Energise Conference 2018 Day 2

Our second day started with the Energise Surprise, which involved us being in teams of 3-5 people and being given tasks to complete that all revolved around a Sphero.
Our initial problem was working out how to drive the Sphero - we were all pretty bad at it, and somehow I ended up doing the driving, which was entertaining to say the least. We had a few tasks to complete including painting our Sphero and making patterns with it, swimming it across water and racing a chariot to the finish line. A lot of fun was had and I know lots of people were talking about how to use Spheros in their schools after that session.
My problem with getting these blogs out is that I keep reading all the articles I link to - today's blog has taken hours, as I got quite excited by some of the links. Ah, the joy of learning.

Session 1 - RachelChisnall/Pip Cleaves

Action learning for professional growth

Unfortunately Pip could not come to the conference so Rachel delivered her talk and added her spin on it. She very kindly said I could share the slides, so here is the link to those.

Reason for chameleon. Different skin to change for different environment.

Kids get more out of you from the relationships you form than the content you give

Learning is like the Rakaia, all different paths all trying to get to the sea

Think about what you want, then how to get there won't matter. You will learn the bits you need.

MSFT peercoaching, need a catalyst. Need a structure or scaffold to make collaboration effective.

Focuses on 21CLD

World Institute for Action Learning

Focuses on action-learning

Focus on the group action rather than content

National School Reform Faculty -  having a critical friend. Makes you think about why you are doing it that way.

Design thinking - Phillipa Antipas has several blog posts on design thinking

Fail fast, fail often

Collaboration, what is it?

Staff survey, what did they want to learn about

Some tech and some much broader

ALARM, writing and literacy

Came up with those ideas and staff had to pick a group

Then a question, what is driving the choice of your topic. What do you want to know how to do?

Bring it to 10 words max

Some questions around what the teachers, students and families do, eg flipped classroom

Individual goals as well

What we know about this topic on one side and what we want to know on the other. Then take photo for your own use.

SWOT analysis

Can't always be the best teacher for all of your students. Give them options and access to other teachers if possible.

Culture shift between standing up and telling them or being beside and working with them

Let's ideate, no rules

Write 10 ideas, active with pen and paper, share ideas and record

Killer idea template - on slideshow

Empathy, who are we solving this for, what is their goal, key problems

Idea, what are we solving this for

Benefit, why

Empathy map, x map, who what, why, feelings

How are you going to evaluate the impact

Clear about expectations of each member of the group

Explain, pain and gain speed dating

Explain, what did you do, outcome

Pain, what was challenging, what didn't go well

Gain, what was good

Teachers had to make a resource for other staff in their school out of their learning including examples of how it worked and with whom. 

Notetaking one had apps you could use and things not to do as well.

Sharing resources and contributing to the Kura. Needs to be there for people to use. Makes you do it properly and is useful for others.

This process works well with inquiry in NZ

Inquiry and appraisal hand in hand in some schools, not always productive to trying new things.

Who sets prof learning in your school?

Are you told what to learn or do you have agency. How can you manipulate your own learning?

Rachel went out and found ways to do her own learning

What would a'product' look like in your environment?

People kept asking how to connect printers, did a video on how, but they wanted it on paper. Needed to meet the teacher need. Some staff also saw how you could use that style of teaching.

Growing beyond these projects. Where to from there?

Force people into online environment

Find people to help

How are you going to make that stick ? Have focus because you can't do everything.

Lots of teachers blogging in NZ. Find someone who is where you are at. Sometimes it is instructional, sometimes a rant, sometimes sharing.

