This Coveritlive resource will update all the tweets using the hashtag #gtauk. All pictures from the day tweeted using that hashtag will automatically display too. There may be additional features too: polls, links and chat.
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I’ve been wanting to write this post for so long… I can’t believe that my first year as a Deputy Head has come to an end! All you people that are reading this didn’t know me before I was appointed to this position and when I tell you that I’m a totally different person now to the person one year ago I know you won’t really understand. I won’t go into details – but professionally, I was at rock bottom. What has happened to me over this year that has transformed me! Well, it comes down to one woman, a team and a network! One woman: You all know who I’m talking about: @DianneSpencer. Possible the most humble person I know. You’ll know her as a dedicated Head Teacher who seems to lack confidence when delving into the world of technology. You won’t know all the things I’m about to tell you about. Dianne is an expert in so many areas, some she is aware of and many she is not aware of I’m sure! Talk about righteous indignation…Dianne is in it for exactly the right reasons. Dianne is a careful, thorough, dedicated, humble, gracious, honest and loyal leader. She has the emotional intelligence of a counsellor/social worker/teacher/listener/friend all rolled into one! We are developing a strong professional relationship where the climate is just ‘right’ to be able to challenge, enquire and celebrate! Dianne has played an instrumental role in my development from Mr. Mitchell to @DeputyMitchell. As a young Headteacher, I can only imagine what brilliant things lay ahead for her! Thank you Dianne! One team: Heathfield Primary School is a special place. People say that in every school you get your ‘blockers’! Not at Heathfield you don’t! A young dynamic staff who care for EVERY single child at ALL times of the day. Coming to work is a pleasure at Heathfield and meetings I have on a one to one level are always constructive and valuable due to the fact that everything is done for the good of the pupils at Heathfield. Meetings I have on a larger scale may sometimes be challenging but that is the way it should be. My school team challenge me on a daily basis from the time I see people investing in children in their own time to coming seeing me and expressing worries or concerns about something. Each day brings a new challenge yet as a team we are linked by a common goal – the pupils! The staff at Heathfield have made me feel so welcome, are so generous, so hard working and love their jobs just as much as I do! Thank you! One network: This time last year, I had just joined Twitter and had about 6 followers! I could NEVER have imagined that just over a year later you guys would be playing such an important role in my professional and personal life. The level of conversation I have on a daily basis is just out of this world. There are no borders, no time differences, no hierarchy and no barriers. There are just too many people to thank individually but if I tweet with you or RT you or DM you or follow you, I really value the conversations on all levels! You are my search engine and I rely on you so much, possibly too much! You have been instrumental in the success of our school blogs and my pupils have got to know many of you over the year too! Each and every one of you – Thank you! WOW!! What a response to a quick tweet! Venue – Mumtaz Resaurant Bradford, the map below shows both the restaurant and the manned car park just up the road. Time/Date: 7:30pm on Wednesday 21st July 2010
…And what a 28 days it has been We have seen 100 countries visit in this time and from some countries that I never knew existed! Here is the flag counter from the blog:
As you will know form my previous posts, HeathfieldCPS have been involved in a Blogging project called ‘Blog The World Cup’ HeathfieldCPS were given the Germany team to blog about, please see the blog here: Germany Blog Our Year 6’s as you may probably be aware have taken to blogging like @Dughall and @Joga5 have taken to presenting! They have produced a sensational blog this year. I left working with Year 6 after SATs and began to work with our Future Year 6’s. I wanted to get the Year 5 pupils really enthused with blogging and then this project appeared! From a teacher’s perspective, I took a risk, a big risk! I scrapped all my final half term planning 24 hours before the term began and decided to throw myself and my pupils into the project. If everything flopped then I knew I would have my original planning to go back to. I have also been empowered by my Headteacher to take risks! So, the process began of linking Numeracy areas/topics and Literacy genres to Germany and the World Cup. This was really fun, I felt like the chains were off! From this moment, I embarked on the best 4 weeks of teaching and learning in my career! Highlights There have been many highlights in this 4 weeks and here are some of them: We had 2 visits from the German Embassy in London. Cord Meier-Klodt left two messages for our pupils and what comments they were too! We used Wallwisher twice, once at the start of the project to allow people to tell us where they had been to Germany: The 2nd time to gauge people’s reactions to Germany’s thrilling victory over Argentina: We used Voicethread 5 times, this one was used to collect people’s thoughts and feelings after Germany beat England: This Voicethread is still work in progress and is currently being used to reflect over the whole topic: We have used Coveritlive twice during Germany football games to enable the children to chat to each other and help them write their match reports: Germany v Spain: We have used Photopeach to display various pieces of work: We used PrimaryPad to write a collaborative non-chronological report on Germany: Overall, this has been a Web2.0 extravaganza and the learning has been just great! I can’t think of a better project that could have prepared our Year 5s for their blogging journey in Year 6! The masses have spoken and decided on Mumtaz! I have booked a table for 7:30pm under ‘Mitchell’ for 13 people initially. I will need to confirm this on the day. The PrimaryPad is below to register your name and general chat about this starstudded event! lol.
