2014 ... a year in review!

Usually at this time I just "think" about the highlights of my year and I've never had a blog before and therefore a vessel to review them via.  That all changed this year as embraced social media, in particular blogging and twitter and have enjoyed being able to share my successes, thoughts, attempts and meanderings.

I've grown so much as a teacher this year and look forward to extending that growth into my own classroom next year and at the same time completing my Honours degree - I have one summer school paper and a research project which I'm awaiting ethics approval for - once again, "watch this space" on that one!!

As we move into 2015, I feel I've accomplished plenty in my first year of teaching, and received an opportunity that very few beginning teachers have had - the support of a mentor teacher to assist in my transition to the classroom - the Manaiakalani Digital Teaching Academy (MDTA) made this possible and this unique opportunity has made for an amazing year!

So, without further ado, here are just some of my highlights as I think back and review 2014!

• The 19 unique individuals who will forever be the very first class I had the pleasure of teaching!
• Sharing my knowledge with the school and cluster with HTML toolkits
• Sharing my experiences on my blog (and the Auckland University Top of the Class blog)
• Getting to know the wonderful staff at Pt England School who make coming to work every day such fun
• Piloting the iPad 1:1 in the junior classroom - it was a challenge that I embraced and enjoyed, despite the hurdles and occasional bumps along the way - opportunities for learning and growth, each and every one of them!
• Explain Everything - wow, what an app!  We've used it in SO many different ways and I know I will continue to do so in the future
• The Manaiakalani Film Festival - wow - what an experience, can't wait to do it again next year.
• The MDTA weekly sessions which gave us opportunities to debrief and talk about our weeks  and more importantly, explore new tools to assist us to be at home in a digital world
• and last, because it means the most:  Michelle George, my mentor teacher - you are amazing!!  I will never be able to thank you enough for your support and encouragement this year - I'm a better teacher because of this experience - you shared a class with me and were supportive no matter what, always allowing me to try new things, while providing expertise and experience that you were so happy to share, each and every day.   

I'm sure I've missed things, but the wonderful thing about my blog is the history - I can look over the experiences of the year at any time in the future!  I can't believe I've been teaching a year - its been exciting, enthralling, exhausting, eventful, exhilarating and emotional - I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else!   

Farewell Class 20 .... hello Room 19!

Well it has arrived, the last day of teaching for my very first year!  I'm not looking forward to farewelling my first class, but I do so knowing that I can watch them move up the school and that they have a unique place in my heart as my very first class!  2014 has been an amazing year - I've grown so much as a teacher and had the expert guidance of Michelle to support me on my journey. We have made some amazing discoveries throughout the year as a 1:1 iPad pilot class and I look forward to continuing the journey into next year.

And so I look towards 2015, and another first - my own class!  While my teaching space remains the same, I will be teaching Room 19, again a Year 0/1 class which will grow throughout Term 1 as new learners arrive at Pt England School.  Already I have begun work on my Google Site in preparation for a new year and I can't wait to meet the unique individuals that will call Room 19 their classroom for 2015.

My journey continues, as will this blog, as I definitely plan to continue blogging about my professional journey, this time supported by my very own class blog!

My First Year in Review

As part of our final weeks of our MDTA PLG we were asked to create a video as a summary of our year.  I found it difficult to condense what I wanted to share into just five minutes and when I look back over my year am amazed at what I've packed into such a relatively short time.

I feel I have grown as a teacher and am definitely looking forward to the challenge of my own class next year.  I will definitely enjoy my last few weeks with Class 20 of 2014, and look forward to being able to watch these lovely young learners grow as they move into 2015 and beyond.

Once Upon a Time .... my Film Festival movie journey

Once Upon a Time .... As part of our MDTA learning journey we had to contribute a movie to the Manaiakalani Film Festival! We had many sessions throughout the year on using iMovie and I definitely can tell that I've been on a major learning journey! Prior to beginning this year, I'd never made a movie before, and today I see my movie on the big screen - not once, but three times (including the evening session!!)