Googlefor education

Microsoft Educator Community one not all about the Ms products, lots of different courses

Edx, more courses, microcredentials

Free pd

Uses a tweetdeck

#edchatnz

Hint for class - use post boxes, put questions in, get them up and moving around

Session 2 - Jarrod Aberhart

Design thinking

Started with a thinking starter - www.remote-associates-test.com - Use first 3 words to create the last word

Jarrod also agreed to share his slides

From https://www.21cskillslab.com/what-21c-skills/

Dr Seuss writing a book using only 50 words as the result of a bet. Green eggs and ham

P based learning -  p can be project, passion, problem, play-based, people

UN sustainable dev goals

Top ten skills in 2020 and 2015  (which I also saw in last weeks SCT conference)

Careers NZ - Employability skills. Trialling putting those skills into standards

Taken a step further for his staff. Table of 21cld learning activity chart

21c skills chart

Better by design-  human centered design. Getting students out into the world.

A book, choose Duracell, graphic

Chosen lines in it for industrial

Interaction, not sure

Systems, all recycled

Design Thinking Process: shows how you go back and forward

Definitions

Empathy for users - examples:

Taping down cords, solving a problem. Not pretty so students went out and did some research

Nano technology sticker pad tech

Coffee shop, always had huge lines. Developed a coffee app

Girl broken her arm and 3d printed an alternative. Failed but was out working it

Getting to class on time

Getting lunch at the canteen

Conversation tips before they go out to the public. Teach them how to shake hands etc.

Ask open ended questions

See his ppt for that slide.

Getting them to think deeper using 5 why

Ask the person next to you about your design topic to gain some insights

Backward mapping

Why can't you get up on the midnight, why is that an issue, why, why

Empathy map

Do an activity before they go. 

Nerds - What is something they might do. Stereotyping - Rugby player

What do they say, what do they feel, what do they think, what do they do

Next sheet..

We met... Frustrated teachers, unorganised students

We were amazed to realise....

Wouldn't it be great if...

Then go to ideation mode

Best kids at divergent thinking are kindergarten kids. Best test is 1 minute of making things with a brick and a piece of paper. Too scared to be judged.

Build on ideas of others.

Use yes, and....

Drawing ideas on circles - given 30 circles and a short amount of time to make them into anything they want.

Some cant' do it.

Brainwriting/Affinity Map: Group the patterns

Brainstorm questions not answers. Go away and find out about those questions

Brainwriting

Googlestorming

Instructables

Roman voting, thumbs up, down maybe

3 stickers next to 3 favourite ideas

Takes away personalisation

Then prototype to explore the solution, then take prototype out to users

Could be role play, and 3d print:

https://www.qlone.pro/

https://www.tinkercad.com/

https://atomic.io/ can prototype sensors etc

Built counterweight bike rack

Fisherman's soap, has star anise that attracts fish. Looks like the sea. Designed to lather in cold water.

Good example of human centred design

Lots of links on powerpoint

Uses Agile,scrum board - Scrum meeting each week.

What did you do this week to benefit the group, what were the problems and what will you do next week.

Working on rubrics around collaboration and self regulation

Session3 - StephenMcConnachie, Middleton Grange School and Keryn Hooker - Methven Primary School

E-learning - What should it look like

Students do not learn from technology. Discuss

Whole quote is  Students do not learn from technology, they learn from thinking. Students do not learn from technology, they learn from thinking. Technologies can engage and support thinking when students learn with technology. Jonassen, D. H. (2003)

Why e learning?

Multiple, students being able to record, make a video, collaboration. Can do things in different ways

Interact, can play with it and interact with each other. Building on each other's work.

Ubiquitous, is everywhere, can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

Engagement, simply using technology at all increased engagement by sometimes that is all it did.

Components and tools for online learning. 

2009 report from schools on ict engagement (not sure if this is the one Stephen was talking about but I found it interesting anyway...)

Tech should support the thinking

What should it look like

Creative

Collaborative

Constructivist

Strategic plan for elearning

Use this in past

Educator community

Enabling elearning site, elearning planning

Learning tool should be invisible. Do need to know how to use the tools

Time consuming. Take that time to learn the tools. Keep on top of the balance. Set up the experts in the room.

