Ngutunui+M5

**How can we optimize our attendance at Learning@School? **

 * Start by asking three simple questions… **

What are the benefits to me personally or the school of my attendance at this conference? || Detail the individual or school need and identify how attending could support that need. Attending a Learning at Schools conference especially prior to starting the new term will help inspire me with some new programmes/ideas that I can use, that will engage and motivate students in their learning. Lorraine
 * 1. What do I want to achieve from attending this conference? **
 * 2. What outcomes will result from my attendance? **
 * 3. What is my planned approach? **
 * Benefits of the conference:

This will be the third year I have attended the conference and the third year of our ICT contract. The benefits to me personally include the wide range of breakout topics I have chosen that have a school development/review focus and digital learning focus. These should motivate, help, inspire and act transformationally to improve school/student outcomes and achievement. That is a tall order, but always the purpose of any professional learning! - Michelle.

It is a  great way to start of a school year by getting new insights and being motivated. This is a great way to meet new people and share knowledge about various ways to use digital technology in our classrooms- Corrie || What are the benefits to me personally or the school of participating in the programme elements? || Detail the individual or school need and identify how participating in the programme will support an identified need either from your personal appraisal or as an identified need in your school.
 * Programme benefits:

I believe this will be a great way to improve my understanding of the digital future for our school and hopefully learn some new and interesting ways to engage learners with digital devices. I’m also looking forward to the Thinking Toolbox breakout and learning how to use different thinking strategies in class. - Corrie

Staff will be attending some of the same breakouts including “Ways the iPad will impact teaching and learning” and Hooking Learners with Digital Tools.” Both of these will directly address our school focus on digital learning and student engagement and achievement. The purchase and implementation of our mobile devices/i-Pads last year has been met with such staff, student, parent and board enthusiasm and I hope the breakouts will inspire teachers even more. The possibilities are endless. - Michelle.

I am very keen to attend one of the breakouts on ways the iPad and iPod Touch will impact teaching and learning. We as a school have purchased iPads last term and I am keen to maximise their use to engage children’s learning even. I am hoping to hear others share what are some really good apps to use. On a personal note my two boys got ipod <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">touches for Christmas and I am interested to see the impact on their learning and what visiting speakers are saying. Lorraine || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the benefits that will come from connecting or reconnecting with other attendees? || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Detail how meeting other professionals and vendors to hear see and explore new ideas that can benefit you, your school or your students.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Networking benefits:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">This year all staff are attending the Learning at Schools Conference as part of whole school professional learning. This will enable staff to have a high level of focus on student engagement and achievement through the use of digital technologies. By all attending, a shared sense or purpose and commitment to professional learning can be achieved and maintained and next steps for school development identified. There should also be opportunities to network with some of our ICT cluster colleagues and share our respective journeys and stories. In the past two conferences I have attended, I have not found the vendors or the exhibition hall that useful, but we will be able to look at the exhibits together and discuss implications and realities for us at Ngutunui. Last year we made the purcahse of the usb microphones to use with the ActivBoards and these are great. SO there may be something new and exciting out there that will inspire us! - Michelle.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff00ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">We are part of a bigger teaching community and it will be very insightfull to network and meet other teachers and discuss and share our experiences. - Corrie

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Is it always great to see familiar faces from the teaching circle and although I have not attended a learning at schools conference before, I am sure their will be others from our I.C.T contract there. It is always interesting sharing with others as you often find their stories and journeys in education are similar. This often impact our teaching “we could do that too”. Lorraine || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the benefits of attending a conference as a group? || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Detail how attending this conference might help build your school team by providing a forum for team members to discuss, tools, technologies, software and processes and how we might apply them in our school/classroom to improve outcomes for students
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Team building benefits:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff00ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is an opportunity to see as a staff what and how other schools do and how they use the technology in their classrooms for effective teaching. -Corrie

Teachers will have the opportunity to share and lead staff professional learning meetings back at school on their individual breakouts. This will create conditions for developing leadership capacity and reinforce our collective approach to school wide learning and strengthen our relationships. We are are all this learning journey together and we can all support and inspire each other with what we have learned or trialled in the classroom. We can laugh and agree and support and possibly challenge each other and be accountable for best teaching practice in a model of high relational trust. - Michelle.

Attending conference as a whole staff means that we can reflect and evaluate while we are there. If there are new programmes/ equipment that would be great to help engage our learners we can collaborate and action a decision there a conference. We can be inspired together...wouldn’t it be great if we could... wouldn’t so and so just love that. It also gives us an opportunity to reflect together on what conference educators are saying and how that may affect our teaching practices. Lorraine || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">What new skills will be learnt and how will they benefit your current situation? || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Detail the skills you expect to learn and why these new skills will benefit you personally, your school, or the students in your classroom.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Skill development benefits

I am interested to explore the e-Learning Planning Framework breakout with a focus on school review. I have considered and completed review in out ICT learning at key milestone reporting intervals. I have also encouraged critical teacher reflective practice and evidential links through the Teachers’ wiki. However, I hope this breakout will provide a clear and consise framework for school self-review - Michelle.

