GAFE Day 1

Once again I had the opportunity to attend the GAFE North Island Summit and learn from some amazing teachers and educators.   The entire summit is a smorgasbord of workshops and of course its not possible to attend everything!

My highlights from my day one session included:

iPads and Google - Holly Clark
Even after working with 1:1 iPads for two years there is still an opportunity for learning.  Thanks to Holly for introducing me to the power of Socrative - a powerful way of capturing the ideas of learners or participants and manipulate the information.  I really liked the co-operative nature of this tool and how quick and easy it is to used.

Holly also inspired me to use Book Creator as a different way of capturing experiences of the learners and turn it into a rewindable creation.  I intend to have my learners use Explain Everything to create their images, and use writing time so each learner can write a story to contribute to the book.   I'm a huge fan of using iPads with my learners and was extremely pleased to see the apps that Holly was talking about are the ones that we use daily on iPads.

1:1 ipads with Year 1 - Michelle George
It was great to relive our journey from last year with Michelle's presentation - we learnt so much during our year together and I miss sharing and learning with her this year - instead I'm forging ahead with my own journey and making more memories and learning with my learners.

No More Worksheets - Holly Clark

The following quote from early on in Holly's presentation was powerful for me - already I hardly ever use worksheets in my classroom (except when we have a reliever) and I can totally relate with the point made here:

Throughout the session, Holly introduced several tools to ensure thinking is visible and the learner voice is captured.  I continue to be a strong advocate for our "just one app" approach, however I often use other apps and online tools to support my teaching and make it more engaging for my learners.  I'm sure I will use croak.it over the coming weeks, particularly for sound bites for my learners and already am a frequent user of padlet (even sharing its power with the MDTA team earlier this year).  

As with my GAFE experience last year, I enjoyed the Google SLAM at the end of the day - and took away a few great tips and ideas to try out - I've already made a new favicon for my class site thanks to Justine Driver's Slam!

I'm looking forward to Day 2 - and contributing to the summit with my own presentations!