teaching Scout

Honestly - would you on a day of your holiday - spend an evening packing your stuff, get up early the next day, get a ferry at 8o’clock in the morning drive for about 5 hours across Scotland just to do some CPD? Bearing in mind you’ve still got to get back home. Ian Stuart and Andy Wallis did. Are they insane? Nope - because there were teacher’s and educators from all over Scotland travelling for a few hours after a work to get to TeachMeetPerth. People joined the TeachMeet from even further afield through the Flashmeeting. Seriously I cannot recommend enough - if you do one piece of CPD in the coming year get yourself to a TeachMeet!

Why? It is full of enthusiatic, knowledgeable and practical teachers who share what works in the classroom. Based on experience, teachers have 7 minutes to share how they’ve been using Technology in the classroom. I have been priveledged to be at 2 TeachMeets and both times I have been bowled over at how I been made to feel part of a community of educators that love making things better for pupils. Getting involved in this has had a huge influence of how I have approached teaching. It not only provides me with a ton of ideas but allows me to reflect outwith my department.

So what did I learn. Firstly - I want to make it a long term target for myself to get 80-90% of pupil written work in a digital format. Why? Two reasons - from seeing Ian Stuart’s ease at which he organises, provides feedback and pupils collaborate on their handheld Q1’s - I want to do that. OneNote looks like a fantastic application - amazingly intuitive and easy to use. And also from Robert Jones’ recommendation: “where should we start the roll-out of 1-1?” and I want to be so ready that they couldn’t possibly choose anywhere else”. I don’t know how long it will take - but if I can and it’s practical I want to get rid of all unneccessary bits of paper both for me and the pupils.

The other person I thought was great was Nick Hood. He made a quick get-away afterwards and I really wish I had been able to speak to him. I admire the “no holds barred” way that he conducts himsself on the net - and I mean this in a positive way. He is refreshingly honest and humorous and his short presentation was cutting it all back to basics. You don’t need to go all high tech, just get a projector and a wireless mouse and there’s loads of potential. In his Authority everything is blocked and he gave a fantastic explanation of a teacher who refuses to give up and persists in finding effective ways of using the web2.0 tools that are out there.

Finally, a big heads up to Neil Winton, English teacher and blogger who organised the whole thing. His “7 tools in about 3 minutes” was a whirlwind tour of neat stuff that can be really useful in the classroom. In particular I loved Fleck, the website annotation tool. I can see loads of use for this in the design classroom. He also managed to book a pretty fantastic curry that allowed for some great chat.

So Islay Ian has a lot to live up to as he is proposing an Islay High School open day showcasing the unique things they are getting up to. In particular, I would love to see a school that has removed age and stage restrictions let alone a school with the lowest photocopying budget in the world* If you have one thing to do in June, get your ass self over to Islay High School, cos it looks like there might be another TeachMeet horizon!

*All I know is that the Design and Technology department managed to spend about £7 over the course of a year on photocopying. Eh, lets see someone beat that!

So it’s been a bit of a hiatus? Apart from being busy - what has kept me away from blogging is that there are so many damn bloggers out there with a million and one things to say that by the time I read a couple each night I don’t really have anything new to say.

Ha! Nothing new to say? Well I thought this ‘comeback’ post might interest you. Before you read any further think about what your first year of teaching like? What was the first few months like?

A walk in the park? Lol, this year has been bloody hard - and the trouble with explaining it on a blog is that I obviously can’t make anything too ‘personal’ and have to talk in generalities. But if you want to reminisce then carry on reading.

By far the hardest thing, without a shadow of a doubt is classroom management. I think my favourite line so far when ‘talking’ to a pupil is: “It is your choice” I love taking myself outside the equation and putting the decision as to what happens in their hands. But honestly, I don’t know how many times I have used this line and how often it works. Some kids just don’t get it. I also totally agree with the whole don’t crack a smile till Christmas - maybe a bit severe but it’s the right idea. If you give an inch they take a mile. Everytime. And I do seem to be constantly reining them in - making sure they know the boundaries. But hey - there’s always next year.

A positive though - never ever under estimate the value of your colleagues. If you are an experienced teacher no matter how you teach, us newbies always want to learn from you. If you have only been teaching a year more than me, I still want to learn from you and any little nugget of information or experience is like gold dust for people like me who are finding our way in teaching. When I have a crap class, the best thing about it is waving ‘bye’ to the kids and talking to other teachers.

I don’t mind admitting that I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster and I bet you were too during your first year (maybe you still are). One week I’m full of energy with great new ideas, lessons prepared to the max. Others I am shattered, wondering why the hell I attempt to teach certain pupils as it seems to have little effect. Most weeks I middle out - a sort of working normality with a couple of cool lessons, generally making progress. Sometimes I like to be experimental - other times I wish I had an overhead projector to copy from and textbook to work through.

