Ako: being a teacher, being a learner

Picassa for Photos: I would like to thank Janine a colleague...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:09:00 +1200

Picassa for Photos:

I would like to thank Janine a colleague from the Hawkes Bay ECE ICT PL Cluster who introduced me to the joys of Picassa. I had avoided downloading it as I generally use iPhoto to store and manipulate photos, and didn’t have the motivation (or Hard Drive memory space) to look at alternative software. I can now see heaps of potential to use this alongside iPhoto - it can organise photos, make simple and quick documentation and being a Google App synchs with email, Blogger etc. It is worth looking at if you take photos and create documentation. Thanks Janine - ‘just in time’ learning for me!

It’s free to use
Picasa is free to download, and Picasa Web Albums provides 1 gigabyte of free storage — that’s enough space for 4,000 wallpaper-size photos.

Vinnie’s Voicethread I have been inspired to try out this...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:48:00 +1200

Vinnie’s Voicethread

I have been inspired to try out this ICT tool, Voicethread after seeing it used at BLENNZ. Heaps of potential here for multiple voices to comment - perhaps for assessment purposes, or just for fun! Please have a go at leaving a comment on this voicethread, which is a video of my wee cousin Vinnie, who passed away last year.

Early childhood teachers and parents at Meadowood Community...

Wed, 27 May 2009 23:16:00 +1200

Early childhood teachers and parents at Meadowood Community Creche are using private blogs to share examples of children’s learning and development - especially video snippets and Photo Stories. Read more in an article published in Tukutuku Korero – Education Gazette, The collaboration that this initiative has achieved between teachers, parents, early intervention specialists, physiotherapists, speech language therapists and children has been profound. There have been clear positive impacts on the authentic assessment of children’s learning and development.

UNICEF Article 5: Every child has the right to develop to their...

Wed, 27 May 2009 22:30:00 +1200

UNICEF Article 5: Every child has the right to develop to their full potential

I was reading Bev’s blog and had a look at some of the UNICEF videos on You Tube. Great short clips to remind us why we do what we do, and why we are educators.

Happy Matariki!! Is is soon time to celebrate the rise of...

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:55:00 +1200

Happy Matariki!! Is is soon time to celebrate the rise of Matariki. How are you going to celebrate Matariki this year? Click on the link here to a site with information and resources for sale to help you to celebrate the Māori New Year.

“Matariki signals growth. It’s a time of change. It’s a time to prepare, and a time of action. During Matariki, we acknowledge what we have and what we have to give.

Matariki celebrates the diversity of life. It’s a celebration of culture, language, spirit and people.”

I have a few workshops coming up - some of them around...

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:34:50 +1200

I have a few workshops coming up - some of them around cybersafety, which have fairly pre-set content. Catching up with the latest Presentation Zen posting, I followed a link to a slide:ology Webinar which describes the content of a series of online workshops and seminars, one of which talks about key messages in a presentation. I particularly wondered whether the cybersafety workshops will include a S. T. A. R moment (something they will always remember). I hope it is about the maximising the potential of ICT’s in education, and minimising risk.
S.T.A.R. (Something They Will Always Remember) moment.

Handy 'how to' for Google Forms

Sat, 16 May 2009 10:07:00 +1200

Handy 'how to' for Google Forms:

Love Google apps and using Google Forms is a convenient way to create a survey or poll. Here is a brief ‘how to’. Google even stores the data! There is also a video for those of us who like multi-media tutorials.

Teaching and Learning Videos

Fri, 15 May 2009 22:37:00 +1200

Teaching and Learning Videos:

I was alerted to this site by Greg. There are a whole set of videos of talking heads that are very informative. I went straight to the ones about the brain and neuroscience as this is an area of curiosity for me. I highly recommend that you have a look. Thanks Greg!

The particular video that the title of this posting links to is around motivating learners. The key messages resonate with me: an environment where children are working on topics that are interesting to them therefore they have an intrinsic motivation to focus and remain engaged; teachers who have relationships with the children and therefore know them and where they are at with their learning to plan for further experiences through appropriate challenges; collaboration with peers and teachers is encouraged; there is a context/culture of valuing thinking and learning; there is an attractive environment that contributes to the learning.

