Professional Development
Click here for my PPP that gives a skeleton to work with.
CEGSA Conference 2009
I enjoyed Judy Beals’ presentation with the clip of the students learning to use iMovie and the boy was asking how to make the movie when the girl leaned over and said “You’re making one now!”. I definitely agree that you can not subject learning creativity to a skills continuum! Also I share the concern about being obsessed with the product all the time rather than the process. I’ll need to go to www.ted.tv to check out Gever Tully and have already seen as much Sir Ken Robinson clips as I can-big fan of him.
I will get into Thinkquest Australia this year with the year 6’s. I will go to the workshop tomorrow and will also check out the Scootle workshop-see if I can visit both.
After the keynote by Glenn McMahon from the Catholic sector I want to create some Wordles. I really liked his son’s use of the Flip camera and I agree that the kids are so engaged in their work that you can not get in the way of that kind of learning-let it flow I say! If you see Lewis’s Incredibot in the 6MS tab you can see something he created on his own and there is a good story behind it. I will share this in my presentation tomorrow in the CEGSA conference.
Another venture to get stuck into is Scratch. I came across it in 2007 when I studied ICT at Flinders as a part of my Masters and did an assignment on blogs. I discovered some great Scottish educational blogs and Hope CE School were “scratching”. The Limestone Coast Scratchers warrant a further look in and I enjoyed the video conference by Peter Ruwoldt and Karen Brennan. I definitely will be a part of Scratch Day 2010!
matthew-pt-1
This year I am doing my Masters in Education part time while studying full-time. Sounds crazy but it really is interesting and relevant to my teaching. The unit I am doing this year is “Conceptions in Giftedness”-I am about to finally get writing the second essay which is about Kids that are Gifted with Digital learning. I did an interview with Matthew from the school that I teach at now-he is in year 5 and all the teachers ask him for help regularly and he just sat a national ICT test in which he got 29/30. Well done Matthew! Here is part 1 of the interview with him…(it was also recorded in the middle of literacy circles in my classroom so it was a little noisy) the batteries ran out so part 2 will come next week. This just goes to show that you can not get disheartened when technology fails you-persistance is a virtue!
2008 CEGSA conference
Today sure has been an interesting day. The Learning is a Conversation theme is apt for this CEGSA conference and I really enjoy the way that Independant, Catholic and State schools teachers and school community members are mixed together to share experiences and ideas.
What I went to today:
The Keynote: Martin Westwell who captured our brains and connected with us. He will be a good resource for my Gifted Ed essay that Judy Beal and I are writing together. More about that later.
My presentation which I enjoyed -yes the proxy sever bugged me on a few occasions but I was still able to share my ideas and experience with my current class-thanks to all who came as it was a good turn out.
I then floated over to a workshop..late sorry Penny. She had an intersting workshop about RSS pod and Vodcasting. I will follow up the SMSPup, PBS Nova for Science Podcasts and also the Naked Scientist a UK Science radio program I believe-yet to check it out. Sounds dodgy but my instincts say I will like it.
Keynote 2: Chris Betcher: Really fascinating and I recorded it with my MP3 and will ask him if I can share it on the wiki or this blog. Things to follow up from this one-
Oz-Teacher- I need to get back into that one.
Twitter-could be fun
Get my Skype working (Vista seems to hate it at home-but I will persist!)
Maintain my blog and especially the unprotected pages as I am missing out on a lot of sharing by pooling all my time into my year 2/3 protected pages.
I will go to the conversation workshop tomorrow and will have more to share after that I am sure.
What I like about blogging is that you can reflect on your learning-a very important part of the process and share in it as we are all connected. I could get theological or philosophical at this point but to get back to my point-reflection-the percolation of ideas-visuals of a big coffee plunger come to mind but it is the filtering process of ideas and experience that interests me and the opportunity to talk to yourself and others may listen and get something out of what you are thinking.
In the afternoon I went to Velma Beaglehole’s workshop “Slam Dunk Astronomy”-the astronomy part is what drew me in-I was worried about the Slam Dunk idea initially as I thought it could be something to do with the Power Teaching approach Judy B and I saw on Teacher Tube-crazy scarey stuff! However I was pleasantly surprised with a good template that helps to structure and scaffold the learning-a good plan for the teacher too and assessment tool as well-keeps the teaching and learning explicit.
I designed my own one on the Big Bang theory to be done with my class in term 4 using some of Velma’s good resources and links and I found one she liked from ESA (European Space something) Google: Big bang theory for Kids and it is the 2nd one down. I used it last year with my year 5’s and they loved some of the games on it.
I miss my scanner-I left it at school. I want o scan a cartoon I drew for my Gifted essay with Judy that would relate well to this conference. I will get it up by next week. Although once the school term starts it will be back to crazy time management-is there a flat bed scanner at the Maths Science centre? This is where I need Twitter to find out.
Is Bubble share still out there? The Carronshore Primary V7 class blog used it last year to share series of photos and it was effective-this is like a note to myself-also find the Ewan McIntosh interview by her class students about Blogging.
July 2007 cegSA conference in Adelaide
Today was a great day with an excellent keynote speaker-Gerry White who highlighted many important issues in ICT. I think it is astounding that the military is getting ready to change the Internet protocol over to version 6 within the next couple of years but the same capability is not being extended to the area of education!
