that if my friends and family made the move, that Facebook may play second fiddle to Google Plus but as Jeff points out that requires their family and friends to move as well.  

We will have to wait and see...in the meantime watch the promo video from Google.

Minecraft in education?

My son LOVES playing Minecraft and now I have heard about a teacher in the US who uses Minecraft in the classroom, aptly named the Minecraft Teacher.  


@heyjudeonline retweeted the @edtechcrew who have just published a podcast on their website about Minecraft via an interview with the Minecraft Teacher, Joel Levin.


Interestingly, when I was at Sam's recent parent teacher interview, I suggested to Sam's geography teacher that if he taught mapping, direction and the other skills he was trying to teach, through Minecraft that Sam, and no doubt the other students, would be so engaged and would be able to apply these skills in the game itself.


Have a listen to the podcast, you don't have to listen very long to get some ideas from the Minecraft Teacher about how to incorporate this into your school computer lesson.



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Technology update with a twist

I am in the process of upgrading to a smartphone.  This is actually taking me way more time than I thought it would and eating up quite a bit of my download allowance.  An iPad is on my horizon as I can see so much potential in the classroom and if I want to be a teacher with today's generation of students then I need to be on top of all things techno and I see the iPad as my vehicle.  


However when it comes to phone choice I face a dilemma, I would love to just say iPhone 4 is for me and that is what I am going to buy.  But there is so much talk out there about problems with it that it made me look at the alternatives.  HTC Incredible S being one and Samsung Galaxy S II being the other.  Samsung I am afraid is out purely on battery life, so that leaves me with two.  My heart says just go with the iPhone and be done with it, my head says consider other options, do your research, read reviews etc etc.  Well I have done all that and it really comes down to Apple or not, you are either with them or against them.  So no decision!


I was also hoping to find out if one brand was more ethical in it's manufacture than another but my trusty Shop Ethical app does not yet include smartphones, or any phones for that matter.  Love it for lots of other products, but I digress...


So here I am stumped, feel free to offer your opinion, I may not listen but hey I just might! 

3things

While reading one of my favourite magazines Peppermint I came across a campaign run by Oxfam Australia called 3things. It is a wonderful initiative where people are asked the question What are 3things you can do to help change the world? The 3things can be very simple from riding bikes, taking public transport, eating organic, being nice, listening, recylcing - anything to make the world a better place.  Everyone is encouraged to add their 3things to the website.  You can also view other supporters pledges.  


I thought this would be a fantastic project for children to become involved in.  3things states that they are challenging the perception that young Australians are self involved and chained to their mobile devices not caring about the world at large.  I think if we use this initiative in classrooms we can start the ball rolling in the mind of our students and the future custodians of the globe.


Think HSIE, Science, English so many ways we could use this in a positive way in the classroom.


So check it out www.3things.org.au

Great minds...and the wonder of the web.

I am always amazed at how quickly one can navigate the worldwide web, I start reading a blog of a fellow crafter which leads me to a teacher blog which leads me to a twitter recommendation.  And from there I start following someone who points me to a new discovery, it is not a vicious circle but it is a circle that you can roll around over and over again finding new and wonderful things.


I am following the twitterer @TeachingIdeas and they like 'providing free ideas, resources, links and news to teachers around the world.' They tweeted today about an article at Teaching News. The article discusses the top five teaching discoveries of the week.  Interestingly I too have made a couple of these discoveries recently, both image related.  Dear Photograph and Pinterest.  Pinterest is a virtual pinboard and I have been using this for a variety of reasons for about a month now, one of the reasons is there are often great ideas for teacher resources pinned on the boards of other pinners.  

I discovered Dear Photograph only 2 days ago and it is such a wonderful idea, it is a blog of photos of photos taken in its original location showing changes over time and as Teaching News suggests it could easily be used in a classroom environment and as a series could be made into a digital story.

And how did I make this discovery? Twitter of course, but from a scrapbooker I follow.  This web truly is a wonderful place!