SAMR Framework and you can be anywhere in this journey for you and your students.

$$$$ not a good explanation

One flew over the cuckoos nest, why are we reading this. The author deliberate wrote poorly for a deliberate effect.

Choose the right tool for the job for the deliberate effect

Sometimes use paper, sometimes tech

Primary context

5cs of e-learning. Collaboration, Citizenship, Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity

Communication, Seesaw for communicating with parents to share the learning

Use OneNote for publishing writing and collaboration

Mystery Skype communicating beyond our school

Critical thinking, the children run their learning, choose their workshops. They do pathways and opt in to their level

Student voice, owning next steps

Matific, maths pathway

Collaboration, 21cld skills. Learning pathway around reflection

World in groups in OneNote. Put some structure in that

For Google, set up a table of contents in Google doc so have 1 long doc. Can do headings

Learnz conference great to get to different places

Creativity, stop motion, multiple representations and moral learning. Sharing knowledge without writing it down. Have a day a week to dictate instead.

3d paint, built into windows 10

New PowerPoint you can insert a 3d model. New slide transition called morph. Can make an animal walk across the page

Can use for story telling

Minecraftedu

Citizenship, be a Star

Stay safe online

Take care with privacy and information

Ask for help if you need it

Respect yourself, others, copyright and intellectual property

Just like any other citizenship things, respectful at lunch etc.

Are the students engaged? Yes, but in what?

What does authentic engagement look like. Engagement with the learning goal, or engagement with the tool. Are they doing the goal or are they making the power point pretty.

Triple E Rubric - by Liz Kolb. Learning first, technology second

Full framework here

Engagement with the learning goal

Enhancement of the learning goal

Extension of the learning goal

If all there, it's a good learning activity

Readingeggs

Mathletics

Work through the triple E process to look at a unit overall. Does it have a balance?

Choose a lesson or tool and work through the rubric

Evaluate new software and hardware

Collaboration enabled by e-learning

Students running their own learning.

All planning online and they opt into lessons at their own level at Methven primary

OneNote a digital ring binder

Surveys on work that students fill out

Students run workshops

Students writing their own reports

Digital modelling, sharing resources with all teachers

Screencastify or office mix, built into PowerPoint to pre record lessons so can do own workshop in own time.

Stephen makes resources for nationwide audience at of his so doesn't have his face, Kerryn does and puts her face in, better for learning.

Booked workshops online didn't work, tick sheet was better.

http://activitytypes.wm.edu/

Heavy research but awesome site. Here is what this research means for subject areas.

Activity ideas and software

Activity types taxonomy

What is transformational maths in an elearning context?

Any curriculum area.

Stephen also showed us how to do a table of contents in a Google doc - for those without OneNote!

Type in each heading:

Section 1

Section 2

Highlight "Section1"  Change to heading types - heading and can have it on the side to jump to it

View-show document outline, to see the headings

Or

Build table of contents at top - Make link that says back to top and Link to table of contents title

Keynote - Why creativity matters

@sylviaduckworth

Sylviaduckworth.com

Really got to take my hat off to Sylvia - she did her mihi whakatau, it was warmly acknowledged with a round of applause.

Definition of Creativity:

The ability to make new things and think of new ideas.

Exciting as a child - she loved taking photos, and the thing about photography was about developing pictures and the creativity of that

Activity 1: Silly dance moves, follow someone else then make up your own.

3 things :

Creativity has mental health benefits

Cognitive benefits

Creativity

Study from Otago Uni

Creativity and happiness. More sessions they did the happier they felt

Brain releases dopamine

So focused in the moment it is like meditating.

Can even skip meals if in the zone. Gardening, cooking, dance

Menti.com for quick survey on what we do to be creative - lots of people like cooking!!

We have been creating music and arts for thousands of years

An urge to communicate something

Pinterest 17.5million users

Ken Robinson quotes about creativity importance

Why is creativity important in education?

