Blogging and other things

I haven't been here for a while. My students have done some work on our class blog with reflections and homework. I put incentives into their homework like housepoints and more into getting their parents to comment. Even after 3 years of blogging, I still can't seem to get continual comments. BLAH!!! Onwards and upwards next year I suppose. On the plus side, more has been uploaded by having my students load at home with homework tasks. One or two can use slideshare.com with their powerpoints. So skillwise, my students are more independent. I haven't been using ICT so much this year with my students as I have been concentrating on SOLO Taxonomy. However, more recently, they are busy. Currently, my students are drawing in kidpix or artrage, publishing, and some have been draft writing direct into the computer to improve their writing. They also have some computer tasks during reading time with their chapter book study. I feel a little late with these things. Its been a busy year.

Having Students see their improvement in Learning

On a school trip last week, I was sitting beside a parent in the bus.  This parent asked me which level I preferred to teach.  I said I didn't mind.  What I liked was seeing childrens' faces light up when they got something.

Yesterday, I had my students write a definition for occupations with Solo Taxonomy.  When they read out their statement, I then read out their original definition from the beginning of the topic.  It was fabulous to see them realise that they had improved from writing about 5 words to a whole page, and had moved levels within the taxonomy.

Taking PD with staff

This afternoon, I ran a PD session on Solo Taxonomy. Staff had asked for help on writing rubrics and moving students to the next level. I think I am getting better at providing PD on topics that I am not necessarily sure. My main message was model and scaffold.I found 2 short clips that I thought were particularly good on teaching SOLO.
Procedural writing
Define Map - making bread.

Over the past couple of years I have become appreciative of the ICT PD cluster websites that share information.  Thanks to them all.

I felt at times I was giving very basic information.  Our AP said afterwards it was all good.  Phew!!!!

Lead Teacher Day at Shelly Park School

Today I learnt about RSS feeds and google reader. I now have to have a play as we were sharing laptops and didn't have a turn. All good. My thought with the RSS feeds was to link the school blogs to it as I hope it will help me comment on them. Belinda also showed us her igoogle page. I see the benefit of the page, although I am not sure I am ready for it yet.

I found it interesting that Belinda mentioned that EPS is going to Google rather than "the cloud" though I guess it is a type of cloud with google docs instead of having a server. Something to think about at BDS when our server lease is up for renewal in two years.

At the beginning of the day we did what was called a Smackdown where we shared new things like websites. I am looking forward to the mathzlinks and library skills websites. http://mathzlinks.wikispaces.com/home (also http://litworks.wikispaces.com
Library skills http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~valmstrum/s2s/utopia/library4/src/library4.html
The library skills will be good as a reading rotation during guided reading.
Mathzlinks is targeted at the numeracy project, so the interactive activities target the stages. What a find!!!!

Great to see all the activeboards in the classrooms at SPS.

Today has been very useful.

Solo Taxonomy Planning

Last Wednesday, I sat in on the planning sessions for each syndicate on our topic of inquiry of structure. It was a super experience. My understanding of the process has improved. I really like how Solo gives rich learning to the students. I notice this with our previous planning, and only doing a few of the activities, my students are enjoying some of the learning activites and really thinking about it.

Today, after watching a video (old technology from the National Library), I had one of my students come and say: "We could do a Solo activity with this." I inquired further and got we could now describe volunteering. Fabulous. Our WALT with the video was to learn to notetake. I gave them clues what to look for, and then covered together the information learnt.

more fodey.com

Was having a play after my last post and decided to use it to try and get the kids commenting.  Of course, there is the usual encouragement.

Fodey.com