He describes the times when teachers get the balance between challenge and support right as ‘flow’ = when the child is engaged, completely concentrated, ‘in the moment’. This sounds like what happens regularly in the infant-toddler centres and pre-schools of Reggio Emilia!

The city of Reggio Emilia!

Fri, 15 May 2009 20:04:37 +1200

The city of Reggio Emilia!

What are we blogging?

Fri, 15 May 2009 13:22:00 +1200

I was provoked to reflect on this topic after a seminar I attended about the publication of documentation that is created at the RE municipal pre-schools. I am not going to write here in detail about the published books, (or the amount of Euro’s that I spent purchasing examples of published documentation of children’s learning experiences and teachers reflections!), but rather about the thoughts the presentation provoked as related to online documentation in ECE in NZ through blogging…..

The public publishing of documentation around group learning experiences seems to be a very important part of the process of creating pedagogical documentation in the Municipal preschools at Reggio Emilia. Publishing enables the documentation to be shared, to promote further learning experiences for all protagonists and through feedback from the reader different interpretations can be brought to the experience. I wondered about the public sharing of children’s experiences in ECE in NZ through blogging, and what the difference is between sharing on an ECE centre blog, and through a written publication such as those produced in RE? Are these different modes of documentation for very different purposes, or perhaps we are missing an opportunity to use blogs as a form of deep pedagogical documentation?

I know that a very few ECE centres have begun to professionally publish books of learning projects or features of their centre, but for me in my role, the most public kind of documentation that I know of is an open blog. I feel strongly that the public sharing of what and how we are teaching in ECE is important, as it can create fertile ground for sharing, and engaging in dialogue about teaching and learning. It made me think how rarely I leave comments on these open blogs, and when I do it is always some kind of fluffy positive. Often I don’t ask questions even though I am curious about the posting. Are we missing the opportunity for the open blogs to be used as pedagogical documentation, and as a professional learning tool?

Comparing the process of publishing a progettzione (often translated as a ‘project of group learning’) and a centre blog posting:

*Often all that is published on a blog is the final product of a teaching and learning experience, with minimal public sharing of the process. This is in direct contrast to a project book, which is not a chronicle of events, but is a comprehensive record of key points in the process of a progettzione - the times when the project seemed to ‘stick’ and/or ‘jump ahead’ are highlighted, as well as where the project ended up.

*When a progettzione book is published, it always involves a collaboration with many protagonists: children, teachers, pedagogista’s (senior teachers), artelieristers (specialised art teachers), parents and family, editors and graphic designers all feeding into the final publication, rather than on a blog where often it is the teachers deciding on the form and content of a posting. I know there are exceptions to this where children are creating content and publishing slideshows and animations on their ECE centre blog but this is not yet the norm. I welcome comments from teachers and children who dispute this.

*By only publishing as teachers, with our own teachers perspective, we are missing out on including the subjectivities of the parents, other teachers, the children and community. This limits the value of the blog as a professional learning tool – one that we can use to re-visit and re-interpret to continue to take a deeper look at the meaning in children’s work.

*I hear teachers describe their centre blogs as a way of celebrating and giving value to a child’s or a group learning experience. Often postings include a multi-media component or a PDF of a learning story. In RE, the progettzione books as well as the other forms of documentation are seen as places where confrontation can occur. They are given high value and considered fertile ground to enable consultation and comprehension to occur with people who were not present during a progettzione. The documentation enables not just the product to be celebrated but is always available to ensure that we can continue make shared meaning of the children and teachers work.

I think that especially now that we seem to have launched into the public sharing of children’s and teachers experiences through open blogs and books, we need to be very careful about what it is we are publishing, how the content is derived, the purpose, and what is the most appropriate means of sharing examples of learning and teaching. I know that we tend to rush headlong into embracing new ways of working in ECE in NZ and perhaps we just got on with giving blogging a go in the best kiwi tradition? Have we really researched the impact of publishing in this way, and the most effective use of a blog?

Certainly by only publishing the product, are we sending children the message that we value the product over the process? Is the process documented somewhere else? Do we include in postings an over view of the process, and let readers know where they can access this?

It is the right of children to learn, and to celebrate their learning. I question whether a blog posting of a finished product with minimal input from others and little or no surfacing of how the experience got to this point is in the best interests of teaching and learning. It is important to continue to revisit and critique the content of all of the documentation, and especially that of blogs, which are in the public forum and a new tool in ECE.

