We made a Zoo

This term as well as trialling the timetables, I decided to get back to what I liked- cross curriculum learning. This was a MUST when I was teaching in the UK alongside cross curriculum writing (as to be honest writing is not just happening in a literacy lesson) and I loved teaching this way.

Our Topic this term was ‘The Zoo’ so this was ideal as there was so many different ways to approach this. This time I let the students decide for me what they wanted to do. I outlined what was going to happen in Term Four and what our ‘focus’ was. This way they had something to start off with and I was also following what the school had put in place.

They all branched off into groups and talked about what they wanted to know, learn and questions they had. I had to admit some of the ideas and questions were great and even had me thinking. I have to be honest; their question has developed so much throughout the year. They tend now to ask thought provoking ones rather than the basic closed questions. This was also observed by our Educator at Orana Park, who was ‘blown’ away with the questions my class asked while visiting. She actually made a point of thanking them as she had thoroughly enjoyed all the types of questions they had asked!

When we came back, they told me what they wanted to know and find out. We then discussed how we could incorporate this into the lessons we had to teach each day. As we set for maths we missed that one out but students in my class who were also in my maths set decided we should make our maths cross curriculum so we did!

In the end the class decided that they wanted to all research an animal and design a shelter for it. We decided Non Chronological reports would suit this very well but they also wanted to write a poem and try and develop a story (if we had time). Art we were working on collages so a collage of the animal was obvious!  Everything else, we tried to adapt to fit into the ‘Zoo’ theme where possible. We also learnt that not all subjects had a link and that it was better to carry on with what was already set in place rather than try and make it fit.

Term 4 is always a busy term and we had planned to work with our buddy class (year 2’s) on doing this topic together. We started off well and would meet with them once a week to share what we had found out all ready but as the term went on and year 6’s went on their orientation days to their intermediates, teacher were out of class and ‘other’ things popped up, it began to get a little harder to do.

Because we had been working on our own timetables, I adapted this slightly to fit in whole class teaching and group teaching times. This usually was at the beginning of the week where I went through things I felt that it was better to have the ‘whole’ together rather than in small groups. Then I spilt them into groups and would work with them all throughout the week. This worked great and it meant that for the rest of the time they could spend it on what subject area they wanted to. So while I may have been taking writing groups, some would be doing their own writing, art, blogging, designing their shelters etc.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did the class. They would even stay in class during break to carry on working. You can always tell when things are working well, when other students from other classes keep visiting every day to see what was happening in the room.

In the end I was so proud of my class that we invited all the other classes to come and see what they had done. They all choose a class to write an invitation to. Once again cross curriculum learning!

On the day, they set up their area and as the classes came through, they spoke to them and shared with them what they had learnt about their animal. Once again my class did me proud.

 

Term 3 Reflections.

Last week the class reflected on what Term 3 was like in our classroom.

We used three criteria's:

• What worked in Term ?
• What didn't work?
• What did we want to see in Term 4?

Students opted to work on their own or in groups of their own choice. The conservations I over heard were amazing. My students were really reflecting about the three questions and the language they were using made me feel so proud. Words like, self manager, independent, options, student voice could be heard throughout their conversations.

I wanted to punch the air as it finally seemed to all be working.

One BIG issue I have had with all of this change is how long it 'seems' to take. It wasn't a 'quick' fix and there were times I wondered if it was all going to work. I guess I thought all children by now should be 'self managers' and it has taken me a while to realise that this isn't always going to be the case.  There are still some students in my class who are 'directed' learners. I would say 2 definitely and another 3 now and them. So I guess out of a class of 26 that is pretty good. I think until I did this Term 3 reflection. It wasn't until I heard them discussing and talking about the questions did I realise how far they had come.  Rather than just say 'this didn't work"   they were trying hard to find alternative solutions and working with other groups to gather ideas.

Timetables

This term in the classroom we are learning to use timetables to decided what we will be doing each day.
We started this week and it seemed to go pretty well. There are already a few changes I know I need to make for next week but overall I am very impressed at how the class adapted to this so fast.

