SparkshopAKL 17

Feeling inspired after SparkshopAKL 17. Thank you Fiona, Justine and everyone who shared today.

Loved this session lead by Karen Ferguson as it allowed me to strengthen my own connections to SOLO in a very visual way. SOLO maps allow our learners to see the learning. We are all on a different learning curve and the continuum shows it is ok to start with no knowledge then build on learning as we make deeper connections. Thank you @karen0968 for the excellent resources you shared https://goo.gl/cnTBHC.

I wasn't able to attend this session but I loved these questions! Will definitely be introducing this dialogue to help my learners strengthen their connections to self evaluations. Great idea! Thank you @stuartkellynz.

Had so much fun attempting to create my own digital world with cospaces.io. Was immediately hooked in by the 360 images option in thinglink. Can't wait to use this! Thank you Angela Lee @nzleeangela for sharing.

Learning about Explain Everything with Room 2

Today I used a block of my CRT time to join Room 2 (Year 2/3) as they worked on their Ipads. I am definitely not ashamed to say that a 6 year old taught me how to find, save, lasso, crop and lock an image onto an Explain Everything presentation. I was shown how to find Pixabay, then once there, David showed me how to find an image. We were looking for birds because this is linked to our topic of flight. I learnt how to save the image I want then lasso and crop it. David told me how important it was when I used the lasso I had to try and do a solid line because the ends had to join up. He then showed me how to lock it onto my EE page. Sione showed me how to 'draw the lines' if I wanted to write but Siale told me it was easier to use the keyboard and write my story. Such a privilege to see the learning through their eyes. The image below shows what I learnt from Room 2 today.

I found this to be such a valuable experience as I could see how I could use EE in my class (Year 7/8) to support my learners who find literacy a challenge. Thank you Room 2 for being such great teachers!

David showing me what to do. Step by step with very clear instructions!

New Year, New Room, New Learning!

What a great start to our 2016 learning journey! This year I am an MDTA mentor teacher which means I have the privilege of team teaching for the year with Chelsea Donaldson, a PRT in the 2016 intake for the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher's Academy. You can follow Chelsea's learning journey here.

We began our new journey in a brand new learning space. The big change for me this year is the move from a single cell classroom to an ILE (Innovative Learning Environment). The challenges to date has been planning for a much larger number of learners and getting used to being part of a much larger room. New for me this year is to have five sibling pairs in the same room. I look forward to seeing how they grow in their learning within the same space. Will they gravitate to one another or will they escape to separate sides of the room?

On Friday Chelsea and I were able to join the staff of Tamaki College and the staff of Glenbrae School on their SOLO Taxonomy training day. Pam Hook delivered the best professional development that I have been to in a long time. We are both very excited to see how SOLO makes a difference to 2016's learning journey as we work towards changing the way our learner's see their learning. Our challenge is to help our learners move away from a fixed mindset and move towards a growth mindset.

It was very powerful to see the potential links that collaborative training can afford. When our Year 8's transition to Year 9 at the end of the year they will take the addition of understanding how SOLO can help move their learning to the next level. Beginning Year 9 with this knowledge already in their kete will be just one of the ways we will have worked collaboratively to strengthen the links between the schools.