Thursday Catch Up Reflection for Interlead

Here's my reflection from Interlead ....

Every Friday when I hear the stats of people who did or did not complete their Interlead - it annoys me - because we've been given that time to get it done. Slightly hypocritical this time because I didn't get it done this morning, and am now doing it this afternoon, Period 5 - when I'm calm and reflective. 

This morning - planning to write in the staffroom - my favourite place to work where it's usually quiet - nice big circle table where I can spread all of my marking and stuff out - I didn't get to writing because I began talking with my awesome mate Clare about our eLearning meeting on Thursday. 

Such an awesome meeting. I haven't had time to sit down and blog about it yet so am using this five minutes procrastination break from marking to do so. Really awesome to see just how much experience and tech revolution warriors we have at Heights. It is awesome because for a lot of last year I felt like I was alone. I got really involved with Twitter and my PLN outside of school because they were talking about things that I'm passionate about: learning and sharing ideas. I'm hoping that as part of this committee we'll be sharing ideas more and more and learning from each other. I'm super excited about the PLC's and the fact that we're building a more collaborative staff who share and bounce ideas off of each other. Being aware of who I have around me, to aspire to be more like, to be aware of in terms of the way I talk and how I want to stay positive about my students - despite the things I hear from others. That I want to stay true to who I am and how I teach and that being part of this eLearning Committee will not only help our school so that I can give back from the differing professional development sessions I soak up - but also to enable me and my students to continue teaching and learning in a less restrictive manner. 

Now that our Google Site is set up and I know the quick work-arounds for doing bits and pieces on it - it doesn't take as long to add to. I add to it as I go - just as I would with my students and printing out handouts and resources. I still do resources and printed ones too - but just tend to put them online more often. Students seem to like the fact that they can take what they want - see how I've done it and recreate it their way. For my more needs based students - there are individualised options and possibilities available. 

I'd like to completely flip my class. I still want to. But realising and remembering to be patient is hard. Because I still need to learn a few things... like screencasting and how to enable our students to have access at home so that it's equitable. The EXCEL stuff is exciting - but it's not here yet. Patience for me right now, is the key. 

It's hard though when I'm so immersed in my amazing PLNand the professional development I invest in myself... because the world is a-moving and I want to keep evolving my teaching practice - to try and stay with the trends but also maintain consistency for my students. For them - I need to be the best teacher I can be. 

Giving students the link to our class site on paper the other day was a brilliant idea because for ages they kept typing in the wrong shortened link and it was super frustrating as I'd have to go to each student to fix their link. So much easier - longer though - to type in the full site address: https://sites.google.com/a/whhs.school.nz/evolving-at-heights/ 

My assumption is that eventually - when the kids have access - they will have a simpler way to get onto the site as they can just go through their GAFE portal and find the site that way as each student could access each site depending on the privacy and sharing permissions...

Anyway - haven't even talked about my inquiry students...

Y11 - Student 1 has begun to develop a growth mindset. WIN. 

Student 2 has understood how to analyse the essay questions and can break them down by herself. WIN.

Student 3 hasn't been in class for a while... need to find out what's up with him.

Student 4 has continued to perservere and is beginning to break from her fixed mindset...

Y12 Pink - 

Student 1 has broken free from his funk and is back to his relaxed "I love English" frame of mind

Student 2 is still working on her understanding of the text and needs to finish the book!

Student 3 has shown that he is able to work well with me despite previous issues. Remains polite and focussed on his work. 

Student 4 has shown that she is able to do work on her own and is learning to take constructive criticism without thinking it's targeting her ability or taking the offensive. 

Y12 Yellow - 

Student 1 continues to muck around with his written work but works well in discussions and provides really on point insights. 

Student 2 has shown really strong leadership and has developed an indepth analysis of the text. I missed having him in class on Tuesday this week when we talked about pre-conceived notions around the issue of prejudice - but as a whole the class did well in their unpacking of the terminology for 'The Blind Side'

Student 3 has shown that she is able to refocus on her own work and seems to be in a happier state of mind - particularly after our chat last week. 

Student 4 continues to insist on watching 'Inception' rather than TBS - and sits there the majority of the time pretending he's doing the work. 

Student 5 finally came to me to tell me what's been bugging him. He has decided to move away from the noisy boys at the back who keep distracting him and here's hoping he focusses a bit better now. I asked him to come back here at lunch for the English tutorial session with some of the other Y12 kids - but he didn't come back.. Will have to follow up wit him tomorrow and make it more simple. 

Y10 English - 

Student 1 continues to show leadership and can be called on to help others at a moment's notice. It's been a pleasure seeing him progress over the past year and a half!!

