New Discovery

I haven't been on here for a very long time but I wanted to try something so here goes...

Bring on BYOD!

Today in our ICT Lead Teacher workshop we talked BYOD.  Many schools are already taking this route and it's time for us to consider walking down this road too.  Whilst this is an exciting step to be contemplating, this is a huge undertaking with many considerations and possibilities.

The first thing to decide is the purpose of having BYOD in our school.  We came up with many ideas, including:

• Making ICT more accessible for the kids
• Increase the amount of technology without additional budget required
• It fits in with our ICT purpose of 21 century learning  (prepare students for learning and employment in the 2st century)
• Ideally 1:1 environment, though not necessarily possible in beginning stages
• Minimise physical barriers to writing
• Increased student engagement with learning
• Increased ability to share and receive feedback on learning
• Individualisation of learning
• Ability for continuation of learning at home
• Increased ability to connect with the wider community
• Flexible learning options for teaching and learning
• Integration of devices that students will encounter in life beyond the classroom
• A range of applications and learning tools
• Allows collaboration while at school and home

The big discussions included what device(s), which level(s) to include, trial or no trial?, consultation, security issues etc. There are many, many considerations that need to be discussed...Our next step....bring on a Working Group!

Very productive day...and a yummy lunch at Porthouse Grill to boot :)

Term 2 Lead Teacher Day

What a busy meeting today!

We started off the day discussing and deciding the norms for our group.   We talked about how we want to be treated and how we treat each other!  We came up with a solid set of norms that everyone is feeling happy about.  We have such a fantastic team, it is good to know that we can have open and honest dicussions and that we can trust and support each other because lets face it, sometimes this can be a difficult job.  







    

ICT Lead Teacher Day 14 February 2014

We have had a busy start to the year, especially for digital technologies in our school.

We are changing the platform for our e-portfolios to blogs this year.  Anna and I trialled this last year and we are now rolling this out to the whole school, therefore the day was based mainly on how we are going to support teachers in implementing blogs in their classes through a number of PLO's over this term.  We throughly planned the first PLO on Monday and have planned what we are going to focus on in the remaining PLO's.

We worked on transferring our school Writing and Reading Progressions into Google to enable them to be linked to the blogs and sites.  

It was a very productive day, we got a lot done and even managed to enjoy a lovely lunch at Portersteak Grill :)

Blogs, eports, google and more...

So much to do, so little time!  

There has been alot happening with e-learning this year and things will only be getting busier over the next term and a half so it was fantastic to sit down today with like-minded teachers and share ideas, collaborate and learn new things.

It was great to meet the new ICT Lead Teachers from Botany Downs School, Yasmine and Natalie and also catch up with Lyndal.  We haven't had an opportunity to catch up with our cluster schools this year and it was interesting to hear how they are progressing with their e-learning etc. 

The sMACkdown was informative as always.  A couple of things I will take away are:

• http://lingro.com/ - Paste a website address into lingro and every word is linked to a dictionary definition. Helpful for ESOL kids. 
• https://www.collaaj.com/ -A better screencasting app than ShowMe!!  It records video as well as audio/screen movement

Anna and I worked on a presentation to the staff as we are reporting back on Wednesday about how our Blogs as e-portfolios have gone.  We are really excited about presenting to the staff and sharing our findings with them. We have surveyed our children and got some parent feedback about how they have found using blogs as a platform.  They were overwhelmingly positive in their feedback with the vast majority opting to stay with blogs rather than return to Knowledge Net.  Looking forward to presenting to staff and hearing their thoughts about rolling it out to the whole school next year.     

Our ICT Lead Teacher meeting today was cram-packed and productive but we could have used another day or two to get through everything we need to do!  Yes I know...dream on!!

Looking forward to ULearn now...breakouts al booked...so excited...bring it on!

ICT Lead Teacher Day 1 July 2013

We had a busy, productive meeting today.  

Some key ideas that we covered today were:

• ePortfolios and how these are progressing.  This term has been a major shift for me in terms of ePortfolios.  I am one of two teachers at our school trialling individual blogs as a platform for ePortfolios this term.  This has meant a huge amount of time setting up the blogs, introducing/teaching them to the students and analysing what is working and what isn't.  It has been an exciting time, but also a bit stressful.  We have Student Led Conferences on Thursday night and whilst the student blogs are mostly up to date, there are still gaps that need to be filled in over the next few days.  Having said that the students are extremely proud of their blogs and love adding to them!  In my opinion, they eclipse the old ePortfolio platform in that fact that they are much more user-friendly, easily accessible and can be individualised.
• Converting data from our server to Google sites. This will be happening over the next few months as we work towards getting a smaller server and using Google/iCloud/Dropbox for cheaper/free storage.
• The sMACdown is always interesting and a good way to share new resources etc.  A couple of new things I picked up were prezi.com from Debbie which is a great presentation tool and WordFoto app.  Will be giving these ago in my classroom.
• Setting up an iPad User Group within the school to support, share and motivate teachers in using iPads in their classrooms.  We set three dates to hold these meetings.  The first one will run like a sMACdown where people can share what they have been doing in their classrooms with iPads.  We will also set up a Google site for iPad use in school which will be a great, on-going resource. 
• We made good headway on our eLearning Progressions today.  Debbie and I worked on Y3/4 learning intentions and managed to pretty much complete those.  Next step sharing the LI's and ensuring we are all on the same track...then success criteria.  Our aim is to get these finished by end of Term 3 and then trialling them in Term 4.

Great day today thanks to the amazing people in the team.  Thanks guys, looking forward to our next meeting.

Now I have a BIG decision to make: Tedx or EducampAkl?  Hmmmm....

ICT Lead Teacher Day 12 April

We had our first ICT Lead Teacher day of the year at the end of last term and it was a very productive but intense, fully packed day.

We had a huge discussion around a PMI the teachers at our school created about our student e-Portfolios.  There was an overwhelming response from teachers with a range of issues. It took us a large amount of time to sort the issues raised in the PMI into relevant areas.  It was an interesting exercise which enabled us to get a clear view of the main issues/areas concerning teachers and the where to next...  Some are quick fixes that are easily addressed, whilst others will be addressed in a staff meeting with some PD and support for staff.  Anna and I will also be creating some screen casts and developing the ICT google site as a tool for teachers to use for support.  I'm sure many teachers don;t even know this exists and it will be a helpful tool once it has been developed.

I am looking forward to some challenges with ICT this year.   My class and another senior class will be trialling Google Apps for Education and using a Blog platform for e-Portfolios instead on KnowledgeNet.  My students are very excited about this and it will be interesting to see how these develop and whether they will be a viable option for e-Portfolios in the future.

So exciting times ahead...watch this space :)