The other day I was on the phone to my Dad (@Gog40) as I was so pleased with our SATs results I had to tell someone! During the conversation we were talking about what contributed to the successes of the results and amongst many things we agreed was the use of blogs and web2.0 technology in Year 6 since January. I must stress at this point that I am a very small piece in the jigsaw of success at Heathfield this year! Everyone has worked so hard and I am so proud to be part of such a team! As the conversation progressed my Dad seemed to be talking down the use of the technology but raising the issue of how much this technology might have enthused and excited me, as a result, rubbing off on the pupils! This is a very interesting point. It got me thinking about all you of guys that are reading this right now! Are we any better equipped than a teacher holding their favourite book? Could that book excite and enthuse the teacher so much is empowers their pupils to an extent that brings real change to learning? The answer is most probably – YES! Am I a better teacher because I embrace all these Web2.0 tools? NO! I just have a toolbox full of different tools that I trust and believe in to fix the problems I see before me, I’m certainly no better than the teacher in the next class! This has really challenged me over the past few days! I’m so hung up on trying to get teachers to use the tools that I’m using but actually, this is not what is important. What is important is getting teachers excited about what they are doing and how they are doing it! Only then will schools see real change and excited and enthused pupils! Please keep up to date with our fantastic World Cup blogging project. I previously posted a Primary Pad showing when and where ICT events were happening all over the UK. In an attempt to learn more about Google Docs, I have set this calendar up to represent the data collected in a form that suits the purpose better. Let’s see if it works? Well, I don’t know if it was a mistake but I got the nod from Google! I didn’t need to tell myself that this country was just brimming with people that are really pushing the boundaries with motivation and learning, I just have to see what happens each evening on Twitter to see this for myself. I can hold my hands up and say that I honestly NEVER expected to be successful in my application to the Google Teacher Academy. I found myself waiting impatiently on Friday just waiting to hear if I knew anyone that had been successful. I am still shocked that little old me put forward an application that was accepted and deemed good enough! My application was based around the work I had done with Web 2.0 technology inside blogs and what impact this could have on learners particularly now that budgets will be sliced! I am no less than excited about the opportunities cuts may bring for us to be creative in our thinking behind getting value for money. I’m really hoping that the next 12 months will bring new ideas, opportunities to share and learn from one another, and above all a deep learning experience for me. I plan to expand on these initial thoughts but for now, I’m over the moon and still think that I got my acceptance email by mistake! Last week was one of the most rewarding weeks of my professional career! What topped it off was the arrival of the German Embassy in London on our Germany World Cup Blog. Blog the World Cup I can’t say enough what a fantastic job Peter Ford and John Sutton have done in getting te Blog the World Cup project up and running. Their enthusiasm and dedication to all the people involved has been ‘Award Winning!’ I thank both you you! Post SATs mean’t that my role would change from heavily supporting Year 6 to supporting Year 5 in their preparation for Year 6. I had got the Year 6 blogging mad and just when I needed a project to get the Year 5’s fired up about blogging, along came Blog the World Cup! As soon as I found out the we would be blogging about Germany, I knew I had contacts! The MG Some of you may know that I’m a HUGE car fan! I run a club called North West Roadsters and although I don’t have an MG now, I used to. During my MG years I virtually met many people from all over the world. One of which was Stephan Herbert – An MGF owner from Germany. He had been over to the UK many times to attend MG events and is a great English speaker too! ‘Herbie’ as he is known was my first port of call! If anyone knew good contacts