Student 2 continues to be disruptive - continuing to reign him in and refocus his attention onto his work rather than distracting the rest of the class. Talked with him again about wearing his hat in class, took it off of him at one point and then sat down yesterday to discuss his immature behaviours. The majority of the class don't laugh at him anymore which is good. We're finally getting somewhere! He has good and annoying days...

Student 3 enjoys word games - need him to finish his work though... he will really struggle next year if he doesn't complete his assessments on time. 

Student 4 has shown persistence again and again. SO SO proud of her. She changed her work at least four times over the last few weeks - with my Socratic questioning and implying that she still had a few bits and pieces to finish. Her finished static image is BRILLIANT. 

Y10 Social Studies - 

Student 1 continues to seek praise for her work.. she is a strong and solid worker - developing her work again and again showing her depth of knowledge.. 

Student 2 worked really well in our group discussion about Sustainability and Migration this week. He is showing participation skills more and more. 

Student 3 has shown that she is a positive influence with the rest of the class. Using Class Dojo today as points giver - has continued to prove that she has a strong connection - fair and equitable I might add - with the rest of the class

Student 4 has improved his work ethic which has been good to see and is always quick to ask whether his persistance and work ethic deserves Dojo points :) Today was particularly hilarious as I kept searching for a particular answer and he finally said "Egypt!" really loudly - still not what I was going for but we all laughed and talked about the fact that the oil at present that was having sustainable issues was to do with it's impact with marine life and the wider communities. 

Student 5 did NO work today. Has been told he isn't sitting with Student 4 anymore and must sit at the front. Not good enough! Just because he isn't on daily report anymore doesn't mean that he can slack off. 

Wrote this last night on using Class Dojo too: http://evolutionandimagination.blogspot.co.nz/2015/05/class-dojo-student-engagement-and-pb4l.html

And... that's all for now. 

Great session on #EngChatNZ last night about developing more cross-curricular learning and assessment programmes and the #dojochatANZ run by @GeekyAusTeacher was awesome - around GAFE and Collaboration.  Will add the Storified links later. 

On Tuesday night we had two PLD sessions after the eLearning meeting - NZSL basics and Nathan Mikaere Wallis' talk at JPC around Brain Development. Was really cool being at both of these sessions with people from school. It's nice because we're able to talk about it later and share our on-going learning. 

Looking forward to #EducampHB next Saturday, the Rotary Conference this weekend, #edchatNZ tonight and meeting Jenna from Class Dojo on the 29th! :)

Implementing Google Drive with Y12 Class

Wow. It worked.

There was a moment halfway through the lesson where I just had a WOW moment. That it was working. That 98% of the kids were engaged and that the other 2% were still engaged in the actual work but for some reason or another - have a problem with engaging online collaboratively. One had a hotmail account and didn't want to create a Gmail account. That's fine I suppose except she will have issues accessing the info on Google Drive. While the other is still resisting - but have yet to have a discussion with him about why. And that's okay too. Three of the students who initially either didn't have an email or didn't want to do what we were doing via Drive... quickly set up an account and gave me their addresses so I could add them to the group.

The majority of the class left having not only learnt how to use Google Drive - but felt like it was "the new Facebook" and that it was fun. Why? Because it's a new way of learning, collaborating and developing their ideas.

Am currently in the process of creating a Google Form for this class to assess their first time using it.

Background:

We're currently doing the note-taking and analysis for the Close Viewing assessment at the moment (AS...) and they're watching their individual driving ads. Most students are working in pairs looking at a single video. Most students are working collaboratively already, discussing their shared video, collecting information together. I've taken this approach because it's working well with my Y13's at the moment - the collaboration and information gathering. Perhaps I'll also have these students do their presentation on the driving ad in pairs as well - seems like a simple collaboration and segway into the next assessment - as most are already working in this way.

The Lesson

Collected laptops (COW's) from the trolley and distributed to students. 

Discussed with them about the lesson observation yesterday and thanked them for their awesomeness as always - and how they and I work together - just that synergy and the collaboration is absolutely awesome and somehow works despite the often crazy aspect of class... 

More on that observation later from BOS. Can't discuss feedback properly until next term. Hopefully I get my observation info back as well. :) 

Students got back into their docs and videos via Youtube or NZTA and re-analysed. 

They were all quietly working for ages when I thought it was probably about time that I introduced them to Google Drive and Google Docs - mainly because two students sitting at the table I was at were discussing the fact that one was going to log in to the others' email account so that another could write the notes and that they could watch the video on the other and then swap again to work on the same document. 

Simplify the situation: girls agreed - as I was showing them - I had the rest of the class get into their gmail accounts so that I could email them the link for the Y12 folder I've created for them to access at home and at school. 

Once I'd sent out the email to those who had originally given me their addresses - they had to click the link and then add the folder to their Drive. Then they needed to open their Drive and then they could see the same screen as I had displayed on the projector. 