We have had a busy start to the term as we have had Athletics day as well as Softball training so it has meant that our hours of independent work has dramatically decreased.

Each Monday students will take their own timetable and review my timetable which will be on the IWB. By doing this, they can see what is happening during the week that are compulsory and when they will meet me for reading and writing groups. Once they have been pencilled in, they then look at their MUST/ CAN activities and decide when they are going to do them.

MUST activities are compulsory and tend not to change week to week. It usually is, touch typing/handwriting ( handwriting books for a small group only), spelling, reading, timetables, 100WC and a science question. Then I add in others that are relevant to their Topic for the term.

CAN activities are a range  activities that they do to help consolidate their learning. Most are linked to maths, art, music etc and some link to our Topic  Some of the class are doing their own choice and therefore don't complete the CAN'S. This is a small group of students who have shown that they are 100% self managers and therefore I have given them the chance to decide on their own learning during these times.

Changes:
I will divide the timetable into 30 minutes slots as students tended to only write one activity in.
I will add in all the MUST's for my 'directed' students which will be at the beginning of the week. (rest can decide when and where they put them as they understand they need to be completed by the end of the week).
Make sure I have seen everyone's Timetable by the end of class on a Monday.

Althletics

With the onset of Athletics day looming, our syndicate goes out together so children get the opportunity to practice the track and field events every day. I like that the children have this opportunity to work on their skills, participate and have some friendly competition. Yet how it used to be taught in the past even bored me. Therefore if I’m bored surely the students are as well? Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti PE and do love being outside, but to me it just wasn’t working. We tended to move around in our classes and spend up to 30 minutes on one chosen item. Trying to engage a whole class, teach them skills and then let them work on this always felt rushed and disorganised. I never felt like I was making most of the opportunity or able to really teach them the proper techniques. I also had students who found certain track and field areas quite tough and a challenge. Each day they dreaded this hour with one actually avoiding school in order not to do it. Notes slowly would come in as well and athletics training felt more like a chore rather than a pleasure.

This year we decided to try and teach it in a way that was more like a MLE style that some of us have been trailing in the classrooms. We gave the students options! The first day we did this we allowed them the opportunity to visit any station they like. They had to spend at least 15 minutes there and had to do at least 3 stations. It worked ok but as teachers we still felt we didn’t really have the opportunity to teach the skills without new students coming over and some were still overcrowded.

Day two we decided to group the children into their age groups and designated two stations that were the MUST activities. Each day, two groups would go to the MUST activities and then carry on with their CAN choices. The rest of the groups had CAN activities but had to complete a certain amount in the allocated time. This worked so much better as groups were smaller and as a teacher, I felt that I had the time to teach new skills and techniques. It also meant that students had ample time to practise and work on their technique.

Feedback from my students showed that they enjoyed being given the opportunities’ to decide themselves what activities they wanted to do. My students who found athletics challenging also enjoyed it as well. Even my usual ‘absent’ one only missed one day out of the two weeks we did this! They also turned up to Athletics Day as they had realised that they had a pretty good throw on them!

 

Visioning for design.

The Graduate Profile is one stage of moving towards our MLE. Most schools in Christchurch who are part of the rebuild have gone through the same process.

Schools Education Vision - Project Brief- Master Planning - Design - Construction

One of these meetings was based on our vision. How do we want learning to look? What do our children need now? ... and in the future?  On our journey to this stage teachers have had the opportunity to visit a number of schools who are considered to be MLE. What strikes me is that some schools have been built  brand new, designed with this idea while others have 'developed' from what they already had- their old buildings.

Unfortunately I didn't get to visit Waimairi School but listening to the teachers who did and their feedback it was probably the one school I felt really portrayed the idea about 21st century learners rather than the idea it was all about the building. I think that is one pitfall we can get into thinking a MLE has to be new with all this 'flash' ICT equipment, amazing furniture, new buildings. But to be honest that is not what it is about. The building does not make it, it is what is happening inside that does. I think this sums up perfectly http://fcl.eun.org/learning-spaces  what 21st learning is all about.