in Germany then he would. My Facebook page is littered with conversations that we have had over the last 2 weeks, he has been instrumental in the success of our Germany Blog. When Peter Ford set the challenge to get an Embassy on to one of the World Cup Blogs, I immediately contacted Herbie to see if he could help. Each link he sent me was a translated site so that I could understand it! I can’t thank Herbie enough for his help with this project! Many of the German visitors have been directed from German MG forums where no doubt he has been advertising our blog! The Embassy It only took 2 days from Peter Ford challenging us all to get a comment from an Embassy, for it to arrive on our blog and WOW, what a comment it was too! I have pasted it below so you can read it for yourselves: Dear pupils of Year 5 Heathfield Primary School, What a great blog, and thank you for your interest in the German footballteam. They have started the World Cup quite well, but let’s see what happens next. I was eight years old when England won the World Cup against Germany with the (in)famous Wembley goal in1966. All boys in my neighbourhood were so thrilled by the match that we started playing football and joining our local club virtually from the very next day. It was a great time. I played number 9 which was Uwe Seeler from my hometown Hamburg. Four years later, he scored the incredible equalizer against England in Mexiko with a backheader. Sorry, this is all so long ago! I placed my comment in this section because I wanted to share with you two famous sayings by Germany’s first national coach Sepp Herberger: The first one is: Der Ball ist rund, which means “The ball is round”, no real news, you would say, but what he really meant to say was this: In football, anything can happen. The second is: Nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel, meaning: “After the match is before the match”. By that he meant to say: Dont get stuck on yesterday’s success, there is a new match to come on which to focus. Best wishes to all of you, and to England of course. And please visit our website http://www.thinkgerman.org.uk with lots of games, competitions and information on Germany and the German language. Cheers to all Cord Meier-Klodt Without ths blog, how on earth would we have been able to experiene something as special as that! Our Year 5 have only heard that an Embassy exists through Jmes Bond films so who was I to disappoint! I told them tht he would be wearing a Tuxedo and would be served by a butler! (That’s not bad is it?) What I needed wa a project that would enthuse our Year 5 pupils and boy…did we get what I asked for! Not that I’m expecting much but thought I would throw my hat into the pile, here is my video. The pupils wanted to do one for me and be in the video but due to the public nature, we decided against it! Never knew how quick one minute actually was! I wanted to show what had been done at HeathfieldCPS and how much impact it has had on the pupils learning and motivation! I will add the details from the aplication form later today. Thanks to John Sutton (@HGJohn) I have signed up to a project called ‘Blog the World Cup‘. This is a blogging project that John has set up that will involve 32 schools/classes – one for each country in the World Cup. Each blog will be used by pupils to present information about the country and their team throughout the World Cup competition. HeathfieldCPS were awarded Germany! Germany are currently positioned 6th in the FIFA World Rankings. In addition to being pleased with such a great team, our pupils have just completed a topic on the second world war and as a result, this project will be a fantastic opportunity to research other aspects of Germany that we have not had time to research. I have already scrapped the Literacy planning for my Year 5 writing group with this project in mind. I plan to deliver a writing project with this blog at the core whilst managing to keep the focus on ‘basic writing skills’. I doesn’t matter what the topic is, the children just need ‘real’ opportunities to write and I can’t think of anything better than a world cup related topic! Currently, I am trying to find as many links with Germans, German websites and German schools. Our first project is to write non-chronological reports about Germany that make no reference to history further back than 50 years ago! Below is a screenshot of the blog, click on it to get redirected.