I’m definitely finding out what type of teacher I am. I thought at the start of all this I would be going down a pastoral route and in many ways I am. I genuinely want to ‘look out’ for kids and make sure they are OK. But more than that - I enjoy it when things work. I enjoy the learning and teaching that goes on day in and day out, I like seeing ways I can make it better. And I particularly like it when the kids respect me cos they can’t get away with messing around. By no means am I any good at it - but I can see myself in a couple of years getting better at it and running a tightly managed classroom where real and worthwhile learning takes place.

But for my final question that has been perplexing me just now and believe me I am no cynic. I seriously doubt that for some kids I or any teacher do the blindest bit of good for. No matter how much we try, the resources and effort we put in place. Even if it is as good as anyone anywhere can get. Some kids will not want to learn, do not want to be taught and will either placate you and then continue to mess around aimlessly or deliberately go out their way to be disruptive. And it is these kids I loose the most sleep over (although tbh I’m too tired usually to actually loose sleep - it’s just a phrase).  I will always try to teach these kids, constantly chipping away at the hard exteriors. I try to focus more on success in responsibility or citizenship or mamging to complete some work. But I really do wonder, when those type of kids walk out the school door does any of it make the blindest bit of difference?

I guess I’ve got the rest of my life to find out

I recently took the IQ test from facebook out of curiosity. I use facebook simply as a form of lighthearted banter with my brothers, unfortunately I was lower than both of them so no doubt I will be hearing about it for years to come! Whats interesting though was this:

 ”In their book, Know Your Child’s IQ, Glen Wilson and Diana Grylls outline occupations typical of various IQ levels:

Being a Technology teacher, teaching kids woodwork, two things struck me:

Teacher is seen as “superior” with an average IQ of 120+

Carpenter is seen as “less than average” with an average IQ of 90 - 100

Hmmm?

I like the idea of this approach in learning. It completely highlights the child driven learning which I hope to achieve.Christian explains his strategy in practical terms:

“I’ll present them with the pros/cons to all of their decisions (assigning nightly reading, what types of assessments will give them a reasoned ‘final grade’, etc.).  I’ll present them with a ‘menu’ of elements they must accomplish (solo and in rotating small groups) before the project comes to an end and the semester exam is handed out.  I’ll offer myself as a ‘free’ consultant for a specific # of days that they can ‘hire’ when they feel that they have exhausted their own instincts/research.  And I’ll present them with a series of sink-or-swim options to allow those who are invested in learning to succeed and those who want to tread water to avoid absolute drowning along the way, all the while being a sheep dog with an eye on those that near a current they can’t escape on their own. ”  

My first years are about to start a new project making a small wooden shelf. Now to get my thinking cap on and see if I can figure out how to make it a much more child driven activity…

Funny how education really is one of the most normal things in the world. Sometimes when you speak to teachers you get the impression that we should all be due some sort of royalty at the end of it. Over the past few weeks the normality of my job really has hit me. I’m not here to waltz into a classroom, produce some kind of fantastic all singing all dancing lesson that makes use of every technology under the sun and to be then congratulated by myself or others for my splendid efforts. Nope. I’ve realised that educating kids should be a largely normal process. I think the more that culture changes over the coming decades, where educators become used to the notion of simply trying new things and that change is just a natural process and shouldn’t be resisted, that there will be less people from the “I cannae dae that” camp. In the same respect, there will then be less kids from the “I cannae dae that” camp.

What I’ve learnt over the past couple of weeks is the truely humbling nature of my job. I’ve learnt that I thouroughly enjoy it! Often I am frustrated and really wish that I could manage that class better. Often, I find myself repeating discipline procedures and wondering if my actions are making a blind bit of difference to the kid who refuses to look at me when I’m talking to them A good few times I’ve thought despairingly “Oh God: This is it. Can I really do this for the rest of my life?”

But that is the point. It’s normal. And it is a reflection on the fact that education is as ordinary and essential as breathing. When I think of it this way, I feel grateful to be in a country where we have such an opportunity to make innovation  commonplace.

I hope that I can play my part!

I arrived in the nick of time as John Johnston was halfway through his presentation on scotedublogs. I thought it was a perfect introduction for the evening - an excellent insight.

 Terry Freedman showed us that if we want to contribute to the HUGE new “coming of age - an introduction to www” book, then head over to www.ictineducation.org. It is a print on demand project with profits going to a good cause. The first edition of this book was downloaded or read by 60,000 people. A big audience….?

Iain Stangers’ presentation really stood out. For me he showed us the COOLEST software around. dartfish allows you to edit and annote video really easily. You can do it, the kids can do it. You can create these ‘mediabooklets’ that the kids work on, annotating or editing the videoclip to their hearts content. In Technical Education, I had some immediate ideas… Iain talked about using it for internal assessment (kids can do voice over), peer assessment,  using it as record of achievment - he had the SQA approve this method of internal assessment. This would clearly be a good way of engaging those kids who hate writing out screeds of text . In the school I am in, the use of ICT in the classroom seems to be a key focus at the moment (eg HGIOS), I will defenitely be trying to persuade some people to get this used in the classrooms! I really enjoyed Iain’s presentation, although his software seemed to be playing up a bit, his enthusiasm and passion for what he was talking about, was very clear.

