Education Today and Tomorrow

Inspiring Local Thinkers Conference

So much to contemplate!
Have taken in a lot of information and ideas over the last two days in Invercargill.

I was able to be inspired by a variety of international speakers like Rich Allan, Marcia Tate and Eric Jensen and also Dorothy Burt from Auckland, New Zealand who I enjoyed meeting after viewing some of her work with podcasts by Pt England School recently. I was keen to hear also what the other teachers learned in the workshops they attended in our discussions following them.

A couple of 'connections'...
Dorothy Burt's blog - lots about podcasting to improve literacy in Decile 1 schools, really good links with literacy and the new curriculum. Raises ideas about the importance of teaching our young learners safe use of the internet and using it as a tool for learning. Considers ideas about E-Portfolios too. Love the literacy cycle that has been adapted for each class/school but based on the same idea and links in the forms of literacy. The New Poor - people with an inability to work in this digital age. When did ICT become E-Learning, I must have missed that change in terminology. Check out the podcasted book reviews on the Pt England School Blog!
An article by Eric Jensen - A fresh look at brain based education
an article with links to Jensen's work - The Brain Based Skeptic

And from Rich Allan - Word Toons! an alphabet mat in production (will share when it's all go), itunes getting a work out, the green book of songs and my mind thinking, analysing, processing and establishing if and how different ideas can be incorporated into my class to improve childrens learning outcomes. I loved learning about some 'memory' strategies and creating 20 pegs to be able to do this, we don't do 'pop-quizzes' etc in New Zealand so not sure of the classroom relevance - remembering what to bring for athletics day maybe? But loved the idea of creating stories to help remember objects or events. Stories are fun :-)
Marcia Tate talked us through 20 strategies to take advantage of how the brain learns best - how to grow dendrites! Loved hearing about dendrites and synapses...nice tie in to my nursing! Speaking of Tie ins...for teachers or students to take something on board and 'learn it' Eric described 5 ways to implement brain based education:

1. Buy-in - having a 'reason to believe'
   
2. Tie-in - behavioral relevancy
   
3. Foundation - competency
   
4. Connections - practicality
   
5. Action Sets - actionable

I'm sure I'll have lots more to add to this over the next few days/weeks as I process it all.

Puppets

After exploring some books from Massey Uni on puppets in classes I have checked out some internet pages too!

Some sites of instructions on making different puppets - good for oral language development, social skills, presenting ideas, creativity, expression....
Puppets
Building a theatre
Another puppet theatre
Puppets - from a home schooling site

Getting Organised

so much paper, so many books!
Classroom organisation
Teacher Vision
A to Z
Pro-Teacher
Busy Teachers Cafe

Young Readers

RTR sight words
Families learning together
Phonics A-Z -lots of teaching suggestions as well as resources and games

NZ teacher blogs...

Interface lists quite a few NZ teachers blogs.
the reception class - like this as a way of communicating the class programme

Teachers Blogging

This term break I'm planning to explore some classroom blogs, interested in all the different purposes teachers and their students use these for and what makes a 'fantastic' classroom blog...but for now I've found a few ways of making 'decorating' blogs from various scrapbooking sites...interested in whether there are non-scrapbook blog template sites other than the ones found in blogger, typepad or wordpress.

Hot Bliggity Blog

Shabby Blogs

Cutest Blog on the Block