I spent my last day of the term 2 holidays doing professional development, not a problem in itself, but it does highlight some questions I have.
The PD was workplace first aid training and was organised by our health & safety guru, volunteer fireman and fellow year 5 & 6 teacher @Generalrudd. The course, run by Ambulance EMT, was the second he'd organised in my time at HNS, although the first was for the year 5/6 kids. This wasn't just teachers-only PD, it was set up as school-wide so all support staff were also required for the last day. I've ready many posts and plenty of tweets about the variety of professional development and whether school-wide is always appropriate and even this had some staff not wanting to give up the day or unwilling to participate.
Our training involved rescue breathing, CPR, defibrillator, bandaging, recovery position, epi pens and most of the basics you would expect from this type of course. As a school we're investigating purchasing a defibrillator, before I started at HNS a staff member had heart attack and it was through the knowledge and skills of staff that this person survived so one can understand the schools thinking.
My questions though are as follows:
Am I prepared skillwise to help a child with a significant injury?
Yesterday was the third time I have completed some first-aid training, not once have I ever completed a refresher or renewal course so the first two certificates lapsed well before I became a teacher. Here I am again having completed the training and in a better position to help others, especially with some of the child-focussed learning we did yesterday. I'm incredibly fortunate, @Generalrudd is far more trained and experienced in delivering first aid but this is a double-edged sword for a complete novice like myself. I would hate to panic or freeze if I ever got into a situation where these skills were needed so without testing myself I will never know.
In my time at HNS we've had a few broken bones and dislocations, none while I've been on duty so I had no involvement but last year a student did have a bad accident while my class were outside. Then, we deferred to @Generalrudd, just as I would now although I feel I'm in a better position to assist him. This has to be a good thing.
The double edge of this sword is that I know that it is unlikely that any school I move to in the future will have someone as trained (first aid / volunteer fireman) as my colleague, placing all pressure squarely back on my shoulders.
How do other schools approach first-aid and first-aid training?
The only other schools I have experience with were on my three practicums, none of these schools had first aid training while I was there. I also know that they didn't expect all staff to have first aid training. But what about other schools? I know one school that a golfing buddy is at has regular school-wide training facilitated by St. Johns.
But first aid training doesn't seem to be top of mind, I'd love to have people share with me the approach taken at their school.
Should first aid training be a basic requirement for all teachers?
We include the safety of our students as an absolute imperative in our job, we have all sorts of systems to cope with any number of interventions but how come we don't include first aid training as a basic requirement? I know the cost is significant to have all staff trained, but surely having only a few staff trained at every school is a rather haphazard approach also. Clearly, we can't be trained for every student need as this list would be quite large (without even worrying about first aid training). I'm just a little surprised that this isn't at the heart of caring for our students.
I fully appreciate that we have so many responsibilities, requirements and commitments in our ever-growing job description but having undertaken first aid training I felt the need to air my thoughts. Feel free to disagree, laugh this off as an inexperienced viewpoint or simply ignore...
I currently am employed at Hobsonville Point Primary School where I work in a year 5-7 learning common, this is my 8th year at HPPS. I teach, lead and learn. Previously, I spent 3 years teaching at Henderson North School with a class of Year 5-6 students.
Monday, 21 July 2014
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Twitter in @Rm1hns 2.0
Reading tweets the other day my interest was piqued by Craig Kemp's blog post on using Twitter in the classroom. I'm in my second year of using Twitter in class and swear by its effectiveness as an ICT tool but the scaffolding that Craig used as he introduced his class to Twitter weren't how I had attacked it's introduction. I was impressed by what Craig had done and it made me pause to consider the different introductions I'd used between the first & second years using the @rm1hns account with my year 5 & 6s. My comments here are based on what I did for my second year.