Without creativity we will not move forward

Gives everyone a chance to shine

Mayo Clinic Research 2018 - Higher rate of creativity decreases cognitive impairment by 73%

Activity 2: Write a positive phrase on paper. Make it into a paper plane. Send across the room

What is a positive message, how do I write that, how do I make a paper plane, how do I make it fly - lots of cognitive thought processes.

ClaudeWatson school for the arts

15hrs on academics in 30hr week, 15 hours on creative.

Look at government tests on grade 3,6,9 10 for schools

Looked at results and shows that 100%of students there over achieved at reading and writing and 97%maths

Not a direct relationship with arts and academic achievements but research shows it has indirect relationship

Activity3:  Let's draw - Graham Shaw Ted talk. Prove that you can. To be honest, I have always thought I couldn't - at all. This showed me I actually could - quite excited. These are my drawings to the right.

Creativity can be learnt

Be more creative, now.

There is a creative process.

This is awesome, then this is hard, then this sticks, then I suck, then this is ok, then I am ok, then I am awesome.

How to get more creativity in the classroom

Allow students to bring the own creativity into the classroom

Can bring your own as well. She brought sketchnote. Had youtube channel with students

Edwin Sorto video on dance

Share your creativity with your students

Jack Ma on we do not change the way we teach... It's knowledge based. Teachers must stop teaching knowledge

Values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others

Sports, music, painting. Everything we teach should be different from machines.

I had a great time at this conference. Spending time with passionate educators, listening to new ideas and having some great conversations over lunch. Well worth going to. I am going to reflect on what I have learnt and make some personal notes on these sessions (which I write in a separate blog which is not public) and know that I still have so much to learn. I hope those that have read this also find some new ideas and are inspired to learn more.

Haeata - Connections in week 1

I have been so excited about starting at Haeata Community Campus and was very keen to keep a diary of what I was thinking and what we have been doing and so I decided I would write a bit each day and publish at the end of the week. This is an amazing opportunity to be in at the beginning of a new school, and the process is very different from when you change schools at the end of a year. I have been lucky to be part of this new venture and I am finding it fascinating.

The day before...

After meeting with #ChchEd Educators @paulinehendog, @mattynicoll, @karyngra and @ginippi on Sunday afternoon, I had more questions than answers and the excitement started to build. We had a good discussion about uniform in schools and I found that I hadn't even given a thought as to whether there was a dress code for staff in my new school. I just assumed that I would wear what I normally would for teaching. It was good having Karyn there, so I did get to ask. Interestingly, she said it wasn't something that they had thought about. There are so many things that a new school has to think about, it has been interesting to see what the priorities are as another school had stipulated what they wanted their staff to wear. As Matt was also going to a new school this term, there was talk about the balance of getting to know staff, but also getting on with what we need to do for planning and I look forward to seeing how this pans out in our induction weeks. I am sure my social media accounts will be busy over the next few weeks as I learn new things and get more excited about meeting our students next year.

Day One

Some nerves this morning as I drove over to the old Burwood School site ready for our mihi whakatau. Great to meet with some new staff first thing and then we were welcomed to Haeata.  After our mihimihi Mana Whenua facilitator Corban Te Aika and Mel Taite (SLT) spent time to teach us the waiata that we would be mainly using. Our day was spent getting to know each other. We spent time in small groups, doing the usual icebreaker type activities and the SLT ran some excellent activities. We went outside and did a treasure hunt in teams - a great way to get to know a few of our colleagues and show our true colours (maybe I am a little competitive). There were lots of laughs and a lot of talking. We also got to see the new uniform, which looks really practical and low cost for families. Over lunch, a few of us decided that the getting to know people was quite exhausting. You are continually listening, talking, asking questions and trying to remember names and details. It really was a tiring day.
During the day we were encouraged to ask questions and a few came up over the day, checking if we can blog/tweet, uniform questions, dates and times as well as talking about going into our contributing schools. Many things are still in progress and will take more discussion over the coming weeks.