Modelling is a great way to learn and I am hoping that there will be some cool digital demonstrations and ideas that I can learn and in which I can teach and inspire the learners in my class. The challenge for me is always “to find the key that unlocks and motivates an individual child’s learning “. Lorraine <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ff00ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">Skills I expect to learn from this- A more efficient way to use digital devices in class. The way this will benefit me is to enhance my own understanding of the effective use of Ipads and Ipods in schools. Break out 1 is all about being the best teacher you can be and I am looking forward to learn different skills that is different from what we use in South Africa to improve my capability as a NZ teacher.- Corrie ||


 * Teacher Reflections: Post Learning@School Conference: Term 1 2012. **


 * ** What inspired us from attending Learning@School? **

Kevin Honeycutt was really inspiring, his energetic way of presenting how digital learning can be used in our classrooms gave me a good outline of how to be creative and use it effectively in class. Some of the apps he touched on I have tried with the class, with great success.

Lynn Ross explained the thinking toolbox which helped me understand the thinking process and how to engage learners using higher order thinking. - Corrie

I was particularly inspired by a couple of things that Frank Green shared which challenged me. He talked about transformation verses modernisation. The need to build a jumbo jet not just another train. We as teachers need to be creating environments that allow children to think outside the box and how we can use technology to do this. We want to give students the skills which will allow them to do what has never been done before, to become the creators not just followers

I was also thoroughly inspired by Kevin Honeycutt and had the good fortune to attend a breakout that was run by him. Again it is all about finding that key, that App that will unlock that one child’s learning.- Lorraine. ||
 * ** What new ideas, knowledge and actions __will we__ try in our classrooms and for what purposes? **

At a school wide level, we will unpack the ICT Review Tool/e-learning framework with a view to identifying where we sit as a school on the continuum and how we can move forward. Sustainability is the key to maintaining our great progress thus far over the past two years. This tool will be a very useful guide to examine at both a school wide level and individual teacher level. With a shared sense of purpose and commitment to our professional learning we can continue to impact on our students learning, engagement and achievement through meaningful ICT integration - Michelle.

Explore online writing and publishing tools such as Lulu in order to get the students writing for a purpose and with an audience in mind. It would be wonderful to have our students publish their writing into books and be able to purchase these online! Imagine their faces and those of their parents too! - Michelle & Lorraine.

Explore the use of augmented technologies to inspire creativity with the students and capture their interest and imagination - Michelle. ||
 * ** On going: (Update as appropriate) **
 * What were the outcomes of our classroom actions? **

The students are busy and excited to write and explore their ideas. Some of them are now highly motivated and have online publishing as a goal. Stay tuned for progress updates to come later! - Michelle.

Students reviewed the apps and dicussed the ways they are helping them learn or if they were useless. We deleted the apps they felt weren’t educational or interesting enough. - Corrie

I have worked really hard to encourage and raise student achievement in writing. Some children have entered a short story competition runned by the library. They have produced some great writing over the past term and we are looking to get this onto Lulu. Many are writing with this in mind. - Lorraine || Students in the senior room are browsing on various schools blogs and sharing their thoughts and learning with a global community. There are some minor issues to be resolved with the class blog. - Corrie. ||
 * ** On going: (Update as appropriate) **
 * How have our new approaches impacted on student engagement? **

**Professional Learning/Reflective Practice - Effective Teaching:**





 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Parent and Community Engagement - Excerpt from District Newsletter 2012. **

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">This year our school is in its third and final year of the Information and Communication Technologies Contract funded by the Ministry of Education. The teachers attended a call back day of professional learning in the school holidays and are motivated and keen to develop further and strengthen digital learning opportunities for students. We are continuing to develop our class blogs to share students’ learning with an online audience. The students are learning how to share their learning in a variety of ways, upload movies, slide shows, photos and post comments about what they have been up to! The students are enjoying accessing their class blogs and are also very keen to publish and share their ideas, experiences and learning on the blogs. I encourage you to visit the school’s class blogs and be introduced you our exciting world of learning.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Please leave an encouraging comment or two for the students. They love the positive feedback! All you have to do is click on the word “comment” underneath the photo or movie or text you would like to comment on and a box will come up for you to type into. Then you click on the “comment as” box and you will find a drop down menu, click on “anonymous” and then click on “post comment”.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Please feel free to pass on the blog address to extended whanau and family who may live in different places around New Zealand or even overseas. I am sure they will love checking in and seeing what the students are up to! The barriers of time and geographical location are no longer a problem in this online digital world! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Junior Room blog = [|ngutunuijuniors.blogspot.com] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Senior Room blog = [|ngutunuiseniors.blogspot.com]