First tweet of the year:
I introduced Twitter on day 1 of the year. Day 1 has so many requirements, I thought that giving the class a chance to "meet" their twitter account was a worthwhile interlude amongst some of the more mundane activities. The class account was put onto the bigscreen and we had a little chat about what they knew of Twitter. A handful of my class had been in @rm2hns so were well versed in Twitter but they were the minority. We talked about the Anatomy of a tweet and then I gave them a paper template to write their first tweet. The template was an excellent way to engage them in writing at the start of the year and knowing that your teacher only expects 140 characters has to be less of a shock than some first-up writing activities. After the usual writing process took place, children had included a twitter handle, experimented with hashtags and begun to grasp how much can be said in 140 characters.
I can't pretend that the first attempts were perfect tweets but some progressed to being tweeted while others remained in their paper form. All were displayed on the wall for the children to read. They needed to comprehend that once it was tweeted anyone could read it, an important digital safety lesson.
How we use Twitter:
We use Twitter regularly in the classroom. Any brainstorming or mindmapping session across a topic will often involve someone tweeting their ideas or questions. Microblogging what we're up to as a class and using twitter to share work with the teacher or others are both popular uses also. Recently, I connected with a colleague through twitter to have our students communicate around book discussions. This was massive for one of my students who is reading well above level and I need to keep engaged. But our most common use for twitter is Kidsedchatnz.
@rm1hnsis an enthusiastic member of Kidsedchatnz and I'm a coordinator of the programme but my experience with Kidsedchatnz and @rm1hns involvement was such that it could be somewhat confusing for the children due to its fast paced nature. Routinely over 500 tweets can be sent in the 45 - 50 minutes it operates. This is where Tweetdeck becomes almost a necessity to participate in a chat session.
Tweetdeck:
I experimented with using Tweetdeck with my class in our first year of twitter, the kids didn't like the column look and preferred to use Twitter's own platform to follow chats. This year, chat sessions have been even more fast-paced and occassionally difficult to follow. I introduced Tweetdeck by simply having my tweetdeck up on the smartboard, by demonstrating how much easier this makes it follow a chat session many of the kids were eager to give it a go. Tweetdeck is now installed on the desktops in Room 1 and the kids use a column to follow Kidsedchatnz. Because this app is always open, the spur of the moment tweet is easily sent also.
As the students have become better at following the chats and their general ability on Twitter, we've had the odd revision session. Sitting down looking at great tweets and breaking them down has been beneficial for my little tweeps. As year 5 & 6s I don't expect perfection but I do encourage them to always be lifting their standards of communication.
BYOD:
@rm1hns is a BYOD classroom. Many of the BYOD kids, after proving their responsibility, have installed Twitter on their devices and therefore are able to participate in Kidsedchatnz on their own. This allows our class to have up to 10 - 12 devices engaged in Kidsedchatnz. I watched a developing writer send his first tweet independently last Thursday on his own device, he was so proud it made me feel this is the right decision. The children are all happy to act as tweeters on behalf of others or the class as needs determine and several of them prefer to share their work via Twitter rather than emailing it.
I recognise that not all teachers would be comfortable having a class account loaded onto personal devices but I have my reasons. Firstly, I know that some of my students have created their own twitter accounts and I don't want to enable the use of these for class purposes, especially that occasionally there is contact between myself and @rm1hns. Because I know some have @rm1hns loaded on their devices I will intermittently send them a tweet promoting a free app, I wouldn't do this to their personal accounts.
The @rm1hns account is loaded onto all of my devices so I can easily check the activity but to this point it has never been an issue. Come the end of the year I will need to change the password and ensure the students remove it from their devices but that is not difficult.
Where to next:
I don't claim to have my students using Twitter perfectly, but I do know that as you introduce it into your class the second time you'll definitely do things differently. Craig's post made me reflect on how I'd changed the way I went about things in my second year of Twitter in the classroom. I'll be changing things next year too no doubt. I can see an earlier introduction to Tweetdeck, more emphasis on positive responses and a session where children can just have a chat session amongst themselves would be incredibly beneficial prior to taking part in Kidsedchatnz.
I haven't made the most of tools for curating social media, a couple of my students have been introduced to Storify. I would like to make more use of it as it has lots of creative uses in the classroom especially around the structure and sequencing of writing.
