Am I putting enough fuel on the fire?

Well my question at the moment is during the ignite should I be teaching more? We have done a lot of engaging, focsing, and though provoking activities.

Should we though start the units with a series of focused teacher directed lessons that provide fuel for the kids to ignite?

(I think my analogies and metaphors are all getting a little confusing)

Podcasting Success

Well today podcasting went really well. To be honest it went well yesterday only I had other things to do last night.

By implementing a very visual behaviour management system to manages the noise level and expectations I have been able to utilise the three i-macs in my class and not rely on the laptops. It was a huge success. The other expectation I asserted today was if it ain't recorded by the end of the session, it ain't happening! This was really effective in encouraging my boys to work efficiently and not find reasons to re-record their work 20 million odd times.

I have created a writing blog page for our work and am very excited about adding to it. Check it out here.

The work to be honest was not extremely well honed but it was accurate of the kids. To what degree should work on the blog be crafted??

Graphic Organisers

Well I have been using some graphic organisers to 'sort' the kids learning. recently and I have to say that when you get it right it works well and when miss the mark it becomes difficult and just an add on. I think one of my goals at the moment in my inquiry will be developing my repertoire of thinking tools for the sorting out phase.

I wonder tho...

Are certain thinking tools more suited to certain curriculum areas than others or is it more about where in the inquiry process you are up to e.g. wondering, finding out, sorting, creating. Perhaps people who are more along in their inquiry journey could shed a light.

Inquiry Oops!

Well the inquiry process has gone really well this term, I think. We did not get too caught up on the wondering stage and made a good effort on the finding out stage.

HOWEVER....


Where was the science? I feel that we have done some good social studies work but not a lot of science investigations for the science fair. I think this is going to be one of the main issues of inquiry as inquiry is very much a social studies slanted approach to learning.

What do you think?

Inquiry Success

Wow what a fabulous session. The kids are really humming. All but one group are on track and are at the creating stage of the process.

I guess it is just about them coming to terms with the process. It really does take a few sessions for them to get the hang of it.

Inquiry

Yesterday I let my kids go on their inquiry. It was pretty full on! Books, computers, printouts, things were flying everywhere.

Ive been using thinkquest library for material that is easy to read for my kids.

The kids also used wiki answers and after a while I was able to show them how find other information sources. They were very nervous to use google I think. It takes a lot of work to work out which websites they can read and understand. That evaluative skill ended up becoming a real teaching point.

I wonder how todays lesson will go. I have about half the kids so I normally do so it should be good to help out those kids who need it.

Connect, Collaborate, eLearn

Well Today was really interesting. I enjoyed the relaxed but very thought provoking feel of the conference. Also my new pen-drive rocks!!!
So where to from here? How do we make a change? Well I'm going to take Tony Ryan's advice and revisit my notes. (yes I took notes).

Suzie raised some interesting questions about setting up online digital learning environments. And I wonder have we discussed enough about all the long term things like when teachers move on etc. I think the idea of saying explicitly what the purpose of blogs are (educationally) and then creating a brief action plan was a really good idea. I guess alot of us have done this though with our teacher inquiries.

Tony Ryan made me think about the importance of engaging the kids and getting into their world of infotainment. I think his ideas about teaching paraphrasing and self-talk were extremely good and my goal is to give it a go this week!

My two breakouts were with Suzie Vesper and Nick Rate. Suzie explained how she uses googledocs and a couple of other web 2.0 tools.

http://educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com/
http://learningweb2.wikispaces.com/
http://suzieslinks.com/

Nick talked about e portfolios but also the purpose of them. This really made me think. I love the idea of a process portfolio but I am so in the showcase mindset!

Lead Teacher Day

Today we had our lead teacher day. It was a great chance to hear what people were doing at their schools.

It was awesome too, to share some bits and pieces.
Big ups goes out to Kylie for pointing out wall wisher. For a along time I've been trying to work out away to brainstorm etc. on a blog and wallwisher looks like the answer.

http://www.wallwisher.com/

At the end of it tho man I was tired. those intense thoughtful sessions always leave me beat.

My Inquiry Focus

Well this year my inquiry is motivating reluctant writers in my class through ICT and in doing so lift their achievement levels.

My first real goal, apart from getting my blog up and running, is to use garageband to publish the kids writing.

At the moment the kids have written tonnes and tonnes of stuff. (I guess it is motivating).
but...
They are spending way too much time on the computers trying to publish stuff. None of the other kids are getting a turn. I am thinking that now I will not get the whole class to make them and just focus on a few at a time.

I'm wondering how do others manage this sort of thing?

My First Reflection

Well this is my first reflection. I have a little challenge at the moment from Lyn Ross to post something here every day for a week. I don't know how I'll go as diaries/blogs/facebook/and all their kin are really not my thing.

But here it goes...