At this point I showed them how to create their own folders within the Y12 folder on Drive. Some needed help at this stage so quickly went to each to help and get them started. 

I then got an influx of a few more students who told me they now had an address too.. and so had to send these new students the same email as before and continued that process... perhaps now not wanting to miss out on this sharing of resources. Of course I'll be allowing students to email and bring in their usb's to get resources if that's easier - or even by paper if necessary... because the one/two students who are having issues at the moment need to be included in this collaborative process too.

Once everyone had created their folders they created their Google Docs in that folder for their notes on the ad - shared them with me if they wanted to - and shared them with their mate who was doing the same ad as them so that the could collaborate and develop their notes on the same document. 

While this is still fresh in my memory  - with using Google apps collaboratively myself - I too had to remember each step while telling them. Eventually I'll create a quick instruction sheet so that this process can be slightly simplified. Perhaps emailing them a link to an instruction Document and then getting them to go through the process.

By this stage the class were all back onto their ad watching and creating notes - one of my more precocious students chose to share his notes with me - all finished apparently - so I copied the first sentence at the bottom of his so-called report - and put it into Google to search. It came up with the NZTA link and the words I'd copied were bolded from the document he'd plagiarised. A teachable moment about plagiarising information and making sure to reference information to use for notes RATHER than outright pretending it's yours.... I should also note that this student did it as a joke and so in essence - yet again provided the source for learning for the rest of the class. 

By this stage of the lesson I was checking over people's folders that had been created. I absolutely love that now that I've shared the doc there is a side stream of activity that is being had on the side of the drive page. Awesome. Easy to check on issues and that students are doing their work at home. 

Also began the form - which I'd planned on having ready for them to do before the bell rang... but took too long - need to find a quicker way to do it. Though while we packed up the laptops - I asked students to check their emails to survey the lesson for me. Quite a few students remarked on how good the lesson was and how much they learnt - gaining comments that it was awesome, fun and useful and how much it was like Facebook... still trying to figure out what they meant by that... perhaps they've found Google+ already - which would be the next step for me too except that at the moment our school can't access Google+ - I think it has something to do with admin settings. Have asked but haven't got a reply yet - we're all busy!  :)

And that was the lesson! :)

END

Sent an email to our DP in charge of IT about Google Classroom launching in September. And sent through the links - Might send this post link as well.

Have taken a bit of a precocious approach myself - partly because I'm seeing different things - getting emails and if I can help - I will :) Don't know whether my emails are useful and hope they're not seen as anything other than trying to assist. 

Reflections on lesson:

WOW. It worked. Still stoked. :)

Issues arising:

Equity. At home. At school. 

Computer skills. Encountered this today. Need to take things a bit slower for some - and faster for others... differentiate the lesson for students - and use that tuakana/teina approach with my students and allow them to take over the lesson to go for it and get started and help each other. 

Willingness to use Drive. Still need to figure that out and why...

Being proactive about the networking and using google docs myself to role model (like how I've used Slides for the first time with my Twitter workshop presentation)  - making sure that any docs I create are on Docs or can be found in the folder for that class - for work at home/school...

 Making sure docs are ready and available - and keeping in mind that if we aren't a GAFE school (though I'm pretty sure we are... because teachers use gmail for their email - and the little school logo is at the top - and as teachers we can use google drive...) we might not be able to download Drive onto the COW's and thereby couldn't access their work if the network was down. Plus - we don't have multiple LAN cords for use or plugs in class if the wireless goes down... contingency plans needed...

Communication with Home - despite the form I sent home - I still haven't had time to contact all families about how students are going. Email is WAY easier for me. I should be doing that right now - but this is kind of more pressing and needed to reflect while it was still fresh... 

That's all I can think of for now. Stoked. 

Attempted a similar thing with my Y9's the period after but they take a lot more time to get ready because it's setting them up with Gmail accounts etc and the verification and the not listening and the playing games despite how much we've discussed becoming digital citizens... when they're meant to be on task. I had two students successfully share their Docs with me... At least 8 students email me and so now I can set up their folder and add the others later when they've verified their info. Majority of students completed their work - either on paper or on Docs or Word. 

When one of the two gave me his report card at the end of the lesson - there wasn't enough space to write how impressed I was with him. Part of this is because he was in the digital class last year and is like a duck on water with this stuff. So have asked if he can be a tuakana in the class to help the others. He's got leadership potential fit to bursting - and perhaps this is one way he can show this. 

Yay. Happy :)

Using Twitter as Teachers - Preparation for #NZATE Conference Workshop

Since I'm probably one of the biggest procrastinators out there... I thought it would be a good idea to get these presentations sorted... WELL before the due date. I want to test out this Twitter one to my fellow English dept and possibly my school staff as well - for anyone that is interested.