Once Upon a Time .... There were challenges!! I wanted to use the costumes as my learners really enjoy "dressing up" - show me a five year old that doesn't! I decided to use the Green Screen and create a fairy tale land - a tall order indeed! Finding backdrops that suited my needs was hard, and I have learnt from this experience that pre-deciding on the backgrounds in advance makes it much easier! You can film to the background rather than try and fit a background to your filming!

Once Upon a Time .... Sound was an issue! Again, I made many discoveries that I will use in future films to ensure I have high quality audio to work with - I had to try and rerecord my audio and match it up to my actors which took a significant amount of time! 

Once Upon a Time .... We have a movie! I can't wait to see the reactions from the learners when they view it (for the very first time - no previews were given to them!) on the big screen later today. The filming experience, from scripting, to costumes, to editing was an amazing learning journey and I'm actually excited to do it all over again next year. Its an experience which I believe my learners will benefit from being a part of (even though it is more teacher directed at my level) and they will be able to look back on in later years with pride.

Once Upon a Time ....

Learning from older peers

Today we had Year 3/4 learners come to our classroom to share what they'd been learning and teach our students how to use the ScratchJr app.  It was great to see the absolute engagement of both my learners and their older 'teachers' for 90 minutes this morning.

The Year 3/4 learners were very adept at using the app and were confident and articulate in sharing their knowledge with my 5 year olds.  I buddied two of my learners with one 'expert' and circulated the groups to listen to the conversations and observe the modelling which was occurring.  The older students were able to scaffold the activity and support their younger peers to ensure they all completed an amazing animation!  It was great to hear and see the older learners demonstrating and then watching and guiding as the younger learners tried things out with patience and a supportive attitude!

We concluded the lesson using our Apple TV where learners were able to showcase what they had created as a result of today's learning.  The older learners were also keen to share which gave us some great ideas for using the app in the future.

For me, this session reinforced the importance of removing the traditional teacher/learner barriers and thinking outside the square about how to convey knowledge.  Sure, I could have taught my learners how to use this app quite successfully, but the success of the peer teaching goes deeper than that.  The Year 3/4 students had to scaffold their approach to suit my younger learners, which they did with amazing success.  They were able to reinforce their own learning through teaching others and see others create as a result of this teaching.  Ultimately, the Learn-Create-Share framework which is the backbone of our school philosophy was highlighted today, not through blogging or something visual, but through sharing their knowledge with others in the school, which in turn enables them to Create to demonstrate their own Learning - and so the cycle continues!

Classroom Displays

I was motivated by this post by Craig Kemp to take another look at the displays in our classroom as we head into Term 4.  We have a 1:1 digital learning environment in Class 20, and I do see differences in our wall displays than in other classes.  Having said that, we also have the ability to make our displays 'interactive' through the use of QR codes and by providing visual 'how to' instructions that our learners can use as a reference point.

Every term we create a topic wall display - this display includes rich vocabulary that we aim to unpack over the term as well as a pictures which relate directly to our topic.  In Term 4 this topic is 'Art Attack', which we are combining with a trip to the river.  Following the success of QR codes last term, we are again using these to assist the learners in exploring our topic.

Some aspects of the remaining walls in our classroom are driven by the needs of our learners.  For example, they need to have high frequency words on the wall which they can easily locate and use in their writing.  They also benefit by having numbers 1 - 20 displayed to assist with their maths.  But there is also room to include information that will assist them with their digital device.  While we haven't added to this display too much after Term 1, it is still available as a reference point for learners if they forget how to access Explain Everything projects or file the projects in the relevant folders.

I also believe its important for learners to see their completed work on the walls - sharing it with other learners and visitors to the classroom.  These work samples were created using KidPix and usually shared via the class blog.  They have been printed and displayed on the wall enabling learners to share with others.