To blog on or not - is that really the question?

I have been watching many a vodcast of late and one that stood out to me was Gemma's . She asked the question whether her pre-service teacher colleagues would continue to blog now that it is not a requirement of our PE3 subject?


I think the answer must be yes!  I have found this to be such a great tool in not only reflecting on what I have learnt but also helping me fully understand the content. I am able to read others insights and in some cases change my opinion about certain subjects.


I have enjoyed reading other teachers blogs too, those already out there doing what we hope to do very soon. If we want to weave technology into our everyday classrooms then we must keep up with the latest and greatest.  We should read articles, blogs, follow links via twitter and search YouTube for related videos.  There is a wealth of knowledge out there being graciously shared by experts and we should take advantage of that.


So I, along with Gemma, intend on blogging my way to graduation and beyond.  I hope you will join me on the adventure!



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The total package!

Here is my first video blog, I hope you like it!

Final two days of practicum.

Due to my son being sick during prac I had to complete my last two days of prac this week. I was really hoping I could do something techno and fun with my class, but alas this was not going to happen.  As much as I liked my teacher and I believe her to be a good teacher, technology did not figure into her day, and not just the days I was there.  Unfortunately I did not get to Web 2.0 with my class, I barely got to IWB with them.  I know I have written about this before but after a semester of learning about how to incorporate technology into the classroom and making it meaningful I am disappointed that I could not put any of this new knowledge into practice. 


I can see how easy it would be for teachers to keep doing things the way they have always done them, but is that really an excuse?  My prac teacher said to me on the first day, don't do anything overly exciting as they are a noisy class and anything out of the ordinary just gets them over excited.  This flabbergasted me and made me wish for a teacher who said something more like, they are a noisy class but try whatever you like - you never know what they might respond to.  How great would that have been?

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ePortfolios or just Portfolios...

Helen Barrett's article Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios outlines the uses of eportfolios as a way of preserving, reflecting on and showcasing a learning journey.  Lydia, Janna and I used a PowerPoint presentation to enlighten our PE3 class to the benefits not only for us as teachers and our own journey but also as a replacement for the paper portfolios that many primary students bring home at the end of each school year.


The reflection of the journey should be the key feature of any portfolio and will enable us to get the most benefit from the process.


Being a new member of the Web 2.0 revolution PowerPoint does seem a little rudimentary now after all we have learnt this semester but sometimes you just have to get the information out there!

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Budd:e_ducation

My eyes were opened a whole lot wider in class this week.  Internet security is something that, I must admit, has not been that high on my priority list, I guess I have paid it lip service and that is it.  I mean I do have a virus scanner on my computer and I do block my children from getting onto any of 'those' sites but I haven't really educated myself or them about what it is ok to do online and what is NOT.


Budd:e is my new best friend, this site has been set up by the Australian Government as a part of their e-security initiative and in their blurb about it say that this internet based program is part of an education package.  This is where it gets important, yes show your students these sites but not before you explain why you are letting them play.  Use budd:e as part of an education program about the internet and how to be safe while using and enjoying it.  


I will be delving further into this site in the very near future, I did check it out briefly and I have already learnt a lot.



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Copy, right??

We had a very interesting discussion about ethics in our PE3 class today.  Our teacher showed us a couple of case studies and asked our opinion.  One of the case studies referred to copying software to use in the classroom if your budget is limited. It was basically asking us if we would overlook the law in order to provide the best for our students.  


This one question divided the class but not equally. Interestingly only a few people said they would not copy the software even if they felt their students were being disadvantaged.  


I was one of the few.


This is not something that I need to even think about - it has come up many times in the past in my life in regard to DVD and CD and PC game copying in particular.  And a much as I think sometimes the really large companies out there are making a fortune from sales, I have to think about the author or artist or owner of the information, words or music. 


However, my good friend Kate did question me about other things such as pictures for this blog, or print outs from the internet for practicum, it is certainly something the think about...where do you draw the line?



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