Gill's blog

As promised, here is the list of sites that I mentioned in the TUANZ seminar “Engaging stuff”. These are just some of the sites that I have found to be useful in providing me with ideas, resources and connecting to people.

Literacy

Software for learning: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/software/index_e.php

English community news TKI: Great place to start.  http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/english/

On-line pick a path books: http://www.magickeys.com/books/  http://www.coder.com/creations/tale/tales/cgi-bin/tale.pl.cgi?PAGE=1_4794&STORYDIR=The_Haunted_Castle

Helping your students to create online pick-a-path books using PowerPoint:  http://www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/ictpd/pick_a_path_e.php

Unitech support: http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/hyperfiction/link4.html

Puzzlemaker: Still a favourite  http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/

Internet picture dictionary: Easy to navigate. Basic categories. Good for junior/middle primary & ESOL http://www.pdictionary.com/

Favourite children’s stories: Good literacy support - homepages for popular books e.g Animorphes / Harry Potter / Seussville / Online Adventures of Captain Underpants. Etc http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/displaysection.cfm&sec=19

Numeracy

Software for learning: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/software/index_e.php

First port of call for NZ teachers: www.nzmaths.co.nz.

Check out the equipment animations for ANP/ENP: http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/numeracy/Animations/animations.aspx

This site also has a comprehensive list of previewed sites that support all strands: http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/Links/Index.aspx

Learning Journey

Software for learning: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/software/index_e.php

Social Sciences community news:  http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/socialscience/

Google searches for sites supporting higher order thinking e.g Blooms- Questions to ask in the six general categories:  http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/questype.htm

Interactive websites: Provide standards-based cross curricular web resources designed to enhance online learning opportunities. http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interactive.htm

Assignment editor: Some useful world links for current events: Archived news photos etc  http://www.assignmenteditor.com/

Blue Web’n: An online library of 2017 Internet sites categorised by subject, level, and format   -  Very good. Allows Dewy number input as well http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/

ePals: connections programme http://www.epals.com/

42 pages of graphic organisers: These include T-Chart, attribute analysis T-Chart, Venn diagramme, comparison matrix, sequence chains and a whole lot more http://www.forret.com/tools/mememap.asp

General

Te Kete Ipurangi – The Online Learning Centre: www.tki.org.nz

Teachers@Work:  Mark Treadwell. Great resources. Thought provoking stuff and many terrific links: http://teachers.work.co.nz/

From Now On: The Education Technology Journal. Awesome archived ideas  http://www.fno.org/

Kids space:  http://www.kids-space.org/

A-Z Teachers’ Stuff: Very good links http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/

General programme support: Lots of support material free downloads etc. http://teachers.teach-nology.com/

ABC Teach: Some very useful content; http://www.abcteach.com/

Discovery school for teachers: http://school.discovery.com/schoolhome.html

EdHelper: Some effective free content. Subscription for full resources. http://www.edhelper.com/

Electric Teacher: This is a great site with quality links of interest for teachers.  http://www.electricteacher.com/

Fun Brain: Been around a long time. Some good interactive practice games and some useful resource support as well. http://www.funbrain.com/teachers/index.html

Sites used just for fun in the presentation:

A big thank you to Nick Billowes and the team for organising yet another awesome Learning@School conference in Rotorua. All of the keynote speakers struck accord with me in one way or another. Marc Prensky’s fast paced presentation hit home as he spoke of the engagement factor in using technologies in new, challenging and exciting ways for e-learning.  

Dr. Sharon Frieson and Dr. Patricia Clifford, co-founders of the Galileo project (http://www.galileo.org/) shared their journey in ICT and education. The work that they presented outlining the use of the newest technologies to “reclaim and communicate ancestral knowledge” was extremely relevant for my own research this year and I was fortunate to have been able to meet with them in a smaller workshop.

It was the first time that I have heard Dr. John Langley (Dean, Faculty of Education, Auckland University) speak and I thoroughly enjoyed his discussions about current educational issues in enabling the 21st century teacher as well as the 21st century student. I enjoyed the way in which he was able to weave many anecdotes through his presentation, which certainly made for an interesting and engaging last keynote.

This is now my second week of actually focusing on my research and I cannot believe how the time is flying. In between preparing presentations for TUANZ, I have managed to source some excellent readings and have begun a reflective journal.

I have also begun making reciprocal visits to schools that had visited us at Aberdeen School last year. It is great to have the opportunity to do this and to continue professional dialogue with colleagues in the wider school community. Today I visited Puahue School, a beautiful little school just out of Te Awamutu. I had forgotten the joy of being in a rural setting and thoroughly enjoyed my tour of the school and chat with the principal and staff.

On Friday I am presenting a workshop, “Engaging stuff” at TUANZ at Mystery Creek in Hamilton. This workshop looks at getting fun and laughter back into your teaching and engaging students in their learning at the same time. I will be repeating this workshop at TUANZ in Tauranga on the 24^th March.

What an amazing start to an exciting year. It has been a blast from day one. The introductory day in Wellington in December was invaluable. Though I did have fleeting thought that I would arrive and be told “You are the weakest link…Goodbye!” But they didn’t. Maureen Lambert from Ministry and the crew from CORE were wonderful. The Minister of Education spoke to us about future strategies and was keenly interested in each of the research projects.

The two weeks that we have just had in Christchurch have been two of the most valuable weeks in my professional life. It has been a time to really come to terms with what I am doing. The “think space” along with the one-on-one work with my mentor, Dr Michael Winter helped me to understand, with greater clarity, what my research is about and how I might go about it. Then there was the input from the rest of the research team who were able to look at different perspectives and offer a wealth of guidance and advice.

We had workshops on methods, blogs, ethics, database searches and even had time to think. Every day in Christchurch was filled with meeting new and interesting people. We visited places like HITlab, where we saw glimpses of what emerging technologies that may indeed change the landscape of teaching.

All ten fellows were given a number of tools to help us with our year, including a fabulous palm held iPAQ that is so much more than an electronic organiser. In fact, I have down loaded my PowerPoint presentation to practice this week. A huge thanks to Melissa from HP who gave us these and some of the wonderful equipment we got to bring back.

The social side of the fellowship was a lot more than just fun. It was a time for the ten of us to discuss what we were doing and why, who we are and where we come from. It was a time to appreciate the diversity of the group and has certainly left me with a huge admiration for every one of my fellow “Fellows”.

One of the biggest challenges has been putting aside my irrational fear of flying, though on the flight back from Christchurch I noticed that I had less beads of sweat forming on my forehead and that’s got to be a good thing! Never mind that we seemed to be doing the boy racer thing upon landing!

Just as I am finally unpacked and organised from Christchurch, I am packing again for Learning@School 2006. It should be a valuable few days.