Some things I am interested in finding out more about are:
The Ubuntu 7.04 operating system (open source)
Flock-social web browser
Zolto
Thinkfree
Also hotmaths looks like a great way to explore shapes and angles with my middle primary students.
ischools web board in the Philippines sounds great too!
Jason Plunket’s presentation on Open Source Software was also very fruitful. I did not know the distinction between free ware and open source before.
NVU the web design tool sounds great
PDF creator also one to follow through with
Open Document drawing (Impress) and Paint.net another one to pursue.
Blender-3D graphics would be a geat one to explore with middle primary students.
7-Zip sounds like it is essential to replace WinZip.
Cam Studio is the screen capture program that allows you to make onine video tutorials-GREAT!
Also provide to families the free antivirus…ClamWin…to prevent viruses being brought to school.
I also found out from someone in that session about an open source software that TSOF used called “Stop Animation”. That definitely is one to pursue.
To replace Inspiration is…”FreeMind”
I agree with the Peter Ruwoldt quote “Teach the free stuff first”.
Then in the afternoon I attended the workshop on “The Learning Federation” and there are some really cool new developments with that resource. I am glad there was at least one other Catholic school teacher there and we have our DVD now so can get it into our respective schools! Anne deNicolo was a very dynamic and enlightening presenter. “Australian Screen” will be fantastic for our Media unit in term 4.
http:australianscreen.com.au
I look forward to Software Freedom day 15th September 2007.
http://softwarefreedomday.org
Below is my PowerPoint presentation from my cegSA presentation as a download or a thinkfree view -the 4th session on Friday 20th July 2007.
Educational blogging
Here is a link to the brilliant Stephen Downes keynote presentation done via video conference at the cegSA conference 20th July 2007. I used my humble Techworks MP3 player to record it. It is a long recording but really fascinating. If you live anywhere but Australia and Mexico your download speeds should be a lot better than ours!
The Connectivist connecting
A real gem of wisdom from Stephen Downes:
” Learning is not remembering, it is becoming something”
So simple but so true-love that bit! It resonates beautifully with me.
Here is a cartoon I drew while being a part of the interactive video conference-this was from my perspective.
Top Stuff Kate
Love the cartoon and will publish it in the rampage with your permission. Judy
Great to see another South Aussie edublogger up and running. You can also embed your presentation slides into your blog via Slideshare so that those without Powerpoint can still check out your presentation.
Thank you Graham. I wish I had been able to go to your workshop and my presentation was at the same time as yours. I am having a look at your blog now-very impressive. Thanks also for the Slideshare tip. I’ll get onto it soon.
Thanks for your presentation at the CEGSA Conference Kate . I learned a lot and it was great to find links to class blogs outside Australia. I have passed them on to the participants in the Learning and Teaching with the Internet Extensions course I am conducting at present. My own class is having a go at a class blog http://room20.edublogs.org
We must connect with the other class blogs too.
Hi Kate,
Stumbled upon your blog through you CEGSA page. I too have made all my stuff available through slideshare.
As far as astronomy goes I am a stellarium nut… download it and play with it. It is great because it is a free download and the kids can do it at home looking at the night sky to put names to stars and planets etc. I know it is good because I have converted some of my technophobic science staff members with a pd session.. they had a great time.
You can also track satellites (and the space shuttle when it is up) with a website also on my blog. I have a stellarium starter worksheet that you can download via googledocs.. see blog.
Things you may like to get students to embed into their blog…
My newest toys….Voki and Glogster.
Dvolver Movie maker (my six year old blogs and has one on his blog)
Various Comics like toondoo and comix creator.
Hope this isn’t too overwhelming….
Thanks Cyberspaced Educator (PC),
It is not too overwhealming at all-I could not get to sleep after the first day of the conference-buzzing with too much new stuff and revitalised old stuff. I expect that I will get stuck into Stellarium-I will have to avoid it a bit for now until I get my planning and Voice Thread compulsion to integrate into my class to a point when I can get stuck into a fascinating thing like space and Stellarium.
I am declicious tagging everything and am into our unit for this term-Energy Systems. So I found a great webiste on Leonardo’s machines-I think I’ll go down a flight, wind energy, kites-planes- toy design angle. See where it goes-I found a heap of resources on paper planes/oregami. Took a while but I found it. If you know of any good sites for energy transfer/ simple machines let me know…
I am sure I would find something on your blog if I delved deep enough-will do that soon.
So you 6 year old blogs! Wow-Dvolver looks great and Toondoo. I could play all day with this stuff.
Thanks for your ideas!
Hi Kate
Your enthusiasm is contagious. Sounds as though you’re going to be very busy. Love to know how you go using Voicethread with the class.
Bubblehare is till around, but I’ve been using Rockyou.com to embed photo slideshows on my blog.
I think Glogster looks really interesting but I also think that I need to concentrate on one new thing at a time!!
Pam
HI Pam,
Thanks for your contributions and encouragement. I am happy as my clustermaps is finally working-and some people in the USA are having a look…I also have to concentrate on one thing at a time. There is so much to do at the moment. I will check out Rockyou really soon. I have put your blog on the forntpage of my blog and will attempt to put it on my blogroll-if I can get to it-have had problems in the past. Have a great week!
Kate
I need to ask permission to make the private class blog public-or at least part of it.
Thanks for incredibots… you should run a workshop on THIS!
Also http://animoto.com/education for a FREE account for your entire class.