One question we were asked was to do with our practice- how will this look like? What LEARNING ACTIVITES are needed?

Most MLE take on four things;

• Collaboration
• Personalised learning
• Authentic learning activities 
• Learning through presentation

The nest step was to look at our own Graduate Profile and based it around these ideas and questions.

Our first one was EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS
What activities?
How will we make it work?
What do we need to enable this to happen (resources)?
What will staff need to do.

Below are some of the ideas we came up with.

        


What I always enjoy about these activities is what other teachers come up with and how sharing our knowledge and ideas develops our own thinking and may even change some of the ways we work and teach!

I was keen to take one and try it out next term and was lucky enough a few colleague's in the UK wanted to start up a pen pal club. So that is one way we are going to be 'Effective communicators'.

Poetry Slam

I enjoy poetry and love sharing this with the students I teach. Unfortunately, the minute you utter the words ‘poetry’ you can hear the groans and look of boredom spreading over their faces. I find it a little upsetting that children these days have no idea about well-known poets or poems. In the past I have taught my year 5/ 6’s ‘The Highway Man’ and the ‘Lady of Shallot’ with great success. With The Lady of Shallot we created a whole cross curriculum unit on it and even performed the poem to other classes using mix media to tell the story.

I try to immerse my classes with a range of poetry. Whether it be through guided reading, handwriting, word study activity or even as a class read. I think it is important for them to experience and learn how important poetry is. I am much the same when it comes to Shakespeare and believe that there is a place for him in primary education. Probably why I loved this Ted talk and why I wanted to do something like a rap or poetry slam unit.

 I loved the idea of linking music and writing and being able to describe the characteristics of poetry in jazz, rap and hip hop music. There were so many wonderful ideas swirling around in my head and it also made me realise how easy it was to create a cross curriculum topic on this that could also incorporate, history, geography, art, values etc.

As a class this is what we wanted to achieve by the end of the unit.

• Introduce students to spoken word poetry: Slam Poetry
• Give them the opportunity to create and perform poetry
• Practice working in a group and speaking in front of the class
• Learn and understand some poetry terms and techniques

In groups students identified basic poetry and literacy elements. They looked at Eminem, Notorious BIG, 50 cent, Andre 3000, Tupac, Snoop Dog and many more. For most of these raps/songs, I gave them snippets of the words rather than the whole thing. We also looked at poems and did the same-  Robert Frost, ‘Road less taken’, Langston Hughes,’ I dream a world’, Mya Angelo, and others I felt that they should know of.

From that I introduced poetry slam. I showed them EliseWilson

To This Day Project - Shane Koyczan

If I should have a daughter -Sarah Kay

My students really surprised me at how well they could articulate the message in these three slams.

I spent a lot of time discussing the techniques (as well as I could) of a poetry slam and looking at how rhythm and rhyme were important. We looked at how certain words were ‘stress’ ‘speed up or slow down etc.

After this, students were given 3 things they could slam about in their groups. In the end most decided to slam about ‘bullying’ as Relationships was our Value and we had taken part in “Pink Shirt’ day. I also think Shane Koycan’s slam left a huge impact on them.

It was a fantastic unit and I know the class and myself thoroughly enjoyed it.

 I did record them but somehow lost all of them! As I did this last term and only blogging about it now, I have tried to get one group to record their slam but we have had a few illnesses in the class! Here is what they wrote though.

Standing with a friend who is being bullied doesn't mean you have to take a punch for them.

We feel alone- small and weak.

Scared to go out and speak.

Every day the pain keeps increasing.

All of their pain they keep releasing.

The kids need help but who’s gonna give it?

All day every day we sit and wonder why somebody doesn’t stop it?

Then I realised I am somebody.

Calling someone ugly won’t make you prettier.

Calling someone stupid won’t make you smarter.

Calling someone a loner won’t make you popular.

Calling someone fat won’t make you skinnier.