The #NZATE (New Zealand Association of Teachers of English) conference is from the 9th-11th of July 2014. My workshop is on using Twitter as a Teacher and the uses of having your personal Twittersphere and developing your PLN.

I'm not one to synthesise before I'm ready to present - so I will have a series of bits and pieces here for notes and information that I might end up using/not using or just use as a basis for what I need to say. Basically this will be my research notes post - so read on if you like :)

The workshop itself will hopefully be tweeted on the day and I will add up my slides prior/after the workshop as well.

When I originally planned on making this post as a resource for myself (and possibly all of you) this morning, I didn't factor in the sheer amount of information, infographics, posts etc that I would find. I was going to leave it as a basic crazy mess of research... even though I did all the links as I went and added in pics - I think it's quite a bit chaotic still. In fact - too chaotic for even me to sift through.

So... Below is a much more organised selection. From the stuff I will probably use in my workshop and/or want to show first as being more important (from NZ or relevant to this kaupapa) and the less relevant at the moment. However - everything I've got here is relevant to me and someone at some point - which is why it's still on the page.

Oh... and to find all this stuff I searched far and wide on Twitter - and then created a Storify: 

The Wonderful World of Twitter as a Teacher

Enjoy!

- A

Thinking about a revolution.. harder than starting one...

In the last week I've felt increasingly like I'm unfocussed, unsure of myself and not sure of what I want.

Why?

I spent a fantastic two days in Wellington.

I met with MPs and talked Educational policies.

I discussed some of the big issues we are dealing with in schools.

I met with an author and discussed my great uncles achievements and our whakapapa.

I got excited about the premiere and release of 'What we do in the Shadows' and got some good resources of the film from a Wellington cafe for my class.

I engaged with school PD on reflective practice.

I took one of our PRT's with me to an #eduignite evening in Hamilton and caught up on the #edchatnz feed when I got home via a friend's fantastic Storify.

So what's the problem?

I feel behind in everything I'm doing. My classes are going well and I'm teaching well I think but I am not following the course outline enough. I don't know where everyone else is up to. I don't know if I'm marking right. I don't know whether I'm helping or making it worse.

I feel the consistent pile of things to do slowly crushing me.

I feel the inspiration ebbing out of me. Others say I inspire them but it makes me feel weird.. because I want to inspire others but want inspiration too. I want more time to become inspired and need time to create more interesting lessons.

Despite starting a new blog this week for my creative writing, I don't have the time to get it started properly.

I want to continue doing all of the extra-curricular stuff I'm doing but feel like it's pulling me down.

I want to go to as many conferences as possible and I'm going to three in the next holidays - PPTA Maori Teachers conf, NZATE English Teachers conf and lastly presenting at the CLESOL one  in Wellington via webcam so am counting that one as another.

I'm also going to the #edchatnz conf in August and am definitely excited about it.
I want to go to ULearn14 and have been thinking about crowdsourcing my application fee. I think I should show my principal my proposal even though it wasn't accepted by the DP in charge of PD. It is crazy expensive and I doubt I can save the money in time so may have to go to the bank or worse somewhere else to get it funded. It's an amazing opportunity and I see it as an investment in myself.

I feel like I've lost my way a little and know that in a couple of days I'll look back at this post and this week and laugh. Because the reality is.. it is so much to do with workload and stress and feeling like I've given my all and it's still not 'enough'.

It's stressful knowing that there is only one real teaching term left. I worry that my classes aren't ready. That I'm not ready. That I have somewhere, somehow lost my edge.

I am so thankful to my colleagues on Thursday afternoon for snapping me out of my little hole I'd created for myself. I'm thankful for the opportunity to share ideas at last night's Connected Rotorua session. I'm thankful for the fact that my students are overwhelmingly amazing and my PLN too. I'm thankful that the dog still nudges me for hugs despite the long hours I put in at school and thankful to the cat who purrs in my arms rather than ignoring me for my attention of the crazy dog rather than him. I'm thankful to my friends who put up with the long distances and lengths between catching up. Same too with my family who wait patiently til I come home and see them. I'm thankful to those who came before me and those who are still to come.

Mostly though.. I'm thankful that tomorrow is another day and hopefully after today's rest and relaxation I will feel a hell of a lot better and will be back to myself.

And above all else. I must realise I can't change everything and that patience is the key to virtue. I need to stop getting frustrated and just accept things for how they are and continue what I'm doing to continue the process of change regardless of whether there is any percieved uptake. I am making a difference. I am changing things. I hope it is helpful and I hope that it is kind. I hope I'm able to inspire myself to stop feeling useless. I hope that this post was useful.