Next up, Ollie Bray. If I could some up Ollie’s point it was that really simple, small things can have the greatest impact on learners. I am sure he will put up his presentation on his blog if he hasn’t done already! Also if George W can use “the google” anyone can

David Gilmour talked about  replacing standard school websites with a weblog  and the effect on the parents. (in my opinion, surely as it is the parent who has the most effect on the child this was one of the most intsightful points of the evening) As David explained, the parents said: “we want to be involved in the school though we are really very busy. We will only get engaged if you can give me the information to get engaged in my kids class.” Weblogs anyone?

Out of the nanopresentations, Lee Carson made a fantastic point “You have a moral obligation to comment”. He was talking about his P7 class blog, and the simple need that the children had - to know that other people were interested in what they were doing. It struck me of the complete simplicity of all this “web2.0-ness”,  everyone, on all different levels and in all different ways, just want to be connected.

Dobee (doo be doo). These seemed cool. “Get those digital natives on board”

Nick Hood: Move over moodle and GET WITH THE WIKI! He went down the long road of using moodle and through his experience is encouraging us all to use wiki’s for collaborative learning. Will Glow stand up in comparison?

Andy Black. “I want to scare you to death” ummm - yup, he did! Andy was funny, enthusiatic, and had a clear message: “It’s not about the device, stupid”.

Alastair Thin gave an honest and interesting presentation about his “Martini media lectures” which was followed by Steve Beard who wanted to show us Second Life as an alternative learning environment.

And then it was over! I only looked at my watch once, when IslayIan said the bar was closed! I finally found out where AB is - sitting next to IslayIan I met Mr W, briefly, who gave me a ‘moo card’, very smart. I also saw John Johnston on the way out the door, though I’m sure not many people knew who I was

Hello to everyone who was there - it was a refreshing experience for someone like me who has so much to learn. I look forward to meeting and collaborating with you in the future.

A ”starter” with my first years. The question went “Choose three of the colours listed and write down any words that you associate with that colour”. Three minutes.

 They all completed this, I was then going to bring it together on the board using a mindmap. The rest of the lesson was to complete ‘mounting’ our wee freehand sketches of iPods.

Well I did bring it together, although this took 40 minutes. I hadn’t planned this of course, but what I thought would be a wee starter turned out to be the most diverse and rich conversation about colour theory. I didn’t think 1st years would manage 40 mins of whole class discuss, but they did. Idea after idea. Some were met with “whit?” but most were met with, “ahh”. I will post up their end result (which was huge) and you can explore the fascinating exploration 12 and 13 year olds had on just what colour can mean to them.

For me, once they had left I had a huge grin on my face as I had, well… managed to do my job!

I’ve made it to the end of week 1. Phew! 

I’ve really realised what I’ve got ahead of me for the next year - one hell of a learning curve. At the moment it doesn’t really feel like a curve, more like a very steep slope. But, I’m determined to get up it.

I guess that being a new virtually non experienced teacher I am bound to be tested by the kids. No reputation precedes me, I am young, female and generally teaching boys (only a few girls in my middle school classes, some none at all). So far it has gone OK, though I feel that I may have a battle on my hands with a couple of classes. I strongly feel that to have a good learning environment I shouldn’t be entering into a class with a folder of punishment exercises at the ready but is it the case that at the start of a school year this is necessary to establish boundaries particularly as kids are VERY willing to push them?

A good few of my classes are highly enjoyable. The pupils have good rapport with each other and allow me the leeway needed to let my personality help with the teaching. When my personality is tempered and I have to enter into constant reprimands to keep pupils on track I feel that the whole learning process/pupil enjoyment is restricted.

Is it a stage that is necessary? Is it time or experience that will help me overcome this restrictive stage? Do experienced teachers have these classes where they have a battle on their hands? I am hoping that by establishing and maintaining decent conduct through the use of routines and procedures that these classes will ‘lighten up’. Though how long this will take I have no idea.

I’ve been a ‘teacher’ for three days now and yup, I’m pretty busy.

So here marks the start of me reflecting as a learner and a teacher (when I get around to it, of course).

Have you heard of this? Are you using it? This looks fantastic! This 20min video explains what its all about though skip to about halfway to see the software in action….

In terms of educational use, this seems to have fantastic potential. If Grandma can do it….? 

 Update: OK, it seems that there was a major server crash due to amount of traffic on May 1st, so it is suspended at the moment until they release the beta version…

Guess we can just look at the pretty logo for just now?