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By the way the song is called "Little Green Bag" by George Baker

Today, I think, has to have been the longest day of my life. Certainly since coming to New Zealand.

I have felt like I’ve been trapped in some educationally-bent episode of 24.

The following takes place between 8pm (the night

before) and 12pm the day of the ERO visit.

If I could do the tick-dum, tick-dum noise I would:

8pm (last night) My Prinicpal calls for a quick chat about the run through of the day, beginning with “You know they’re coming a bit earlier, don’t you?”

9.pm (ish) last night, I am reviewing some plans for the ERO visit. Running through the day in my head, checking the resources et al.

11pm-1pm Still running through the events of tomorrow while relieving my bodily system of dinner. I wonder if I ate something funny, I’m not laughing- that’s just great.

2.30am Son wakes me with news he needs the toilet- what a fine time for him to be trying to get out of the ‘overnight nappy’

3.30am finally manage to get to sleep (did I mention, my boy fell asleep whilst on the loo about 2.34am)

6am Woken by son saying – “I can’t go to sleep!” Probably has something to do with you having slept 11 hours I manage NOT to say. Anyway I’m up heading toward the day

7.03am I’m out the door for the $10 ride to school – It takes me 30minutes – 36 km but I measure in the cost of fuel now, not distance.

7.30am (give or take the logging truck I followed up the Taihape road) I arrive at School. Final prep for the visit – remember they are coming in early- I want to check the students desks – if they ask to see an example of the writing matrix in the students books I want to have every confidence that I can open any students desk without the fear of having my digits chewed off by any lurking rodents.

8.25am First bus arrives and I begin my mantra for the morning. “Have checked morning routine, do you have your writing kit out, sharp pencil, been to the loo, cut your toe nails, removed the boggies from your sleeves.

8.40am ERO due any minute, students appear ready and I struggle to find them extra stuff to do to keep them off the computer games (they are maths games- most can be found on my delicious account so its all educational stuff, but not a good first impression I guess)

9am Still no sign of ERO, call comes via the secretary, they’ve gone to the wrong school- That poor principal, just imagine ERO turning up on your door step, no warning just a friendly “Hello, we’re the ERO team come to inspect your school.” – ERK! Apparently they did not actually arrive at the school before they realized- but saying they did paints a much more amusing picture.

9.30am The Board begin to arrive, some earlier than others but all looking a little nervous- Funny that, I was nervous meeting the board for the first time, so where does that put me in the pecking order?

10.05am ish Inspectors arrive. They meet the board and we in the class are finishing up writing and heading toward fitness- I’m actually very disappointed they missed the writing lesson as the principal and I team teach it in a very inter-reactive way (if there is such a word).

10.10am We’re in doing Reading- Big book is on the IWB. Wish I’d printed it out to show then later but hey ho.

10.45am ERO appear in my room as I am mid flow with a reading group. Lots of positive feedback about classroom displays looking great and ‘feel of the room’ being directed toward student learning. Yippee.

11.00am Morning tea. I walk into the meeting one of the inspectors is having with the chair of the board. Oops! Then they have to leave the staffroom on account of my presence- Double Oops!

11.20am DEAR time in the classroom. Observation begins. I hate the few minutes at the start of the session while students prepare themselves for their learning. It always appears chaotic but in reality on lasts a few minutes (despite it feeling like an age when the inspector is right there).

11.42am Been working with a maths group and have set them off on an independent task. One inspector is now working with them. Not sure if it’s a good thing or not, so I head over to check. Everyone is smiling so I return to the individual kid I’m working with. With my current maths group numbers being 2,1 and 2 it is hard to argue that the learning isn’t personalized.

12.30am Lunch- I’m on duty so I sit and eat with the kids- We get into a great conversation about middle names, whose got one, who hasn’t. Then they spend the next 7 minutes trying to guess mine…. And succeed I have to add. These kids are not worriwed about our visitors. And rightly so, I’ve never met a group of kids so supportive of one another and clued in socially and educationally. These kids ROCK and I’m so happy to be called their teacher.

I’m going to leave it there for now but the afternoon was equally eventful. 10.32pm I’m signing off.

Fisher Price

Starfall

Boowa & Kwala

Jigzone

Lego

Sesame Street (beta)

The Creatives

Thanks, Rosie.

It appears there are two categories

BEST USE OF ICT IN TEACHING

And

BEST TEACHER BLOG

It is this second category that got me thinking… There are so many different teacher blogs out there written by New Zealanders or at least folks like me who reside on these fair shores. How are we choose, let alone judge? How can we compare one with the other?

For example how can fair compare the weighty matters of Artichoke , with the reflective practice of Marnie , with the oh so helpful links and tips of NZChrissy , or Greg with his links to thought provoking/ amusing/ novel YOUTUBE happenings… to name but a few? Its not really apples and apples is it. I find each blog I read useful for the content found therein, for a whole raft of reasons.