Day Two

I presented my digital korowai this morning and challenged myself to present something in a way I hadn't done before so did my first Office Mix and made it into a movie. It was good to push myself out of my comfort zone - something I feel we will all be doing over the next weeks. Each day a few of us are presenting about ourselves - a really great way to get to know one another and learn about some of the interests we have.

We then had a presentation and discussion around our values at Haeata. Andy, Cheryl and Haneta from the board talked us through what the school is based on and how the values came about in consultation with the community. There was discussion around PPP - Public Private Partnership which is what this school has been funded by. You can read more about that here.
We watched The Future of Learning and we had discussions around what this meant for us as a school. We watched it again and were encouraged to take notes in whatever way we wanted. Really interesting to see the range of ways people wanted to record their thoughts. My note-taking lives in OneNote and I love being able to write and draw and highlight as I note take. Being able to put pictures in and links is just the best. I would be hard pushed to find another tool that would do all of that!
After lunch we had a "Passion Unconference". This was the opportunity to experience learning about other staff member's passions. We were treated to workshops from playing cards to baking and writing Chinese characters to making Samoan ula lole. A great opportunity to learn more about others and also experience something a little different for ourselves.We were then split into groups and given a packet of pipecleaners and had to create something that was representative of learning at Haeata. Ours showed chaos, infinity, connectedness, strong foundations, collaboration and thinking outside the box.

Day Three

The day started with our karakia and himene (I have been learning a lot in regards to Tikanga Maori and Te Reo)and then moved into a session on Unschooling. We had a lot of opportunities to talk in pairs and small groups about our experiences and in one part to discuss failure and success and what the conditions were to make us meet these two things. Why do we try again and again and then give up? Or alternatively why do we try and try again and keep trying until we succeed? We came up with a lot of conditions that make these things happen. A really good way to see how we can support our learners to succeed. I realised for myself that I often don't risk take for fear of failure and things outside my comfort zone often don't even get attempted. We are all too quick to make excuses - not enough time, not interested and so on.
Andy Kai Fong talked about the cynefin framework by Dan Snowden (place of multiple belongings) and we looked at what each of these areas could look like in a school situation. I felt this resonated as I know I have been in all four quadrants over my teaching time.
We had some time in our hapori today which was good to get to know each other a little better. We played games (cards were a definite hit) and chatted about ourselves.
I had an interesting discussion with some staff at lunchtime around student well-being and was introduced to the Circle of Wellbeing and Achievement which Haeata is using when interviewing parents of new students. This has a really good framework to get to know students and plan goals and strategies to help with the transition into the school.
We had more digital korowai today and it has been great learning about our staff who have been very open in sharing information about their family and their teaching.
The afternoon was about our personal sites that had been set up for us which have our contracts and information and documentation about our reflections as well as space for working towards our Practicing Teaching Criteria.

Day Four

Our first session was on the principles today - Authentic, Connected, Culturally intelligent, Inclusive, Social, Open, Personalised. These are what Haeata is based upon and it was great to have time to learn about and unpack these. Firstly we had blank sheets of paper to write our ideas and unpack each principle. Then we gathered in groups and were given photos that we felt represented those principles and it was interesting to see how people interpreted those pictures and the different ways of thinking. We shared a story each that related to one of the principles and looked at how we would show success in that area. This was a good exercise in working out how we define success. It made me think more about what success is and how our students show that. In groups we also made a slide show with a quote, definition, song and slogan about one of the principles. This let us unpack them a little more as well as get to know more staff. I felt that the principles are all interconnected and felt good about how they would impact on our teaching and learning at Haeata.

Day Five

Today was a different day. We started with a shared breakfast and then had an Amazing Race. We were split into different groups yet again and sent off around Christchurch to find a range of items, build sandcastles and meet people in businesses. The highlights would have to be one of our team removing the required chicken feather from a dead chicken, pretending to be sheep on the side of the road, meeting some amazing people and convincing tourists to have their photo taken with us. We came back for a BBQ lunch then worked together on a presentation for the rest of the staff on our excursion.