Thanks for reading! Like most people in my PLN I find myself enjoying a well deserved break from school and all that sail in her! In just two days, I have spent some quality time with my wife and little girl, I have been for 3 meals out, I have visited Hoghton Tower, valeted both cars, been a to car club meet and spent quite a bit of time on Twitter. However, there’s one thing I’ve been meaning to do with this new found time: Write a few posts for my blog. But I can’t! It has become very clear that my new role as Deputy Headteacher has inspired much of my thinking since September and I now find myself with ’space’! Space for thought, reflection, peace and time! In fact I have quickly realised that I need my job to challenge me on a daily basis – which it really does! I found myself with ‘time’ this evening, both of the women in my life were fast asleep, as a result, I place the laptop on the top of my lap and began to think… Nothing…emptiness…gaps…silence…vacuum…aha, TWITTER! Slightly concerned that after 9 months of being switched on perminantly with too much to say, I now had nothing to say, I told my PLN exactly that! Should I be concerned that I have nothing to say? Well, no… I’m content in enjoying the moment! I’m going to have some ‘Blog Off’ time this week! My Headteacher (@DianneSpencer) and I have been at the Last Drop Village Hotel today coaching each other through the next stages of development for our School (@HeathfieldCPS). The two days we have done so far have been inspiring, challenging, enlightening and rewarding. We are very different however, our Leadership partnership is strong and laid on solid foundations. Many thing impress me about my Headteacher, possibly most of all, the ability to bring an unopened box (two layered) of Milk Tray to our last Strategic Leadership Day, only to show me it at the end of the day and say “Oh heck, I forgot about these!” and then a full week later, bring the same box back again… UNOPENED!! Personally, I think it was a different box but hey… The true test of a Leadership Partnership is demonstrated when you place a full box of Milk Tray in front of your Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher. Try it! Not only will they love you but you will witness something that will tell you LOADS about their partnership! Today, both Dianne and I were faced with this challenge! We’ve known each other long enough now not to be polite for the sake of it so, we both dived in! From a spectator’s point of view it wasn’t pleasant however, the result was truly remarkable! Now I’m not ashamed to say this but I went straight for my favourites… Orange Crescents, Strawberry Creams, Fudges and Caramels, what seemed like ages (possibly as long as 30 seconds) we both looked up to find all the chocolates had vanished! Little did I know that Dianne had also headed straight to her favourites! Without even knowing it, we had not just passed the Milk Tray Leadership Challenge but we had quite possibly raised the bar to a different level altogether! Do we make a good team? Well, it doesn’t get much better than that! So there you have it! I challenge you to take the Leadership Partnership Milk Tray Challenge (LPMTC). Just arrived home and I’m trying to process the masses of information I have absorbed today. Firstly, a BIG thank you to all the Education Bradford Team that organised the event. I only really know James Langley by name so I hope he thanks everyone else that was involved. To all the presenters: WOW! You’ve blown my mind! Thank you! This conference was the first in a 2 part education plan to develop my knowledge of mobile technology and games based learning. It more than delivered! I arrived hoping to meet up with some of the people I know from Twitter, moreover to put faces to names! I saw and chatted to someone I already knew fairly well (Nicola Stables) ,then had a brief chat with James Langley, in walked Dughall McCormick so I enjoyed a good 15 minutes catching up. I them met Doug Belshaw for the first time in person and also managed to catch up with Nick Jackson (The LUCKIEST man in the world!) It was great to catch up with all of you. The buzz in the venue was electric! Everyone I met or I could hear were very excited to hear the Keynote by Tim Rylands and boy were we treated to the best hour to open a conference ever! I was engrosed by the writing opportunities that Tim immersed me in. Myst 3 and the baron landscape really pulled me in and my mind was racing from that point! I was lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time with Tim and Sarah throughout the day and hope we can meet up when they are next in Bolton! I could listen to both of them for days. My