For those of you who were not at the whole staff meeting last week  here is a snippet

My presentation was created with prezi, and can be found here

Using Technology in the classroom is not a passing fad, which, if you wait long enough, will blow over. It is an integral part of 21stC life, and now is a good time to jump on board and prepare your skills and your own confidence for using a range of these in the classroom, and in your day to day life. I am here to support you in that, expose you to a range of tools, let you know what has worked for me, and others, and work with you to find what works best for you. The fact that we don’t have the infrastructure and technology to do these things in every classroom right now should not be stopping you from developing your own skills and understanding of the potential of these 21stC tools.

I mentioned Moodle, and we are hoping to have external access to this shortly.

Moodle is a Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment – which means it is an online space where you can create dynamic learning for your students, and teams you may work in. You can put links, files, quizzes, games, digital learning resources, forums, assignments, chats rooms, etc for your students to add to and create with.

Domain teams can have spaces where they share resources across the college – no reinventing the wheel. Cross campusing can be made easier less need for having to get there the share resources. Teams across the college or across a campus can have a space to share and reflect, which is private.

The other project I discussed was the Redback Project

This project can help you to develop your understanding and capacity to use a range of Web 2.0 tools. It is self paced, and can take from a couple of weeks to complete to a year or more, working at your own pace.

Starting with finding your starting point by using the ePotential tools and track your eLearning journey with reflections in a blog. Those of you who are power users may already be beyond blogging( ahh my working title for the next project) and may just choose areas to focus on. Regardless of whether you work through the Redback Project or not, we would like all staff to complete the ePotential survey, as they informs the leadership team on areas we need to focus on with PD etc.

There will also be some Redback support on Moodle

How are you using ICT/eLearning/technology/21stC tools in YOUR classroom? Reply to my post here, and share with the rest of us. (If you would rather keep your links private – this is an open blog, please post them on the Redback Forum in Moodle (this link will only work at school)

My Textiles classes both have blogs, and the Year 11s are beginning to work on their own blogs you will find them here

Year 11 Design and Technology – Textiles

Year 12 Design and Technology Textiles

My year 10 Media Production class

I also have a Ning group for my textiles classes, and Moodle course for my Media class.

Are there other tools you use in your class? Please feel free to add your comments

When I got the new position I was given a book to read by my sister-in-law – “The First 90 Days, Critical Success strategies for new leaders at all levels,” by Michael Watkins. (Harvard Business School Press). It had a range of strategies, although aimed at the business world, quite easy to put into any leadership role, to help new leaders find their feet and make a positive difference in their new positions. It gave strategies for promoting yourself to new colleagues, maximising your strengths, coming to grips with the new workplace and developing teams to implement your leadership goals. It was interesting as I stepped into my new position that my new boss was reflecting many of these same strategies and ideas, to promote me and my new role to the staff. A great situation to be in, feeling very supported by my upline.

Continuing on with the book reviews, the boss suggested the leadership team read (as a part of our leadership professional learning time with Perspectives Coaching)  “Leadership and Self Deception – Getting out of the box”  The Arbinger Institute. Great read for putting a lot of relational issues into perspective, and rerflecting on issues and relations in past work places, and how to change your own attitude, to be more positive with peers and those you want to lead. You know how there are always some people who you would do anything for, and others who have a different approach which doesn’t support a team wanting to get things happening. Very positive read, for both work and personal relationships.

Throughout this past 6 months I have been lucky enough to be supported by my principal and able to attend a number of very relevant and inspiring professional learning opportunities, many of which I have covered live in this blog, using the wonderful Coveritlive tools. It has been very handy having a mobile broadband dongle to keep me connected anywhere, regardless of local internet availability.

Over the term 1 break I had the opportunity to see a presentation by Stephen Downes, an inspiring speaker talking about connectivism and how this will reflect on how we teach our kids, and how we learn ourselves. It was my first Coveritlive session, and I was pleasantly suprised at how well it worked. Linking in with other Twitter users who used the same hastags made my coverage of the presentation far more powerful, as it wasn’t just me reporting, others were adding tweets, which were added directly to my session. My personal/professional learning network exploded as I met quite a few of my twitter colleagues for the first time that day, and added more.