The use of Twitter is constantly involving and I loved the suggestion of a colleague recently about her students creating a book club using twitter. Maybe that book club is in my students future also...
First tweet of the year:
I introduced Twitter on day 1 of the year. Day 1 has so many requirements, I thought that giving the class a chance to "meet" their twitter account was a worthwhile interlude amongst some of the more mundane activities. The class account was put onto the bigscreen and we had a little chat about what they knew of Twitter. A handful of my class had been in @rm2hns so were well versed in Twitter but they were the minority. We talked about the Anatomy of a tweet and then I gave them a paper template to write their first tweet. The template was an excellent way to engage them in writing at the start of the year and knowing that your teacher only expects 140 characters has to be less of a shock than some first-up writing activities. After the usual writing process took place, children had included a twitter handle, experimented with hashtags and begun to grasp how much can be said in 140 characters.
How we use Twitter:
We use Twitter regularly in the classroom. Any brainstorming or mindmapping session across a topic will often involve someone tweeting their ideas or questions. Microblogging what we're up to as a class and using twitter to share work with the teacher or others are both popular uses also. Recently, I connected with a colleague through twitter to have our students communicate around book discussions. This was massive for one of my students who is reading well above level and I need to keep engaged. But our most common use for twitter is Kidsedchatnz.
@rm1hnsis an enthusiastic member of Kidsedchatnz and I'm a coordinator of the programme but my experience with Kidsedchatnz and @rm1hns involvement was such that it could be somewhat confusing for the children due to its fast paced nature. Routinely over 500 tweets can be sent in the 45 - 50 minutes it operates. This is where Tweetdeck becomes almost a necessity to participate in a chat session.
Tweetdeck:
I experimented with using Tweetdeck with my class in our first year of twitter, the kids didn't like the column look and preferred to use Twitter's own platform to follow chats. This year, chat sessions have been even more fast-paced and occassionally difficult to follow. I introduced Tweetdeck by simply having my tweetdeck up on the smartboard, by demonstrating how much easier this makes it follow a chat session many of the kids were eager to give it a go. Tweetdeck is now installed on the desktops in Room 1 and the kids use a column to follow Kidsedchatnz. Because this app is always open, the spur of the moment tweet is easily sent also.
As the students have become better at following the chats and their general ability on Twitter, we've had the odd revision session. Sitting down looking at great tweets and breaking them down has been beneficial for my little tweeps. As year 5 & 6s I don't expect perfection but I do encourage them to always be lifting their standards of communication.
BYOD:
@rm1hns is a BYOD classroom. Many of the BYOD kids, after proving their responsibility, have installed Twitter on their devices and therefore are able to participate in Kidsedchatnz on their own. This allows our class to have up to 10 - 12 devices engaged in Kidsedchatnz. I watched a developing writer send his first tweet independently last Thursday on his own device, he was so proud it made me feel this is the right decision. The children are all happy to act as tweeters on behalf of others or the class as needs determine and several of them prefer to share their work via Twitter rather than emailing it.I recognise that not all teachers would be comfortable having a class account loaded onto personal devices but I have my reasons. Firstly, I know that some of my students have created their own twitter accounts and I don't want to enable the use of these for class purposes, especially that occasionally there is contact between myself and @rm1hns. Because I know some have @rm1hns loaded on their devices I will intermittently send them a tweet promoting a free app, I wouldn't do this to their personal accounts.The @rm1hns account is loaded onto all of my devices so I can easily check the activity but to this point it has never been an issue. Come the end of the year I will need to change the password and ensure the students remove it from their devices but that is not difficult.
Where to next:
I don't claim to have my students using Twitter perfectly, but I do know that as you introduce it into your class the second time you'll definitely do things differently. Craig's post made me reflect on how I'd changed the way I went about things in my second year of Twitter in the classroom. I'll be changing things next year too no doubt. I can see an earlier introduction to Tweetdeck, more emphasis on positive responses and a session where children can just have a chat session amongst themselves would be incredibly beneficial prior to taking part in Kidsedchatnz.