This week has been like a huge week of professional development. My daughter thought it sounded like a school camp and in some ways it was. We had time to socialise, to connect with one another and learn about others as well as ourselves. We are very lucky to have this opportunity.  I certainly felt that my brain was about to explode a few times. However, it has been a very rewarding week and I know that I feel connected to staff and to this amazing new school, Haeata.

2015 reflection

It's 2016!
I can't believe how quickly the last year went by.
A challenge by Justin Birckbichler, @Mr_B_Teacher, to write a reflective post got me thinking about writing again. I liked his blog and title - Successes, Challenges and Resolutions so I have split this into those categories. The challenge was to do this before the New Year but I managed to start with one of my Resolutions, and have some time out with family, taking a jet boat trip up the beautiful Waimakariri River.

Successes

The School of Apps
This was a new initiative this year and I was reasonably happy with the way it went. It was totally a new learning experience for all involved and we came a long way. I feel this is the way education should be for students and those that did the course were certainly happy with the outcomes. Students were excited, came in frequently after class hours and they were enjoying learning together. More on this in my previous blog Schools within Schools.

Professional Development
I have done a lot more reading and personal Professional Development this year. Joining Twitter and being able to connect with such amazing people with inspiring ideas has been the single biggest motivator for me.
I have relished reading tweets and so many articles and blogs, all of which are helping me to improve my teaching and my ideas.

I have read a large number of books on education as well, with 3 inspiring me to read them many times and bookmarking pages.

Open: How we'll work, live and learn in the future by David Price
Stratosphere: Integrating Technology,Pedagogy and Change Knowledge by Michael Fullan
Creative Schools: Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up by Ken Robinson

Blogging
This is very new for me and I want to thank #EdblogNZ and @nlouwrens for getting me started. It's a great way to reflect on my work and to keep track of what I am doing and why. Looking forward to more challenges over the year.

#MIEExpert
I have been selected to be a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert for 2016 and I am so excited about this opportunity. I have a lot of ideas to help staff and students become more confident in using Office365 at our school, and I am learning a lot myself.

Staff Connections
I have really enjoyed working with 2 particular staff members this year, Andy Gorton and Carmen Kenton. Without these two people in my school, I think I would get frustrated, lack motivation, and I would not be the teacher I am. They feed me, inspire me and encourage me to always be better, think and read more, and push the boundaries. Whenever I feel unmotivated or a bit down, all I have to do is walk into their office or room and suddenly the world is right again. I am forever grateful.

Challenges

School of Apps

Although there were many great things that came out of the School of Apps in 2015, this was the first year and there are a lot of tweaks to make. Due to staffing, we are rearranging the subjects that students will have access to, and we are also getting a new Computing teacher which will mean a different approach in that area as well. The students will get to go to his class to gain help with coding, which I know will be advantageous, as I am limited in that area and struggled with that over the last
year. I am also rearranging the order of projects as some students struggled with the individual project, so I will put an easier one first to get them on track. Looking forward to seeing how this works and if it helps engage students more fully at the beginning of the year.

#Twitter
Using Twitter has been a real challenge! I still am not that confident and frequently google things to work out what I should and shouldn't do. I don't think I have made any really big social blunders, but I'm not sure I am doing things as well as I can yet. It's a steep learning curve and I love it, but I'm still a newbie! I do believe it is a fanatstic tool and I am keen to make the most of it in 2016.
And in breaking news.... I have just found this amazing help sheet - thanks +ariaporo22

Blogging
This is a real challenge for me. Writing is not a strong point of mine. I'm music and maths oriented so it takes me a while to get my thoughts into some sensible order when using words. I was always told I rambled when I wrote, so I have been trying to make things very concise. They tend to come out in bullet points. I use far too many exclamation marks (I have deleted about 6 so far while editing) and have had to edit furiously for each post.