Why do you do it?

There’s no reason.

Shadows leapt up behind me.

I never know who it is?

Was it a Friend?

Was it a teacher?

Before I could think I was 6 feet in the air.

The sun blocked my eyes but a few features could be noticed.

Long hair

Pierced ears

Big nose

Big mouth

Yellow teeth

I felt a dribble of spit flickering at me.

The eyes…

I couldn’t see something was covering me.

Across the distance 3 shadows became smaller.

I felt the wind sweeping through my right ear but nothing on the left.

I was let go

I felt great

I felt alive

I was free

Free from pain

We walk into the darkness hardly to see, they punch me they kick me they through me to the ground.

Every time someone calls my name the harsh words jumbling in my brain.

Our bodies crumple into the ground being deteriorated into little pieces.

Guided Reading

I have always enjoyed taking guided reading. I never found it onerous and enjoyed the time I spent with my groups discussing books, text, online websites, poems, passages etc. Having spent the majority of my teaching career in the UK, comprehension was a big part of our guided reading programme. This was because in the past year 6 students had to take a reading comprehension test for their SATs. Therefore when I moved back to New Zealand, I continued to teach guided reading quite similar to how I did in the UK.

I spent more time focussing on them sharing their ideas and thoughts to see if they understood the text or passage they were reading. Making sure they could identify and comment on structure and organisation of a text. We would discuss the writers’ use of language and their purpose and viewpoints and the effect on them as readers. Alongside them learning to re-tell, describing and locating information. I wouldn't do all the above in one session usually only focussing one and something that group needed to focus on. This is something I have always done and had success in.

As a school, we have taken on board a whole school reading programme. While attending this reading course, I was surprised at how rigid and planned out some guided reading sessions were. It seemed teachers were planning all these elaborate questions and follow up activities.  If we are teaching children to read, why are we getting them to spend more time writing things out then actually reading? Do we really need students to complete a worksheet to see if students have understood what they have read? And if not why are we using these time fillers? I am not a big fan of worksheets so my students never went away and completed reading activities (instead they do a range of different activities that they pick). I gained a lot of insight about my students during my sessions and believe that reading is about learning to love books and to me worksheets turn students off.

Teachers were still getting students plough through a whole book where you were never allowed to read the next chapter until next weeks guided reading session. To be honest how many of us would cope with that?  I am not against children reading a whole book, stopping and starting sporadically doesn’t really help develop a passion for reading.

So far I am enjoying this reading programme mainly because it wasn’t that different from what I was doing in class which made me feel quite good about my reading programme! The students love it and so far we are having great success.

Once I have more time I will blog a post about our whole class routine and group routine.  

Slow Writing

Twitter has been a constant source of ideas and inspiration for once again it led me to a different way of approaching writing.  Anything about writing usually grabs my attention these days as for the first time in many years I had no answers as to why my class struggled with writing.

I had a class that orally produce wonderful ideas during shared writing but when it came to them independently producing their own work it was like pulling teeth. We had the vocabulary wall; I modelled sentences, used creative prompts, media etc. but the harder I seem to work the less engaged they became. The last thing I wanted to do was turn them off writing so I began to question what I could do. Thankfully a tweet from @redgierob  came just at the right time.

Slow writing is getting students to slow right down in order to think about their technique.  The idea is to get students to slow the hell down and approach each word, sentence and paragraph with love and attention. Obviously they’ll write less but what they do write will be beautifully wrought and finely honed’. David Didau 

Thankfully my class was already clued up on different types of literacy elements thanks to all the work we did on this during our poetry slam unit. Therefore I didn’t have to spend any extra time teaching them these concepts.

In our first lessons there were a few hiccups. Because it was set out as below, some of my students completely forgot everything I had taught them about a sentence and tried to write a sentence on one line! Once we got over that hurdle everything started to come together.

Sentence one must appeal to the senses.
Sentence two must use three adjectives.
Sentence three must start with an adverb.
Sentence four must contain a connective.
Sentence five must use exactly three words.
Sentence six must be a question.