Wall space for displays in any classroom is limited, particularly when you have a whole wall of windows as we do.  However making use of hanging displays (particularly when working with five year olds so height is not an issue) is one way of creating more display room.  We have numerous examples of stories that we have created as a whole class on display around the classroom.  As referred to in a recent Jannie van Hees professional development session, this enables learners to revisit the stories they had a part in creating.  

As with anything, there is always room for improvement or things that could be tried to see if they are more effective.  Currently our rotation board space is not being well used as we generally have done away with a reading rotation and tend to base our reading lessons around a limited set of options in combination with Explain Everything projects and time on KidsPix.  Over the holidays I've changed how this display space is being used and incorporated some ownership of activities for learners around their Explain Everything reading activities.  Often learners do not finish their activities in one session and these carry over to the next day.  By utilising some of this board learners that have not completed their activity can add their picture to this display at the end of the session giving us a visual reference of who has work to complete the next day.

I've also redesigned the space to allow the display of more topic specific words which will assist learners with their writing.  The before and after of this space appear below - time to see how it works with the commencement of Term 4.

Writing using the iPads

One curriculum area which we haven’t to date used the iPads extensively with is writing.  Our main rationale for this was the need for learners to learn how to write using the traditional pen and paper.

We did implement a few innovations using the iPad during the first two terms, including having a lined page on an Explain Everything template for learners’ to practice writing their name as well as a trace the letters of the alphabet project (to assist with correct letter formation).  However, for the most part we have focused on writing using books and pencils.

That has all changed in the last few weeks as Michelle identified a need for our learners’ to remember their stories in order to write them.  They have some amazing ideas, many of which have come about through the rich gifting of oral language we are doing in the classroom (drawing on school wide professional development we are receiving from Dr Jannie van Hees).  We have trialed using Explain Everything to record their stories orally and then have the learners use the playback function to assist in their writing.  This innovation has shown immediate results with some great stories being created and written by our learners.

This approach has highlighted that learners are able to locate high frequency words and sounds within a word, and record these into sentences but they struggle to retain sentences (or multiple sentences) in their head and sequence it for writing.  Through this recorded scaffolding they are experiencing success in their writing which in turn is engaging them in writing.

In combination with this, we are now allowing learners to type their stories directly onto the iPad on some occasions.  This has resulted in greater detail in the stories and learners are even more engaged in writing and keen to write all the time.  This was highlighted last week when many selected writing during a twenty-minute period of ‘free choice’ in the classroom. 

While it is early days, the results already from learners recording their stories orally first and then using this recording to write has been so effective that we plan on continuing it into next term.

Two samples of independent, unscaffolded writing from my learners:

An example of a recorded sentence which a learner has used to write their story:

This post appears as my fortnightly contribution to the University of Auckland's Top of the Class blog, of which I'm a regular contributor.

An exciting lesson .... a healthy snack!

As we near the end of our Integrated Learning unit, we are looking at healthy snacks and what the benefits are of eating healthy foods.  We completed an amazing brainstorm with the learners identifying many great ideas about why we should put healthy food in our bodies.

Last Monday, we had the opportunity to make a healthy snack.  Michelle was on release for this lesson, so I had the opportunity to plan and manage the lesson and am really pleased to report it was highly successful.  I made sure I was really clear in my instructions and demonstrated steps so the learners were able to enjoy the lesson within a framework which ensured success.

In order to reflect on this lesson and draw on aspects in future lessons, this blog post reflects on the lesson and unpacks what I would do differently next time.

