Sunday 12 August 2007

Another Sunday but another life...


Well its a week since my last post and things at home are changed so that has been fairly difficult all round. I am pressing on as this is important and the week has been equally as busy at school.We have a demonstration session of Studywiz at school this week and that I hope has initiated some thought among those who attended. Several people have said that Scholaris appears to have more features so I shall have a look at that one too. On Monday we had a meeting regarding the possibility of an Upwey High TV channel and there is a follow up meeting tomorrow so that will be interesting. It sounds terrific with channels for faculties and the kids and we would be a pilot school so that would be great. As for me I haven't got any editing/ media skills yet so that makes it tricky for me and a challenge I should get into. I am also going to a day conference on the school's e-learning plan - strange how I have jumped from just a user to a planner so quickly huh! That should be interesting and I guess that is how I get change to happen. the other area of interest is the Teacher Summer School announcement from the Minister which most peole were fairly cynical about but it may be just what I need to keep me busy in what may be a very slow time this year. I will wait and see but it could be good to apply. I have been trying new things in classes and am quite interested in giving digital storytelling a go so have found lots of great sites to help me with this. We had our third WRAP session on Thursday night and that was great because it finally started to make sense with me and I will really start to make an effort with it and also do the second Spalding course so I acn use it. We had a conversation about allotments and courses for next year and are needing to get some things in place soon for things to happen. Pam has some great ideas for the Festival related to making it an Election related one- speaking out about issues and a focus on oral skills so that is all happening and we are sorting out how our Night Of The Notables will work as we have more classes and less space! In clas I had a go with getting Year 9 to make motivational posters- read optimism here- for putting up around the school and year 11s are doing Inspiration maps of the play and I am going to get them to do life size character profiles using -yes the teacher's friend - butcher's paper. I have done my first presentation for the electronic whiteboard as a starting point for them so I think I have sorted out the handwriting recognition issue. The boy's Year 10 class are really getting into R&J the game is working but I have been using lollies to help the enthusiasm- amazing how 'reluctant' learners will do stuff when a reward is involved. At least it has been fun for us all! I have been teaching some of the others how to use the whiteboard so we can hopefully get a group of users developing the materials to make use of it. Year 9s are using epals and actually sending off letters some are really getting into the idea What I want is a lab attached to/in my room and ...... I think that I am getting excited about where this can all go. Thank goodness there is something good at the moment. Here's my favourite current lolcat from my cheezburger site. Really this is me learning how to do links but this one is delightful.

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