Starting a new journey

This year I have had a few changes. We have had another addition to our family so I have had most of the year off. We have also moved to another city. Here is where my new learning journey begins.
After the move, I decided that I am ready to start looking for part-time work. I redesigned my CV using Canva, wrote a few cover letters and began applying.
I was a little bit nervous because I hadn't been through a full-blown application process in 10 years. However, I was fortunate enough to be accepted for a position that I am very excited about. While everyone around me winds down for the year, I have been spending evenings going through resources and working on my planning.
I will be working with a wonderful team of people, who are just beginning their e-learning journey. Today we had a meeting to plan the first term and I'm excited to implement some of my skills as well as learn about how much education has changed while I've been busy with my children. I've been keeping an eye on what people are doing and I'm looking forward to trying some of the ideas I've noticed.
This year we will have some challenges to work through.
Firstly, the classroom space is being completely changed. The single cell spaces are being opened up and redesigned. This means that we are starting with a clean slate. We can design this space to suit us and let it evolve with the learners. Watch this space, because I will be reflecting on this on a regular basis.
Secondly, I will be job sharing and be working collaboratively with a team who is new to this process too. Previously I have slotted in with people, who already had a workflow in place. Once again this is great because we have an opportunity to find our own workflow.
Another challenge for me is my knowledge of Te Reo. There is a bigger focus on Te Reo here (and rightly so). This is something I need to work on as an educator and also for my own children. Culture and heritage is very important to me and this is something that I need to learn more of for my children as well as my students.
I need to refamiliarise myself with Google classroom and Hapara Dashboard again. I imagine that it has changed a bit since I have used it last. Google, in general, has changed since I was in a classroom that used Google Apps.

So exciting times ahead! Watch this space. Hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year holiday. See you all on the other side.

Demands of blogging

We had a great Professional Development session today. We talked about the current trends in e-learning and what is happening in schools today. I really enjoyed some of the thought provoking discussion that took place because it let me evaluate what I am doing in my classroom. My current challenge is this whole blogging thing.
At the moment I find it difficult to find enough time in a day (as well as energy) to do all the things that I want to do. Blogging for my self is something I need to get into the habit of doing. For me that will come with time. What I have been thinking more and more about lately is blogging for kids.

I use kidblog with my class (http://kidblog.org/Room265/). Please come and visit us by the way, the kids love to see your comments.

I have some children in my class who have a number of dyslexic type needs (I don't want to label them as dyslexic because it is such a huge range of difficulties that fit under this very large umbrella we call dyslexia). These students often dislike writing and reading. Blogging is a great tool for them as they don't have the negative connotations with computers as they do with pen and paper, which is usually a struggle. I realise that not all children will jump up and down about blogging, but I have realised that some of my children have started to write about their day quite regularly. The comments they write to each other are becoming increasingly more constructive, rather than just "cool" or "nice story." Some still have some growing to do in that sense but we are getting there. This has also been great for my really bright kids because they feel like they are educating the people around them by writing interesting facts. Some of my boy's write a fact each week. They have to find a new piece of information, learn about it and blog about it their own words (NO COPYING!) So over all this has been a very valuable tool to increase children's confidence and enjoyment for expressing their ideas in the written form.
This brings me to my dilemma. I use kidblog to keep an eye on what the children are writing and help out some of the children who struggle with spelling by checking some of what they write. I don't correct all mistakes, I think it is important for them to make these and discuss what they have written with their peers. What I'm finding now though is that I can't always keep up. During the term with all the other things we have to do (MARKING, updating wikis, collaborating with children on their google doc creating flipcharts...) I am finding it harder and harder to make sure that I check each blog and approve comments.
So here is my question to my fellow educators... How do you keep up with the increasing demand to keep blogs, wikis, sites, etc up to date? What do you do to manage these? Am I being a little too ambitious by checking all these blogs?
What are your thoughts on the matter?

Graphic organisers

As I mentioned before, we've been learning about charities.  The charity we have been focussing on is Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust. 

Today we looked at how helicopters work. Instead of telling the kids to display what they learned in their books I got the kids to show their work in a template I created using Draw in Google Docs.

The children collected the information about the forces at play and placed their findings in the template. I thought that four medium sized boxes would be enough space for the children to show their understanding without intimidating those who don't like to write. Graphic organisers are great like that. 

I was pleasantly surprised. The discussions that the children were having were fantastic and even my more reluctant writers displayed their what they learned. Most filled the boxes I gave them and added more because I just didn't give them enough space as I was later told.

This is the template I created:

This is what some of my kids created:

So what do you think? I was blown away!

Google what.....?

Today I decided to sit down to set up the kids folders in Google Apps. Going by Jacqui's advice I got the kids in the ICT suite and got the kids into their buddy groups. From there the children took turns to set up their folders in their Google accounts.
Now I thought I was doing a good thing using a time when the kids had a computer between the two of them where they could watch a buddy do it and then try it them selves.

Boy was I wrong...
Mrs Tauroa mine won't work... Mrs Tauroa I can't sign in... Mrs Tauroa my password doesn't work... Mrs Tauroa... Mrs Tauroa...
After we finally had everyone signed in I went on to explain how to set up collections. Going through everything step by step would be the logical thing to do right? Well not if some of the kids aren't listening.  
I had a student teacher with me so it didn't go as badly as it would have.

I shared this with Jacqui and told her how I got on even though I worked with groups, as it turn out Jacqui meant that I probably should have worked with a group at a time but not in the same day. She meant with one group a month...

After this experience.. and others like it I have realised that I have a tendency to jump straight into the deep end. Maybe that's why experiment so much, that's how I learn.
I did the same thing with Space Day last year. I planned it, thought hard about what I wanted to do and after having loads of second thoughts..... did it anyway.
Even though some of the experiments don't go so well I still learn heaps from each one.
So what did I learn from this experience?

Set the kids independent work and have a SMALL group with me working on setting up their accounts.
So that's what I'll do next year...
On the positive side everyone in my class is all set to go for our technology filled week.