first breakout session was again with Tim and Sarah and again I was spellbound. I loved the work they had done with powerpoint to make a game based on traveling through a school – all done by the pupils! The session was just too short. My second breakout session was with Smart and they were showcasing Smart Sync. This was a product I had heard nothing about and I didn’t really know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. I will definitely consider this product when I have bought some netbooks! I particularly liked the simple voting tool and the file transfer tool – very easy to use! Lunch was enjoyed out on the decking withDoug Belshaw, Dughall McCormick and Nick Jackson. I enjoyed listening to passionate topical debates but the highlight for the lunch hour was sharing Dughall McCormick’s first part of his Teachmeet presentation! After lunch we were all treated to a second Keynote led by Carl Faulkner and his pupils. This was just brilliant! Confident Year 6’s booted him off the stage and took over the rest of the presentation showcasing what they had been doing with their PDAs. One thing I took away was that Carl explained that when he was OFSTEDed recently he had to fight to get the recognition and really show the impact of ICT through data! Something I will need to look carefully at my school. After this session we had a very quick Twitmeet (aptly named Geekmeet by Doug Belshaw!) to put some more faces to twitter names. The final breakout session was a real double act between Nicola and Dughall. They were great! A real chemistry shone though their presentation and we weren’t dazzled by ICT wizardry, we were however dazzled by insight and an in depth look at the planning stages of how gaming had worked successfully at Nicola’s school! Tim Rylands then challenged us to the Teachmeet Trike Challenge! Here is Jon Farley giving the Trike a go! Harder than it looks but this was just hilarious!! Finally, onto the Teachmeet. What can I say…There were some very slick presentations! WOW. I really need to practice more and work on the slickness of my skills. I will pad this section out tomorrow with more content as I can’t process it all at the minute. I just want to thank all the presenters for not only having the guts to present but the content was just sensational! I took so much away – thank you! A long day of 15 hours but totally worth it! Watch this space! Please take a few minutes to read the information below which is background information to a big problem we have at Heathfield at the minute. About 3.5 years ago, the school took out a lease for our ICT suite hardware which was for 3 years and for 3 payments. The school sourced the hardware through a farily local authorised Apple reseller. As the school wanted to lease the hardware over 3 years, the school was given the number of a broker who would find the best deal for a lease. The Broker came back to school with a selection of leasing companies and one was selected. During this time, the school had finalised the quote from the authorised Apple reseller which included the following: ‘**company** will at the end of the terms of the lease donate the equipment to the school for a nominal fee of £10′ Thie above statement was on the agreed quote and the school signed it. The leasing company then bought the equipment from the supplier that we had received the quote from and leased them to us over a 3 year term. This whole transaction was completed by staff that no longer work at the school but we have all the paperwork including terms and conditions. We have now finished the lease, requested that lease to stop and fully expected to pay £10 to keep the equipment. However, The leasing company have invoiced us for a secondary lease for over £5000. We have challenged this invoice by speaking to the leasing company and explained that on our paperwork it says that we can have the equipment for a nominal fee of £10. They explained that this agreement is not in the terms and conditions of the lease. They are right, the terms and conditions make no reference to this nominal payment. After speaking to the authorised Apple reseller, they have explained that this nominal payment offer was subject to a ‘Trading Agreement but since the financial crisis, this has been ‘ripped up’ by the leasing company. We are now left with a leasing company saying that we can either keep the lease going as a secondary leasing period for £5000+ or make a payment of £2000 to keep the equipment. After writing to the leasing company offerring to pay £487 which is a valuation from our authorised Apple resller they have dropped the requested total to £1500 or we can return the goods to the leasing company