I haven't made the most of tools for curating social media, a couple of my students have been introduced to Storify. I would like to make more use of it as it has lots of creative uses in the classroom especially around the structure and sequencing of writing.
The use of Twitter is constantly involving and I loved the suggestion of a colleague recently about her students creating a book club using twitter. Maybe that book club is in my students future also...
Thursday, 3 July 2014
NZ Geography - my way
Next term at HNS we're going to be focussing on NZ geography. My kids are a little bored of looking at NZ so up to me to make it more fun, thankfully my love of ICT & by previous life in tourism education should help me out here. I discussed some ideas briefly with colleagues today & as I drove home the knowledge & experience from that previous life came flooding back to the surface. What was especially exciting was the way that I could see so many opportunities for eLearning to be integrated.
Rather than just share with them, I thought that others might appreciate some different approaches to this subject.
I've put these few ideas together and welcome any additions you might want to make, here's the link for the slideshow . I've mentioned a couple of apps specifically in the slideshow but recognise that they by no means can be considered an exhaustive list.
If you're after any help with Thinglink check out my earlier post.
My brain is still ticking over so I'm sure that I'll be adding more to this list as the next few days transpire, or add your own.
Rather than just share with them, I thought that others might appreciate some different approaches to this subject.
I've put these few ideas together and welcome any additions you might want to make, here's the link for the slideshow . I've mentioned a couple of apps specifically in the slideshow but recognise that they by no means can be considered an exhaustive list.
If you're after any help with Thinglink check out my earlier post.
My brain is still ticking over so I'm sure that I'll be adding more to this list as the next few days transpire, or add your own.
Sunday, 8 June 2014
WAPA eLearning Session Term 2
This Thinglink image is a selection of the gems of knowledge, tools, resources and a couple of twitter handles that I encountered at the most recent WAPA session which was focussed on eLearning.
Friday, 16 May 2014
Hacking our history - first steps
What a week! I've had moments of frustration but finished wishing that tomorrow was another school day thanks to my first forays into hacking the learning in @rm1hns.
I've experimented with Adventure Learning in the past and started 2014 with the intention of using this form of learning again. The class had moderate success with their adventure learning last year but as is typical one thing led to another and we just didn't get there. As I completed my long-term planning for this term Adventure Learning had fallen back off my radar in favour of some inquiry learning and a couple of projects that I thought would allow enough differentiation that the class would be engaged with their learning.
We're studying NZ History as a school (not my choice but I can definitely make this work), so in the past two weeks I've really tried to immerse them in content with the hope that I can inspire some curiosity and get them moving. I was trying to widen their horizons but instead they were following my ideas as their topics rather than using them as the starting point to discoveries of their own.
But then I saw the blogpost by @Juliet_Revell for the Kidsedchatnz session on Hacking -
Twitter then assisted the next part of the journey. An HPSS staffmember who posts & tweets about hacking regularly retweeted the latest post to Carl's Blog. It was time to learn some more so I opened the link. This succinct post, some bravado and a little experience with Adventure Learning led to some great first steps in hacking today.
We started with the NZ History calendar view, we quickly had a look through the posts on the month of May. Ten minutes or less allowed us to skim through the May and 2-3 of the classes birthdays. We got out the BYOD devices, handed out a few of the school iPads and divided up the desktops so the kids could go exploring the timeline. Carl's post had led to three easy questions that I posed to @rm1hns today; What do you want to learn? How do you want to learn it? How do you know when you have learnt it? As each of the kids found something that they wanted to learn more about I assisted them with possible learning outcomes.
Here are 2-3 of the results:
1 girl is delving into the Treaty of Waitangi and wants to write a script to recreate the signing. I can see this getting quite big but there is so much learning embedded within this that I'm going to let it.
2 boys discovered that Sir Edmund Hillary also trekked to the South Pole, they're thinking about building a model to show his journey. Minecraft got mentioned here! They'll need to be able to talk me through it but the enthusiasm & curiosity are there.