Stephen made some great points, helped me to clarify that balance between online work and play.
One of the points he made, which I think many of us working with online and mobile technologies are guilty of, is along the lines of….
“of course log in and connect to work from home, but feel free to sleep at work”.
How many of us feel guilty about logging in to personal sites at work, or researching stuff for home? or checking work mail from home? where is the line drawn? Is there a line any more??? perhaps a little tongue in cheek, but I know in my online networks I often think to myself… wow this or that person must be connected and focussed on work the whole time. Now I also know it’s so easy these days to be surfing and playing online, when you come across a handy site, click a button and you have tweeted it to the PLN. I think as technology becomes more and more easily accessible we really need to make sure we have that healthy balance. I know my family keeps me on the straight and narrow in that regard

My kids showed me the wonderful power of connectivity when we recently got wireless broadband at home. After setting up the laptops, we had to set up all of the DSs, WII, PSP. They logged in to the wii wifi, connected with a cousin on the otherside of town, and spent an afternoon playing, laughing, sharing with their cousin via phone while all playing Mario Kart on the Wii. They also connect with friends on the DS, while surfing the net and chatting online. They don’t just “get” connectivism, they expect it.

I attended a “Master class” presented by Teaching Australia on Leading a Digital School (my coveritlive session). We were also given the book “Leading Schools in the Digital Age” by Michael Gaffney and Mal Lee, who along with Allan Shaw presented the session – slides here. It was good to see how schools have achieved success with integrating digital technologies, and become aware of some of the pitfalls, and develop strategies to avoid them. The book is becoming my well used resource for developing strategies to develop a really positive (hopefully) uptake of digital technologies across the college. Of course step one is to have a hardy infrastructure to support digital learning, and that is the challenge we are working through at the moment. The session was interesting, as the people attending were mostly in leadership positions, not eLearning positions, unlike the Stephen Downes presentation, and there was much less movement in the Twittersphere, with most people taking hand written notes.

On the 6th May I attended Greg Whitby’s “Enabling Learning in Today’s world“.  It was a slightly different slant, and once again I “covered it live”. Interesting presentation, embedding the reasons behind why we are wanting to move into a digital approach to teaching and learning. The hall was packed, interestingly enough not many laptops or mobile devices…. I started to reflect on whether I am still one of the early adopters with covering these sessions on my blog ( I like to write, it’s how I learn best, and take it in, but often lose or never refer back to my notes on paper. I can honestly say I have gone over my coveritlive sessions a few times now, and I always know where to find them ) There are still many out there who need to be shown how to jump on the digital bandwagon, I guess that is part of my role, both in my local community and the extended one.

There is still a bit to cover, so I will do this in a couple of parts… stay tuned

I added people I knew through my web 2.0 wanderings, and it took a while, but I now often use the internet on my phone to connect… and am kinda glad I don’t do the sms thing.

I was then introduced to Diigo, through Alexander Hayes, who was one of the first people to inspire me with the use of some of these tools, through funnily enough a twitter link on my phone…

Diigo is sort of like del.icio.us, sort of like a social networking site…but when you go to bookmark sites you can add them to a twitter post as well… (I always wondered how these clever people added the links in their posts… seemed too much like hard work… hehehe) This connection opened a whole new world of professional networking opportunities for me, as I was no longer just a passive getter of information, I could also share sites I had found

Finding people to follow can be interesting…. I have gradually added to my Professional Learning Network as well as a few interest/fun ones…

The people I follow are mostly very inspirational and innovative user web 2.0 tools, like Alex Hayes, Harriet Wakelam, Jo Kay, Kerry J, Helen Otway, and so on…. I must add Sue Waters too She is another one who has been very inspirational…

Twitter may seem a bit gimicky, but the power to build a Professional Learning Network, of like minded people not only locally, but around the world is its most powerful use I believe…. and I am going to see if I can twitter this… hehehe

There are some very cool tools to use with Twitter in your browser, but most of them are sadly blocked or designed for Firefox (my preferred browser, but not one I can use at school), which limits how I can use them. I added snitter today, but then realised it was blocked, had to use my mobile broadband… ahhh the trials and tribulations.

having been offered the wonderful opportunity to become eLearning leader at a new school, which has a strong focus on the arts, and the emotional turmoil that comes with that, after having been in Langy for 21 years…

So my head has been a bit crazy…. plus a busy end of term, with Year 12 folios coming in, and now finally maybe I can take a breath…. on holidays… up at 6am to welcome the pool diggers and electricians.

It’s windy and diggy and noisy, and they have hit a pipe that wasn’t there on the plans… ughhhh… so now waiting for the plumber while they dig the rest of the pool out.

Back onto theing more eLearning…. the Redback project is going well, those who have taken up the challenge are having a ball… many way out of their comfort zone… but it’s a good thing…

I had some great feedback on the video tutes I have created, and will spend some time making more of those. I have found Jing to be really great… but a bit dodgy when trying to upload at school…. thank goodness for mobile broadband…

welll I better go and organise things… still just flitting around…