as the terms and conditions state. We are wanting to close this chapter as we are wanting to forward plan our budget so we don’t have to keep some money asside just in case. We have contacted out Legal Dept. and sent them all the paperwork. Legally we don’t have a leg to stand on and the the leasing company are right but the final figure is made up and does not constitute the true value of the equipment. This is not a legal dilemma but a moral dilemma! What would you do? Ideas: Do you know anyone or have contacts of people that could help us? Apple directors? Please feel free to leave a comment on what you would try to do in this situation or offer any constructive advice. We do not want a long drawn out campaign as we had already allocated the money. As in most if not all schools, assessments identify children that are racing along, those that are jogging along, those that are strolling along, those that are creeping along, those that have stopped and in some cases, those that are walking backwards. Our assessments are pretty much the norm as from my experience schools always have pupils that seems to stand still at some point or even drop back for some reason. Now that SATs have finished, our assessment data tell us that of course there are other pupils in the school that need additional support. HeathfieldCPS is in a healthy state of staffing at present, I (Deputy Head) do not have a class responsibility and have up until now shared the teaching in Year 6 with a focus on More Able Literacy and Level 4 Numeracy. As you have seen, the Year 6 Blog has been very much at the centre of showcasing our learning and has just been the best tool for enthusing our Year 6 pupils. Now that our assessment data has identified pupils in Year 5 that need additional teaching support, I find myself having to start from scratch with the Year 5 blog. As you all know, blogs take time to establish and I find myself feeling a little down at the prospect of beginning the blogging journey again only after 5 months of starting the Year 6 Blog. My PLN (you guys) have been instrumental in the success of our blog at Heathfield as I have tweeted most days about blog updates. I now begin another project which yet again I will rely on your support. With the Year 5 class comes a completely different set of challenges. I am looking to teach a group of 11 fantastic frustrated writers and a fantastic group of 12 gifted Mathematicians! I want to thank all of my PLN for supporting all of us here at Heathfield and I call upon you again, to do what you always have done, to continue your support for our young bloggers here! It’s been 5 months now since we began to blog and publish our learning to the world. Although we are developing quite a good reputation online, many people in Bolton don’t know that we have ‘Super Learning Powers!’ I didn’t want to thrust in visitors’ faces that we do something ’special’ at HeathfieldCPS, however, I wanted to raise the profile of our blog and its impact on our writing to visitors that come into school. A display was the obvious choice! I have used children before to design displays very successfully so the hunt was on to find the display that would showcase our blog and writing to visitors. During a rainy afternoon, I asked Year 6 to have a go at designing something and to try and catch the essence of what we were trying to achieve. One hour later, Ammarah and Halimah had designed a display that showed an iMac displaying our blog and within our blog was a Voicethread. The writing was displayed like the comments on a Voicethread. It was an inspired design – I set to work! Here is the finished product – A display that is 8ft x 8ft showcasing not only pupils writing, but many really powerful comments left by visitors to the blog. This has a wonderful impact and really adds a different dimension that shows who exactly reads the children’s work! The comments are the smaller cards that are displayed, I had over 700 to choose from! Ammarah and Halimah’s favourite part of the display is the little plaque at the top which says: ‘This display was designed by Ammarah and Halimah – Year 6.’
We have used Voicethread in Literacy over the past few months and both myself and the children love using it! Even if we don’t like the sound of our own voices! However, I wanted to see if it could be used to help explain methods on how we solve problems in Numeracy. This is our 1st attempt and the results are great! Many different approaches have been explained. This is only our 1st attempt. We used the webcam to video the workings out so people could see which methos the pupils were using. We hope you enjoy watching and listening to our explanations!
