Sarah's+Online+Portfolio

=**__Sarah's Online Portfolio﻿__**= ITeam Cluster Day Reflections 25th March 2011

=Session 1 - VLN - 'Face book for Educators'= This session was about navigating around the site and joining groups that would be of interest (e portfolios, inquiry learning) Karen was stressing the importance of using this site and the value of conversing with other educators. We will use this site as a way of communicating as a cluster - it appears friendlier than the wiki

=Session 2 - My portfolio= I like this as i can record all of my PD, it appears reasonably easy to navigate although i won't use it with my kids. I also won't introduce it to my team as i feel it is too much for them and it won't be used. It does have value with regards uploading videos and linking to knowledge net.

=Session 3 - Cluster goals and action plan=

Fiona, Jo and I sat down and discussed future goals for the school and an action plan with what we as leaders need to set up and establish. This chat was a real 'wake up' call for me. Last year we 'as leaders' were directed in what to do, now in the second year of this contract we need to now rely on being told what to do, but use our initiative and the evidence we have to support our staff and promote the effective use of ICT in the classrooms.

We are well aware that staff vary on the ICT spectrum with confidence, ability and use in classrooms. We as leaders need to provide for all of these levels and not broaden the gap so people feel even more isolated and fearful of integrating ICT into their programmes.

Our chat was productive and set up a number of areas relating to our school e-learning action plan that we have already been working on, and also now need to focus on. Jo and i now need to prioritise these areas and work out what we will do on our two release days. We have identified the following areas need to be looked at:

1) The Learning model - We need to link sites to the different areas of the model (task, questioning, etc) It would be good if they were level based (junior, middle, senior) to see the continuum What ICT tools can we use to support - Look at the literacy page, and Fiona's example for ideas Book karen in for this day, and use her expertise and ideas to help

2) We want to create an ICT passport - what key skills do children need to achieve at each level - keep it simple and achievable - robyn has created something like this before - look and ammend - discuss with staff to get an idea of what they think children can achieve in each year.

3) Cybersafety - Feedback from staff regarding Hectors world and netsafe What do they like and not like? Plan for year - willit be a yearly/ bi annual programme - what will it look like? Will this affect our policy agreement - is our internet safety still relevant - do we need to ammend/update it? This needs to be done sooner rather than later because the junior school are at the end of the Hector's World Programme and reflection would be best while fresh in their minds.

4) Jo and I need to reflect on Learning @ Schools and our interSchool workshop - making sure Fiona is given the links to act as evidence for our milestone report. Be aware of kids who are in photos as could be open to all on internet!

5) Coming to the end of term 1, teams will start to plan for next term - as ICT leaders we need to look at what areas we are going to focus on, and then promote the deliberate act of planning how ICT will be integrated into this.

20/10/10 Reflection of ICT contract aiding me in my leadership skills


 * mixing with like minded motivated peers who have leadership experience
 * how to create and present an effective staff meeting/workshop that engages staff, maintains their attention through practical sessions and not me talking the whole time.
 * how to support staff effectively and coach them - let them have control of the laptop and talk them through it. Don't do it for them and expect them to learn from watching.
 * learning the importance of following through with action straight away - if you say something at a meeting, provide the staff with what you have promised.
 * enabled me to have more contact and learn skills from my Deputy Principal. Very valuable at learning how to effectively support staff, maintain professionalism, and build up on skills and knowledge.

Sarah Sharples || To further integrate ICT into my literacy and numeracy programme || To adapt my teaching practice to ensure children learn through ICT not just the ICT enhancing my teacher practice. || 1) Give children the opportunity to tell me the success criteria – empower them. Provide opportunities for children to observe and annotate both good and bad examples of work (report writing) that they need to create success criteria for. Teach children how to google search effectively. What is a good question? Using speech marks to lessen the number of hits.   2) Children need to become familiar with a range of software and the positive and negative aspects they hold for different tasks. Children create PMI posters for each software (kidpix, imovie, comic life, voki, knowledge net) and display in the class. 3) Expose children to further software (wordle, wall wisher, digistore, voki (typing text in), you tube/ teacher tube. Create posters for all the different software we use, to act as reminders to what we can use, and why we might use it (voki – to hear expression when reading aloud). ||
 * __Goals set with Trevor - Friday 18th June__**
 * Iteam Tauranga Lead Teacher Day - Trevor Bond @ TPS - Friday 18th June
 * __Original Goal__
 * __Revised Goal__
 * __Success Criteria__ || __Evidence__ ||
 * 1) Children will come up with success criteria more often || 1) At the beginning of tasks/ lessons, I will put up task heading e.g. Report Writing. Children will then add criteria by looking at examples of reports and perhaps googling. ||
 * 2) Children to start to select the software/ICT which would best suit the selected task. || 2) I am not telling the children that they will be using ‘comic life’. I will give them the task and they will tell me the software/ICT which will best suit the task. ||
 * 3) Use further software to enhance the literacy programme || 3) Children will explore wall wisher, voki, digistore (linked to knowledge Net), and discuss the Pro’s and Con’s for use in different curricular areas. ||
 * __Steps to achieving these goals__


 * __14th September - Trevor models 'good' questioning to my class -__**


 * I am aware that in my class the children can often ask 'closed questions', requiring yes or no answers. I have discussed the importance of open ended questions but not deliberatly taught the 'art' of questioning. This is where I thought Trevor would be best to model. So this morning Jo and i observed Trevor taking my year 2 children in a 30 minute lesson on the marae.**


 * Before we started Trevor questioned me about why are we focusing on the marae?**
 * What was our end point?**


 * After some discussion I told Trevor that we were going to invite the parents in to our classrooms in Week Term 4 and let this be an opportunity to share our mihi, work on the marae and what we have learnt about marae protocols and greeting people in the correct manner. Trevor has emphasised to me the importance of having an 'end point' to head towards. It focus's the children's learning and gives it a purpose, hopefully installing motivation and a reason for learning.**
 * __This is an essential element in inquiry learning and moving away from the 'project' focus that has dominated teaching in past years,__**


 * Having told the children the end point, Trevor then took over and asked the children**
 * What are going to have to know to present this evening to the parents?**

The rules/ kawa of the marae More about hongi and why?
 * Great ideas flowed - We need to know more about..........**
 * Marae protocol - What does marae protocol mean? one boy asked?**

SEVEN SERVANTS Trevor talked about the elephant child poem, and the seven servants. After hearing one, the children could name the rest Which, who, where, why, when, how, what I am going to promote these starters to children when questioning

Discussion then turned to what starts a yes/no question - is, can will, are, does do

I was really pleased with the session, the children were focused and enjoyed contributing their ideas. It also allowed individual children to shine, who might not in other areas.

Allow an oral language session each morning, integrating effective questioning
 * __Reflection - Where to from here???__**
 * The children and i are going to make some posters of good questioning focusing around the seven servant poem**
 * The children and i are going to make a poster about yes, no questions**
 * I am not going to discourage questions, Trevor reminded me the importance of all questions**
 * If children ask yes/no questions, then simply say yes/no, is that the answer that you wanted. If not, how could you have asked that question in a better way? We as teachers can interpret their question and answer how we think they want it, therefore allowing the children to continuely ask yes/no questions and not practicing the skill of open more informative questions.**