• Having two Year 8 learners to assist - Class 20 related really well to them and it enabled me to put a small group of learners with each of them
• Unpacking the ingredients and discussing the vocabulary - when we revisited the activity the next day at writing, many of learners were able to identify the ingredients and equipment and use that same language
• Allowing a whole hour - I was unsure if we would be able to use the entire hour, but by taking things slowly we were able to do a good job and discuss the whole process
• Clear and precise instructions - all but two of the learners were able to make the kebabs completely independently (and they enjoyed the task more I feel because of the participation)
• Well scaffolded steps and discussing these before we started so there were clear expectations - the learners also knew they would be able to eat their finished product, but not until the very end
• Being able to eat the end results - definitely appreciated by all the learners
• Following the activity up the next day with writing and KidPix - this really helped cement the learning and some amazing stories were created from the experience

• Need to be aware of balancing the instructions and scaffolding with allowing learners to explore, but within boundaries - we discussed all steps but some of the learning may have been more beneficial by learners trying certain things eg trying a whole strawberry or apricot on the kebab stick and seeing the result
• Set instructions - having a procedure printed to refer to (like a recipe) may have been beneficial for working through the steps
• Small group versus whole class - this activity we completed as a whole class, with each child making their own kebab when the ingredients were all prepared - could try as small groups which would give each learner a greater hands on experience (perhaps with additional senior students as support)?

NB:  Images in this blog post created using Pic Collage iPad app

My MDTA journey so far ...

The following is a post I recently submitted to appear on the University of Auckland's Top of the Class blog!

As I approach the end of Term 3, I decided to use this post to reflect on my journey as a beginning teacher in the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA), a very unique opportunity and one for which I continually thankful for.

Background

The Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA) allows 10 Beginning Teachers (BT) the opportunity to teach alongside an experienced teacher, while being immersed in schools using digital technology in the classroom.   This is a unique opportunity for BTs to experience and learn through “doing”, with the support of our mentors.  It will ensure that we are strong practitioners in teaching in a digital environment to maximise achievement opportunities with our students.

Alongside this team teaching, I meet with the other MDTA BTs in a weekly PLG receiving professional development assisting us in building digital pedagogies and becoming confident and competent with digital technologies.   All the BTs and mentors are also completing postgraduate study (Honours or Masters) focusing on teaching and learning with digital technology, particularly in lower decile schools.

Teaching in a Digital Learning Environment

What I really like about teaching in a digital learning environment is the 24/7 nature of it.  I don’t have to be at school to do my planning or look at my children’s work as I can access this from anywhere as long as I have an internet connection.   All our learners have a Google account created and managed by the school.  Their work is uploaded to their Google account (each learner has their account linked on their iPad so they are not having to remember passwords).  Using the Hapara Teacher Dashboard app, I have access to all my learners’ files and parents are also able to log in via the Parent Portal on this app and look at the learning of their own children.

Team Teaching with a Mentor Teacher

Sharing the class with Michelle George (my mentor teacher), I have an opportunity to observe her on a daily basis and adjust my practice and pick up on things that she is doing really well.  I also get immediate feedback from her about my teaching which is particularly valuable if I try something different or need guidance on things I want to change.  Michelle has given me opportunities to try things out whilst providing guidance about the school systems, assessments and how to progress individual learners when appropriate.  When we discuss individual learners we bring our own unique perspectives but will often have seen the same things and agree on the way forward.  As a beginning teacher I totally appreciate that I’m receiving more guidance and feedback than other BTs and feel that I will be a better teacher because of this.

Furthering my Education – the Honours Degree

Balancing the demands of teaching with study can be difficult, although it is also extremely rewarding.  The two papers we are completing this year (Research Methods and Accelerating Learning) are able to be related to learners and my digital classroom environment.  We are encouraged to bring specific examples to our lectures to discuss, particularly with those teaching at a similar age level.  The learning from lectures and readings can be applied in the classroom and are grounded in theories for both teaching and learning.

There’s been so much learning this year so far, but by far the highlight for me is the progress that the learners in my class have made and continue to make.  When I look at the gains they have made since starting school and see their progress, combined with how highly engaged they are with the iPads, I find it extremely motivational for me as a BT.

Game On ..... a personal review!