I used some short films courtesy of The Literacy Shed (which I love!).  We used the Ghostly Shed as I knew it would grab my boy’s attention. The great thing about these films were that most were less than two minutes long and there was no dialogue meaning the students had to use the music and visual to ‘read’ the story.

I spent the week working on this and each day I would add six more different sentences so by the end of the week we had four different models up on our board. As my students became more confident in this process they began to mix the sentences around. Students also began to realize that there was usually a pattern to the six sentences and that it was quite easy to create their own.

What transpired was some amazing writing. Even better, I had students who usually struggled with writing now enjoying it and telling me how easy it was to write!

When things don't go to plan.

End of term and I have spent some time reflecting about the classroom.

What I have noticed is that most of the class are very independent in their learning. They know what to do, when they need to do and where they like to learn/work. The only frustration I had were a small group of students that still couldn’t complete all the week’s task in the allocated time span. To be honest it was driving me mad. When I started this ‘independent working hour’ I set the week’s task pretty much the same, so routines were set and then expanded on that. I explained orally and in written form so they heard and could visually see what they needed to do. Each day I reminded them as well, yet I still have this issue.

I felt like I was hitting a brick wall and began to question what I was doing wrong. Why couldn’t this small group of students complete their set tasks? The tasks themselves were not difficult and were set for them as individuals. They had over 5 hours in the week to complete them therefore time allocation and the amount of tasks were not an issue. So where was I going wrong?

It was in a staff meeting where we were learning about another school and how they approached this that it finally hit me. I naturally assumed by the end of term 3 everyone would be independent learners. Not once had I thought that I should still be directing some of them still.

The next day I decided to experiment with this idea. I had started to think about next term and how I was going to approach the idea of allowing individual students the freedom to work inside or outside. This was a great opportunity to introduce this and discuss again what an independent learner was. We talked about what the word independent meant and how this related to the classroom and their learning. We discussed how we could’ see’ and ‘hear’ an independent worker and what ‘self-managing’ their own time was about. I then asked them to reflect and decide if they felt they were independent learners. As I expected most agreed that they were and a few felt they were not yet there.

Looking back now, I should have spent more time teaching this phase at the beginning of term 3 but as I was taking time off work I rushed through this part and assumed those in question would soon ‘get it’. Although I knew everyone was going to become ‘independent learners’ in their own time, I guess I never assumed that it might take a few students a lot longer than the rest. This small group have now become my ‘directed’ learners where I tell them what they have to do in the allocated time slot. They understand that until they can self-manage their own time they will stay on this level. And it is working!

My ‘independent learners’ are now working on their next level of being given the opportunity to prove they can self-manage their time in a responsible manner to be allowed the choice where they can work which will included outside the classroom. I have decided to create lanyards for them so they are easily identifiable to other members of stuff. I am thinking that on the back of them it will outline what they should be doing therefore teachers can see this straight away.

So what have I learnt about myself?  I need to remember to give my students time and to realise that they all won’t get there together.

Maths Outside

Sometimes when I finish a unit of maths, I tend to find or develop a mathematical scavenger hunt in the classroom. This is a fun way for me to see whether or not they have understood what we have been learning.  It allows me to listen to their conversations, thought process as well as their written work. And it is so much better than doing a test!

I tend to do ‘loop’ questions. This is where they read a question and work out the answer. Their answer will lead them to the next question and lead them back to their starting question. This way they automatically know if their question was right or wrong. It also gives me insight into how they fix/change their mistakes. And it makes students realise what mistakes their making.  

This time I decided to let them develop their own scavenger hunt. We talked about all the mathematical vocabulary that was around the room and how we could use them to create questions relating to objects inside the classroom.

We looked at a range of questioning techniques and went back through our maths book to view our next step questions, question we had asked and set questions we had worked through in our lessons. Giving us an idea of what ways we could ask a question, how to incorporate two step questions and how to make sure our questions were going to extend our thinking.