Even those blogs I have mentioned are interesting and varied in their content on one level or another and should not really be pigeon-holed as I have done.

Then there are the student blogs / wikis/ podcasts that have so far gone unmentioned.

But it’s a starts, so let’s support this, even in its infancy, besides I might even win myself a laptop

This foam was a result of the storms around 30 July 2008. This picture does not do it justice but cars were disappearing into the foam. mothers were taking pics of primary kids with only their heads visible.

If this is the level of their explanation in oral form then why are we expecting them to be able to WRITE a recount evidencing “mainly simple and compound sentences but attempting complex sentences, varying the beginning and length of their sentences”.

T- Tell me about what happened in Duffy Assembly this week.

S- We got them on Wednesday, the Duffy book …….******* Wednesday.

T- What happened?

S- We all got our books in…… we got to go outside and have our picture done and then we get to go home.

T- Who came?

S- ssssss …. Ummmmm…… My mum? ……*******

T- Was there a special visitor?

S- Yes…. There’s a ********

T- Pardon?

S- …. And a lady.

T- Could you say that a little clearer?

S- A penguin and a lady

T- And what did they do?

S- they look after the penguins… They look after all the…. They look after the polar bear and the penguins.

T- And where is she from?

S- ummmm…… I forgot where she come from. We got our Duffy books (My teacher) said….I thought (My teacher) said my name but it want my name.

T- It wasn’t your name?

S (shakes head) It was Mark’s! …M..A..R..K..Marrrrrrrrk!

T- Is there anything else that happened? That you want to tell me about.

S- Ted does!

T- No, I’m asking you.

S- We…we…we … orrrrr….got our parents and then we went outside to have our picture…then we had to hold up our books.

T-Thank you very much.

Up-to-date computer (6)

IWB (1)

Network, hardwired.

Everything is needing to be hardwired as there is no signal for anything out here. I question whether they can get TV coverage. No cellphone, no wireless. The job has kept me too busy to really notice, but I have been off-line now for over a week and I’m feeling it. Plus I’ve been too busy and too tired to sit up at night. This is the first late night blogging I’ve done for some time now. Maybe there aren’t enough hours in the day or maybe I’m just getting too old to be burning the candle at both ends.

I’ve tried to keep up with my blog reading but even that is proving difficult. So, sorry to all those I’ve skimmed and couldn’t find 30 seconds to make a comment…. I feel bad about it, I really do.

The session that was planned was entitled IWB2, it’s all about embedding Interactive Whiteboard practice into everyday teaching, focusing on the idea of supporting the Integrated Unit. This session follows on from, you guessed it, IWB1 which normally occurs a term before.

I began this session, as I begin every IWB2 session, with the words “I have about 32 pages here and a pile of tasks to do today, but I’d prefer for us to not complete all that and have you walk out at the end having your questions and issues resolved. “ – Or something like that.

Normally what happens is that as I move through the presentation I am heckled with question about: “How do you….?” Or “When I try to…it just….”

Today’s session however looked very different as I barely touch on the Integrated Unit concept when time was up. I’m not sorry that it went that way as the time was filled totally with answering queries and addressing issues on this or that. Even as I am educating the educators I have to be fully flexible to personalize the learning. At the end of the session I sensed staff were enthused once more toward incorporating the IWB into their classroom practice. And that, I feel is the greater goal than ticking the box saying “I delivered the IWB2 workshop today.”

Classroom practice has to be the same too. Addressing the needs of the students, ensuring they leave the classroom having learnt something today.

“ It is no longer adequate for the teacher to merely have taught something today… The learner needs to have learnt something”

The drive back along the Gisborne/ Napier road was long and slow. A little over 3.5 hours, it appears the logging trucks come out at dusk!

But that is not why I’m posting today. It is the middle of the school holidays and I have Breathe Technology Staff meeting in the morning. I’ve spent a lovely evening with my boss, her partner a colleague of mine and the Easiteach trainer. More of that tomorrow I guess. Sometimes it is really difficult to get out the conversation about Education but we did hit upon the topic of internet dating.

From what we talked about it seems to be;

a) a) a lot more common now and

b) b) a lot safer.

I was wondering if that were true or not or whether it is just our perception of it? If anyone has facts and figures on such things please comment.

My other question was surrounding cyber safety and the ‘internet dating’ thing. I fear that the Internet-dating will be the sex-ed of the cyber safety education programme. I remember the thoughts of:

‘Let’s not talk about sex in the classroom.’

‘If we start talking about it, more students will experiment with it and we’ll have a bigger social problem than we already have’

So my question being where in the ‘cyber-safety curriculum’ does internet dating appear?