Blogs

Email

markcallagher@clear.net.nz

Website

http://russellst.school.nz/portfolios/

Email

Email Nick

Website

www.tonitwiss.com/mobile

Email
efellows2008@tki.org.nz

Email

 efellows2008@tki.org.nz

Well, this is the end of it then... My year is over and now back to the real world. This has definitely been a roller coaster year and the best professional development I have ever undertaken. Firstly I would like to thank the Ministry of Education for making this programme available. It is definitely worthwhile and life changing. I have not only had the time to work on my own professional development but I know I have had a lot of input into other teacher's lives this year as well. It has been great to have the time to craft presentations and to fully develop my thinking.

The reason why this year has been so successful has been the programme devised and delivered by the team at CORE Education . I would like to say a BIG thank you to Vince, Michael and Ann for making this year so exciting, stretching, challenging and rewarding. Without the leadership of CORE this would just be a year's study leave with no direction, but CORE took us every step of the way, showing us how to be teacher researchers and how to get the most out of the year. They molded our fellowship, helped us to connect and collaborate, and made the year "Professional Development on Steroids"!

This has been the most rewarding year of my teaching career and I know I will take all my learning back into my classroom. I will be refreshed and renewed to start teaching again. I wish the new eFellow recruits the best and look forward to reading their blogs and reports.

Onwards and upwards as they say ....

Today was a great day. We have been running a Kids Conference in Dunedin over the last two days. 100 students from all around Otago come to the Otago University College of Education to take part in a two day conference. These students sign up for four different workshops ranging from Google Sketchup, animations, movie making, podcasting, digital photography, microscopic investigations and green screening. It is a fantastic two days with students buzzing with enthusiasm.

But this is the reason why it was so special for me. My students ran a workshop on podcasting. They were the only students to run a workshop in the entire conference. The greatest thing about this is that these students are not the gifted and talented ones, they weren't chosen for their confidence. However, they stepped up and ran the workshop and did an amazing job. This once again shows the value in a podcasting programme. These students had language difficulties ranging from a speech impediment, lack of confidence and lack of volume. This was not an issue though, as they have been practicing using their voice for the last two terms and know how to speak to an audience. These workshops have shown that the skills these students learnt through podcasting are transferred to speaking in front of an audience.

In this image above two of my students are instructing the three teachers who came to their workshop. 

Well three terms have flown past and we are on the homeward straight. It is sad to think that my year is coming to an end. It has been a wonderful, challenging, stretching, growing year and I have changed significantly because of it. Mostly because I have been surrounded with people who are as passionate for teaching and learning and technology as I am. I have been able to engage in debates and have my mind changed and pursue different points of view while spending time with my mentors and the other efellows.  I no longer feel I am in a vacuum. Sometimes when you are passionate about something, your colleagues think you are 'strange' :-). The efellowship allowed me to spend time with other 'strange' people.

I leave for uLearn in two day's time. I will be running a full day seminar and two workshops. I get to present the findings of my research and see what it means to others. I am looking forward to seeing the reactions of my participants to these findings. I hope they have as much potency in my presentation as they did when I uncovered them.

Once uLearn is finished I will be preparing some of my students to run a podcasting workshop at the Dunedin Kids @ Conference. They are nervous and excited about it, a bit like how I feel about uLearn. Then all that will be left to do for the efellowship is to finish writing the final report.

I'll keep you posted ...

Today four of the Efellows had a virtual meeting in Second Life with Michael Winter of CORE.  We have been trying out lots of different online collaboration and meeting software during our fellowship and this is the latest in a long line of trials.  It was remarked how different from an online chat it was since we had physical presence and could look at each other's avatar as we talked about our projects.  Second life has just introduced the use of voice in world so we will be going back in soon to give that a go.

Being an Efellow truly gives you a chance to try out new things!

I am spending a few days at the new Core office (very swish!) with the other Efellows.  We are learning about effective presentation skills and how to interpret our data.  These weeks spending time with the other Efellows and calling on the great knowledge of our Core Mentors is invaluable.  Each time I come up to Christchurch I feel rejuvenated and am ready to get started on the next stage of my research project knowing that I am on the right track.

 This year really is an incredible opportunity.