Category: Teaching
Change – for better or worse?
“Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it.” – Anon I have often heard it said that as a group, teachers resist change more than anyone. Maybe we simply dislike or mistrust change so readily, that it’s easier to stay comfortable. Perhaps this is the reason why many of us resist the lure […]
Why I love Wednesdays
Wednesday – The hump day, a not quite halfway through the week kind of a day. A day when the weekend still seems far away. There are many famous quotes about Wednesday. Born on Monday, fair in the face; Born on Tuesday, full of God’s grace; Born on Wednesday, sour and sad; Born on Thursday, […]
Blogging in the Classroom
Blogging – I love that word, don’t you? According to Yahoo answers the first blogs emerged during 1997 and the Spring of 1999. Online journal author Peter Merholz took Jorn Barger’s word ‘weblog’ and split it into the phrase ‘We blog.’ Soon after the word ‘Blog’ became shorthand for weblog. I am almost ashamed to […]
Celebrating the blogging Primary Teacher
Did you know that depending on which statistic you believe that there are somewhere between 133,000,000 and 200,000,000 blogs that have been indexed by Technorati since 2002 according to their report State of the Blogosphere. Now obviously most of these are not written by teachers but even if just a tiny percentage is, that is […]
ACEC2010 – Day 4
Steve Collis wraps it up Exhausted, but empowered from my week in Melbourne, I’m now safely back at home in Sydney. Arriving at the airport on Friday night, it felt good to fall into the welcoming arms of my wonderfully supportive husband – without his help, both technically and domestically, I would find this journey […]
ACEC2010 – Day 3
Adam Elliot What a joy it was to sit with tears running down my face on Thursday morning listening to Adam Elliot’s inspirational journey from a Centrelink nobody to a Hollywood star. He made us all laugh, he touched us with his pathos, was incredibly entertaining and his slides were so rich in content. Watch […]
ACEC2010 – Day 2
Alan November and more… I’m not sure which was more exciting this morning, rapidly taking notes listening to Alan November’s interesting and informative speech or reading and contributing to the highly active twitter stream. All the while Gary Stager was promoting a degree of discourse by tweeting disparaging remarks about Alan November. Mostly in relation […]
ACEC2010 – Day 1
This morning I had breakfast with Gary Stager. While all around me, others were pounding away on their laptop keyboards, I preferred to just listen and absorb his message. He stated: “We have had computers in schools for 30 years – why are we still dragging teachers in?” After posing this question, he outlined three ways […]
Assessing the teacher
The students in my class have been with me for just ten weeks and soon I will have to start writing their interim reports. So in the midst of all the interesting, authentic real life learning going on, I also have to assess them. In my class this happens in many ways, both formative and […]
Taking it slowly in the pursuit of better.
I am taking it slowly this year. Taking my time to get to really know my students and taking my time for them to really get to know me. Taking my time to build trust, build relationships and to develop them as learners who can reflect on both their successes and failures. For example, writing. […]