Work/Life Balance
This is a hard one sometimes. I think I am improving on it but I suppose doing work each night between 9 and 11pm is probably not a good balance. My personal life, being a taxi to 2 teenagers with multiple sport and music events, makes it difficult to keep up. It is on the edge at the moment, even to the stage of me pretending that reading books on education and being on Twitter reading articles and participating in chats is actually not work so doesn't count in those hours. Teaching is not a 40 hr week job so maybe the 9pm work time will have to stay for a while. Maybe just not every night...

Technology
I get frustrated trying to encourage other staff to use technology. Many of our staff struggle to even use their email, never mind integrate some sort of technology into the classroom. This is something I would like to change and I am working on setting up PD sessions for staff to help support them and encourage them to try something new.

Resolutions

• I will make my classroom a place where students don't want to leave. I have the opportunity with a new music class this year to make it a vibrant and exciting learning experience. I really want to see how I can do this is in a "traditional" class of just 4 hours a week, not just in the Schools within Schools environment where I have more time and flexibility.

• I will make the most of my MIE Expert role. This means helping others, learning more and getting the most from the support and encouragement of others. Setting up PD sessions at school is just the first step. I want to support staff in their classes and try to help them see the amazing transformation of students when technology is used to support learning.

• I will continue my blog and keep up with professional reading and Twitter. I have really enjoyed the learning I have done this last year and I want to continue this as it inspires me to do more.

• I will be wary of my work/life balance. Making time to do other things for myself that are not work related has to be a priority. I enjoy gardening, music and genealogy, as well as being with my kids, so I am going to set aside time to do some of those each day. Plus more jet boating and swimming in the Waimakariri River.

Inspiring Videos and Blogs

Over time I collect a large number of links to things that I read or watch and I find myself being overwhelmed by information. There is so much out there that is relevant, interesting and inspiring. I feel that there is never enough time in the day to digest all the information, and where do I store it all? Where can I keep the best bits and how can I tell others about them? Finally, now I have started blogging, I have found the space. I think I will collect the ones I want to go back to, and every month or two I will write a blog so I keep them in one place.

Over the last couple of months I have been copying and pasting urls onto a draft, waiting for the day when I had time to type them up into some sort of order. There is no link at all between these, they are just some awesome blogs or videos that I found useful and wanted to be able to come back to time and time again, rather than just reading once. So this is more for myself, but hopefully it is useful to others as well.


The first is a video on students designing their own School within School. This relates well to what I do at Hagley College (this will be my next post - Schools within Schools)
Students design their own schools


Charles Tsai wrote an awesome blog with an awesome title "From excellent sheep to motivated elephants" which challenges us to think about what we are teaching and how. I love his quote...

"Education today needs to help young people change the the world for the better — for themselves and for others."

From Excellent Sheep to Motivated Elephants



James Paul Gee has made me think about how I can use video games in my teaching. The power of games to change education is huge. Time to look at this more closely.
Video Games, Learning and Literacy


Grant Wiggins wrote about his experience following 2 students for 2 days. He did all the work they did and sat for as long as them. It has inspired me to make sure my students move more and get some physical exercise as well as looking at what my class will seem like from their point of view.
A sobering lesson learned


15 year old Audrey Mullen shared how she and her peers used technology in the class and provided some dos and don'ts for teachers. There are some awesome ideas in here that I will certainly be using in my classes!
A cat is not a dog and other advice


And finally, my latest read that I know I will go back to often, how to fight burnout. It's been a hard year or three for me and I have been trying to feel motivated lately. This article summed it up for me and has given me some great strategies to use. Interestingly enough, I had already started on some of them of my own accord. The hardest will be the work/life balance - there is always something to do for work and I have to learn to stop.
Fighting work burnout as an educator