Here you will find all the major twitter feeds in one place with added polls and chat throughout the day! Please vote on the polls at the bottom of the Coveritlive window by clicking on the ‘vote now’ link! Back in December 2009 I arrived at Chorlton Park Primary School for the day to be shown around and dazzled by their wonderful children and staff. I remember sitting there listening to Jack Sloan (@jacksloan) and John Sutton (@HGJohn) talk about blogging and the impact on the learning at the school. It was Jack who talked about his Year 2 class blog and I remember his exact words, “We’ve all worked really hard and this Year 2 Blog is at the top of the listings in Google when you type in ‘Year 2 Blog’ and select ‘Web’ not just ‘UK’! I was so impressed and wanted this for my school. I thought of how proud the pupils would feel knowing that their Blog was number 1 in Google’s rankings and that their work was reaching the widest audience! Well tonight, that moment arrived. I certainly do not measure the success of the Blog in terms of how it ranks with Google but it just feels good that in exactly 4 months after launching the Year 6 Blog it is ranked as number one in Google’s listings. I hope the children are as proud as I am! After all, it is their Blog! Am I right to be feeling proud or shouldn’t it matter? I know that I started all this for the children and if tomorrow Google couldn’t even find the Blog, it would not change anything I do. It’s just nice recognition! I asked my PLN to google search ‘Year 6 Blog’ so I could compare geographically how Google ranked our Year 6 Blog. Thanks to those that helped!! Here are the results people posted: From @Dughall from Huddersfield here I’m a very inexperienced blogger but I do know that Google seems to like blogs! Within minutes of posting a new blog post, it appears in Google almost instantly! My role in school will be changing in 2 weeks. I will be mostly working with Year 5. This gives me an exciting opportunity to develop the Year 5 blog – something I’m looking forward to! Watch this space! This Coveritlive will place all the Twitter feeds into one place. Added polls throughout, before and after the debate will show very clearly what people are thinking about different aspects of the debate and party politics. Last week’s debate saw 1000 visitors who contributed to polls and discussions. I hope you can find time to visit this session and take part and add your thoughts and vote in the polls displayed. Coveritlive is a great tool where all the twitter feeds will be streamed in one place in real time. Added polls and chat facility means that you get a wealth of information about what people are thinking during these debates. This event will go ‘live’ at 7:30pm so back channel chat can be recorded. See you on here later! I’d just like to say a massive thank you to all the people that have commented on the post below and to all the people in my PLN who have discussed my questions on Twitter. I have decided that I need to attend the Handheld Learning Conference 2010! I need to know what I don’t know and this will be vital to the future decisions that lay ahead at Heathfield Primary School. Our aim is to provide the BEST for our pupils and considering that 12 months ago I wouldn’t have even known about such events, I need to take every opportunity to learn as much as possible about learning with technology so we can ‘get things right!’. Both @DianneSpencer and myself have already decided that the learning journey our pupils will take at Heathfield will have ICT at its core. The learning will be and is THE most important aspect of life at Heathfield but we have seen through our blogging journey that our pupils respond beyond what we thought was possible. We owe it to them to produce the best curriculum using the best resources, resulting in the best possible outcomes. I also don’t just we should measure their learning at the end of Year 6, we should track our learners throughout their Secondary School. Only then will we see what impact we had on their life long learning journey! My Headteacher trusts me! How do I know? Well, I know because after following a discussion on Twitter, my Headteacher told me that if I felt that attending both the Handheld Learning Conference in October 2010 and the bMobLE on 20th May 2010 would help develop a long term plan for technology at HeathfieldCPS, I should attend both Now I could write a blog post entirely on trust and how good it feels to be trusted in this way! However, along with this trust comes a very important decision, a decision that could be extremely important o the development of ICT at HeathfieldCPS. This decision also includes an iPad! For me to make this decision (which will in essence could cost the school £700) I need to eliminate the ‘iCarrot on the stick’ and make this decision purely on the value and impact to school. This is where 140 characters in Twitter is not enough – hence this blog post. I need your help! My objective will be to find out the things I don’t know about handheld technology (I know very little!) as I want to be in a position to plan the development of ICT at HeathfieldCPS for the next 5 years and the role that handheld technologies may take. Questions I would like help in answering are in respect of the Handheld Learning Conference: How long should I attend for? I’m really excited to have this opportunity to attend such an event! If you can help me answer any other the above questions or you have anything constructive to say about the event please leave a comment. I am going to use your comments to make an informed decision about whether to attend an if so, how long for. Thanks for your time and I really appreciate any comments left. |
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