Reggio Emila Study Tour 2009

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:26:00 +1200

I was just thinking about the title for this posting, before I get to even start writing the first in a series of reflections from my recent visit to the Municipal Pre-schools of Reggio Emila, Italy organised by the group, Reggio Children. I decided anyway that I had better date this study tour as I would love to visit again, and will work to make that happen!

The study tour left me with copious notes and many more questions and curiosities than I arrived with and new friends that I can contact to dialogue with as I wrestle to contextualise my learning to ECE in NZ, and to my role as an ICT facilitator.

Some first comments on the experience that I have just had at RE: I have been impressed and inspired and I thank all of the children, families and teachers for welcoming us so warmly and sharing so generously your work. I have been inspired in a way that is motivating, and I have many questions about my work and practice. The mix of speakers and centre visits has been great. While reading through some of the publications that I read a quote from a child in a centre who described his thoughts of the adults who descend on his centre during the study tour: I am sitting in the airport at Singapore and don’t have the book with me but it went something like this: We have a lot of foreign visitors come to visit us. They write lots and take a lot of photos. I think they are like spies coming to watch us. This made me appreciate even more the privilege it has been to visit some of the centres with children and families present going about their daily routines.

Some of the aspects of the Infant Toddler Centres and Pre-schools of RE that impressed me the most were the depth of the learning through progettzione; the length of time the children are engaged in the progettzione; the collaboration of the teachers, pedagogisters and artelieristers on a regular ongoing basis; the organization of the classrooms so that the children are together as a class group with the same teachers all year; the documentation and the purposes that the different forms serve; the natural inclusion of ICT’s as tools when appropriate.

Some ways that I can create a dialogue between the pedagogical experience of RE and the context in which I am working now are:
*the importance of action research as professional development for teachers
*the authentic way that ICT’s are integrated throughout all aspects of the curriculum at RE and are used in authentic ways as appropriate
*the focus on the individual in NZ and the developmental lens that some teachers and parents and managers place on assessment, often ignoring the group of children involved in an experience. I will continue dialogue around the group, where individual subjectivities in the group context may be a more appropriate way of surfacing learning
*the teachers abilities to listen to children and to respond so sensitively, and to capture this in documentation
*the range of documentation for different purposes

There will be many more as I revisit my notes and audio recordings……

"Culture of Availability"

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:34:00 +1200

As I sat in bed this Easter weekend checking my RSS feeds as you do, and emailing off links to fellow teachers who might find these relevant to their ICT research projects, it suddenly occured to me that they might actually be having a holiday this holiday weekend!!

Then I watched this TED video by Renny Gleeson about the impact that technologies are having on our lives. He talks about the developing “culture of availability”, leading to the “expectation of availability” and therefore an “obligation of availability”. What does this mean for the teachers who are all now using laptops and are creating a lot of their documentation at home?

I am not sure whether this is a good or bad thing. As with all change, there is compromise. I certainly don’t expect the teachers to answer my email over their Easter break.

Gleeson’s talk is just 3 mnutes and is a funny look at ways that we manage to keep in touch with moblie phones. He also cautions that we ensure that the technologies that are being developed work to make us more human, and enrich our communication.

Happy Easter everyone!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:31:24 +1200

Happy Easter everyone!

Just received a presentation tip from Olivia Mitchell http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/blog/...

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:09:02 +1200

Just received a presentation tip from Olivia Mitchell http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/blog/ ….very timely as I prepare to present

An evening with Per

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:48:34 +1300

Last night I attended an evening with Per Bernemyr (organised by Reggio Provocations) who started the Swedish Reggio Institute in 1992 and is a internationally recognised consultant with years of experience working alongside pedagogista from Reggio Emilia.
I was well provoked by him, and enjoyed the dialogue immensely. A couple of things from my notes that I wanted to share:
“Teachers and children need many theories to understand what they see….this means that you only see what you have theories to see. Theories act as receivers, to enable us to make sense of an experience.” The more theories we have then to draw on, the richer we are in terms of making meaning, and the more possibilities for interpretation.