Another girl came up to show me a history event she'd discovered, the Maori language finally being made an official NZ language. I'm not sure how this project will look at the end of her project but I'm convinced that it is going to be a great learning journey for this student.
2 other girls discovered Minnie Dean, they never would have got there with my original plans but this is what has excited them and isn't this what it is all about.
Kidsedchatnz had led me back to where I am happiest, facilitating the children in their own learning. I'll be reading a lot more posts and tweets about hacking from here on, I might even manage to educate my peers who raised some eyebrows when I said we had been busy hacking the school and our learning.
Who knows what is next but it is definitely going to be interesting, motivating and worthwhile.
I've experimented with Adventure Learning in the past and started 2014 with the intention of using this form of learning again. The class had moderate success with their adventure learning last year but as is typical one thing led to another and we just didn't get there. As I completed my long-term planning for this term Adventure Learning had fallen back off my radar in favour of some inquiry learning and a couple of projects that I thought would allow enough differentiation that the class would be engaged with their learning.
We're studying NZ History as a school (not my choice but I can definitely make this work), so in the past two weeks I've really tried to immerse them in content with the hope that I can inspire some curiosity and get them moving. I was trying to widen their horizons but instead they were following my ideas as their topics rather than using them as the starting point to discoveries of their own.
But then I saw the blogpost by @Juliet_Revell for the Kidsedchatnz session on Hacking -
Hacking your Learning: What would make you happy? I'd noticed the social media attention to hacking without paying a great deal of attention. My only firsthand experience was when visiting Taupaki School and @jjpurtonjones had her students demonstrate a hacking programme. To be honest, I was guilty of thinking hacking = computers. I'm wrong and so glad.
Yesterday, as prep for Kidsedchatnz we watched the videos, Logan's video resonated with me straight away and the kids were starting to get intrigued as I wrote a few soundbites onto the whiteboard. By the time we'd watched the final video the kids were buzzing to design their own classrooms and learning. The class had a great time inventing their own classrooms. My brain was ticking over rapidly as I got to the end of the day, I'd learnt even more about some of the students, their interests, and how they'd like to learn.
Twitter then assisted the next part of the journey. An HPSS staffmember who posts & tweets about hacking regularly retweeted the latest post to Carl's Blog. It was time to learn some more so I opened the link. This succinct post, some bravado and a little experience with Adventure Learning led to some great first steps in hacking today.
We started with the NZ History calendar view, we quickly had a look through the posts on the month of May. Ten minutes or less allowed us to skim through the May and 2-3 of the classes birthdays. We got out the BYOD devices, handed out a few of the school iPads and divided up the desktops so the kids could go exploring the timeline. Carl's post had led to three easy questions that I posed to @rm1hns today; What do you want to learn? How do you want to learn it? How do you know when you have learnt it? As each of the kids found something that they wanted to learn more about I assisted them with possible learning outcomes.
Here are 2-3 of the results:
1 girl is delving into the Treaty of Waitangi and wants to write a script to recreate the signing. I can see this getting quite big but there is so much learning embedded within this that I'm going to let it.2 boys discovered that Sir Edmund Hillary also trekked to the South Pole, they're thinking about building a model to show his journey. Minecraft got mentioned here! They'll need to be able to talk me through it but the enthusiasm & curiosity are there.
Another girl came up to show me a history event she'd discovered, the Maori language finally being made an official NZ language. I'm not sure how this project will look at the end of her project but I'm convinced that it is going to be a great learning journey for this student.
2 other girls discovered Minnie Dean, they never would have got there with my original plans but this is what has excited them and isn't this what it is all about.
Kidsedchatnz had led me back to where I am happiest, facilitating the children in their own learning. I'll be reading a lot more posts and tweets about hacking from here on, I might even manage to educate my peers who raised some eyebrows when I said we had been busy hacking the school and our learning.
Who knows what is next but it is definitely going to be interesting, motivating and worthwhile.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)