After using my Game On site for seven weeks now, I thought it was timely to review how its gone from both a teaching and learning perspective.  The site was time intensive to create (although much of the work could easily transfer into a new site in the future) but did it achieve the outcomes I intended?

• The use of QR Codes for learners to navigate to the pages - extremely easy for five year olds to use, highly engaging (they were always keen to use them) and were very simple to create and display on our integrated learning wall.  I would definitely use these again, in fact the learners are already asking if we will have them again next term!
• You Tube clips on the site for learners to view and hear the information - again, extremely successful (although a little noisy in the classroom) but many viewed the same clips more than once and were able to remember and report back on what they had viewed.  
• The world map with links to the Commonwealth Countries we intended to investigate - this worked really well and provided a visual link for the learners as to where each country was in relation to New Zealand!  I feel I didn't unpack this map as well as I could have and this is a "need to work on" for next time.
• Ability to add additional pages to the Google Site - so easy!!  After focusing on the Opening Ceremony during our class time I easily added a page to the site to include some of the images we'd discussed in class.  Creating an additional QR code and adding it to our display wall saw the learners being able to access the page the very next day!
• Ease of creating a Google Site and sharing it with multiple teachers - again, so easy!  I was able to give Michelle editing rights to the site and she could add and edit our site.  Other teachers in the school also indicated they intended to use some of the site for their learning.

• Topic specific words with corresponding pictures - these made our inquiry display in the classroom visually appealing but I feel I didn't unpack these words with the learners so they could benefit from this rich vocabulary.  Something to improve on next term!
• You Tube clips on every page - because I had a You Tube clip on every page, it was impossible to have students exploring the site at various times as the noise was extremely distracting for other learners.  This wasn't a huge problem for this topic as we all explored the site at the same time (it was a little noisy!) but it definitely is something to remember for future sites if the intention is to explore it at varying times throughout the day.  In the more reliable summer months, there is always the option to head outside and listen to clips.

• You Tube clips relating to the 20th Commonwealth Games - when I created the site I added clips from previous Commonwealth Games as a starting point, with the intention to upload additional clips as the games got under way (I created the site during the Term holidays before the CG started). However, I didn't expect such limited access to You Tube clips once the games got under way.  Even clips from the Opening Ceremony were extremely limited except for those on NZ news sites (Stuff, TVNZ) which were much harder to link to directly.  This meant while we were able to play content for the learners on the Apple TV (using the Stuff & TVNZ sites) I wasn't able to add these to my site and have learners look at them independently.
• How many site pages did we need?  I'd created pages for six commonwealth countries and five of the commonwealth games sports.  This gave the learners a huge selection to choose from but took a significant amount of time to create.  While this variety was great for the learners, it could easily be scaled back to be more manageable from a creation perspective.
• Height of the QR codes - oops!  While visually appealing to have the QR codes at different heights, in reality this made it hard for learners to scan them.  We had a number of work-arounds throughout the term - some learners standing on chairs, me moving them down temporarily so they could be scanned, but the big message for next term - KEEP the QR codes lower!
• Explain Everything projects linked to QR codes - this just did not work.  It was a great idea, but when learners scanned the QR code linking to the Explain Everything project (despite intensive testing) there were always problems, such as it not linking into the Explain Everything app, taking too long to load, or just not opening at all and displaying an error.  It was worth trying, but definitely Teacher Dashboard remains the best way for sharing these projects.

As we evaluate the learning that has occurred this term about "What Makes a Champion", much of the learning has come from the information provided on the site.  While it is impossible to tell if the learners would have 'learnt it anyway', it was extremely obvious that they were very engaged and motivated in their learning when using the site.  They were able to share things they had discovered independently, with the class and revisit the information when required.  There are definite areas for me to improve on with future Integrated Learning sites, but for a first attempt I'm extremely pleased with how the site was used.  I'm confident that using QR codes with this age group makes the learning more accessible and will continue with this system into Term 4 and my teaching in 2015.  Overall, a grade of ...