The teachers role in this is to listen to the children, to reflect together during and after an encounter to conceptualise what it is that they have done with the children; to make it possible for the children to share their theories together and to document the dialogue between the children; to provide a climate or environment which increases the possibilities for an investigation/project; to be open to many possibilities - not to have pre-conceived ideas;

I amstill processing this all, but it was clear in some instances the ICT used to document a project or during an investigation as a research tool, can close down the possibilities for children and channel the investigation in a certain way. Google as a research tool can be relied on to supply answers - often the scientific answers - and can block the rich expression of the children’s theories. Food for thought.

"Developmental fossils—unearthing the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of..."

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:11:00 +1300

“Developmental fossils—unearthing the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of ‘Child Development’ (free full-text available)”

- Developmental fossils—unearthing the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of ‘Child Development’ (free full-text available) - Early Childhood Australia

Marilyn Fleer has written an article which is opening debate and invitating us to think critically about the term ‘Child Development’. I feel uncomfortable using the term ‘child development’ without explaining my philosophy with the next breath to avoid the notion that I am categorising a child depending on what they can or can’t do by a certain age. Marilyn used the term ‘Cultural-Historical Development of Children’, to acknowledge that development isn’t just about the indiviidual, but the influence of their social, cultural and historical context. It is great to open a conversation about development. I also think it is important for teachers to have an understanding of patterns of development, to enable them to build on children’s learning experiences. Have we become too hands-off when it comes to working with children and their parents/whānau around areas of a child’s learning that they are struggling with? I was visiting as ECE centre this week, where an Early Intervention Teacher and a Speech language Therapist were observing a child for assessment. This child was 4 years old and had been attending another ECE centre from birth. If a child has significant developmental delays as in this instance, what role does the teacher have in assessing the child, and bringing their concerns to the attention of the parent/caregiver? Have we become so PC, or so focused on taking a credit approach, that in fact we are creating deficits for children? Working with a child’s strengths and interests does not just mean teaching around what they are good at…..it enables teachers to engage children in all areas of the curriculum through their curiosities, and builds a child’s learning holistically.

What role can ICT play in assessing where a child is at? Short video clips can capture typical behaviour and authentic child’s voice, computers can provide a place where children can sit and focus if interested, photographs can capture attention, blogs where teachers and parents post video can enable EI teachers and other specfialists to keep up to date with where a child is at.

Speaking about presenting

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:34:00 +1300

“when you’re presenting, take charge of what your audience remembers”

Olivia Mitchell

Another blog about presenting, this one with heaps of great tips and ideas - concise and easy to read. Olivia has made available a free ebook which you can download.

Why do we meet face to face: Kanohi ki te kanohi?

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:52:00 +1300

While planning the visits that I will make with teachers over the next term to work on their ECE ICT research projects, I have been grappling with the content of our face to face meetings, and wondering what we can achieve using the technology we have available, to make these meetings as productive as possible. Jeff Utecht has also been thinking about this and has a couple of posts on his blog, ‘The thinking Stick’.….“working face to face is valuable when we are put in a situation that allows use to create, produce, or solve a problem. Meeting for meetings sake can be done on the web, and we can meet on the web to produce something or solve a problem, but there is a different aura that happens when you are in the physical presence of those you are working with”.

My note to self: maximise the use of the time that I am meeting face to face with teachers and children, so that the creative thinking and synergy can happen. This means utilising available technology such as skype, google docs, email, chat, to take care of the housekeeping type things that can take up too much of the visit time.

"Innovation can be challenging and hard work, yet the rewards are plentiful. To innovate requires..."

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:47:00 +1300

“Innovation can be challenging and hard work, yet the rewards are plentiful. To innovate requires willingness to try new approaches, and this can lead to ‘failures’, but if innovation is seen as an iterative and ongoing process rather than a one-off activity, much can be learnt and shared from these setbacks.”

- Futurelab - Resources - Publications, reports & articles - Handbooks - Promoting transformative innovation in schools

Another timely publication from Futurelab. Download a pdf version from the above link. “While the publication highlights the many barriers institutions face initiating such change, it also emphasises how these hurdles must not be exaggerated. It also underlines many of the tools and techniques existing that can help foster creative thinking, problem solving and innovative practices.”

"To Learn how you can use Freeplay Music click on Terms of Use, Licensing, Rate Card."

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:22:08 +1300

“To Learn how you can use Freeplay Music click on Terms of Use, Licensing, Rate Card.”

- Freeplay Music, Broadcast Production Music Library, Free and Mp3 Music Downloads, See Usage Terms.