In pairs the children set off and explored the school environment to develop their questions. I set a few ‘musts’ to keep them on task. From there the students set off and got created. After a set amount of time we gathered back together and discussed ideas and thoughts.

While I had been walking around and prompting ideas, I also set some of my own questions to model with them. I develop some very simple questions and we discussed why these would not be suitable for us (aiming for stage 5/6 questions) and how we could change them to meet the criteria. I also gave them questions that met our criteria and we discussed why these were suitable.

Students then spent time editing and working through their ten questions with their partners so they meet our ‘success criteria’. Once finished the students them typed their questions and answers up. On Friday, my actual class will use them and feedback to my maths class about them.

Mark for quality not quantity

I am a BIG fan of quality marking.  I am pretty much a teacher that believes if we are expecting children to complete something in their books then we should be marking it and rewarding it with an appropriate response. Not just a ‘well done’ or ‘good’. And yes I know it is sometimes near impossible to mark work every day but then I also raise the question ‘why do we have to have written work in books every day?

There has been a big shift in the way we mark and many teachers have taken to using a whole range of methods to assess. Used properly, marking and feedback are essential tools for ensuring that children learn more effectively and understand what they are aiming for, and they can provide strategies for success and ways to move forward.

Research (‘Inside the Black Box’ Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, 1998) has shown that there has been a tendency to mark for quantity and presentation of the work, rather than for quality. We have all been victims of that red pen scrawling’ please keep your work tidy’ or ‘you must write more’. The problem is how does that help the student? What do they gain from comments like this?

 Mathematics is one area I think we undervalue quality comments. We tend to only mark these books with a tick or a cross (or a dot)? Why are we not asking student’s questions based on the lesson? Next step questions to move them on?  Solve a problem, another question to cement the learning? Ask them what their next step would be? Or a range of HOTs (higher order questions) to get them really thinking.

Children need to be given a clear idea of how to improve their work, move forward in their learning and achieve their goals. If we continue to just tick, write ‘well done’ or ‘good’ how are we as teachers moving them forward? What we need to learn to do is have manageable and effective ways of marking and provide feedback to pupils so that they can move forward in their learning. Children need to understand their achievements and know exactly what they must do next to make progress.

Letting Go

This week I came back to work after being off for 3 weeks. Having a little ‘mini’ break made me realise how far my class has come this year.  Also suddenly having a migraine appear while teaching showed me once again how independent my class were. While I desperately tried to appear cool and calm as my eyes began to ‘fuzz’ over, my class just got on with what they needed to do. Everyone was doing their work and knew exactly what they had to complete. And although I was suffering, I couldn’t help but smile as it highlighted so many positives in our journey to a MLE.

Although we have experimented with our room layouts, sitting arrangements, designated areas, for me it has been more about the learning process.  This whole year one key statement has rung true with me; it is not about the building. Modern Learning Environments (MLEs) are designed to support ‘multimodal’ learning styles, as well as collaborative communication styles something you can still do in a single cell classroom.

I started off by trying to get the class to become more independent and learn at their own pace and style. To be honest, I found my students weren’t very independent and relied on me too much to tell them what to do.  I will be honest, it hasn’t been easy. There are times when I feel some students are not being productive and my main concern is will the work get completed? I know I am still driven by the ‘finished’ work philosophy and that can be quite a hard label to get rid of. Sometimes though, it is about the journey they are making to that final destination that can tell me more about their learning than the actual finished product.

I started off simple and blocked an hour per day to start off with. During that time, I took a mixture of reading and writing  groups. The rest of the class had the opportunity to do their set tasks for as long as they liked. The only criterion was that they had to have a certain number completed by the end of the week. Therefore they choose when they completed the activities not me. If there was any teaching aspect to any of the activities, I put a tutorial up on our class page where they could view it. That meant they could take their time to learn it, rewind, pause as much as they liked until they got it! Other activities were read to self or others, free writing (they wrote anything they liked), word study, touch typing, handwriting, blogging, spelling etc.

It was simple and starting off with an hour was manageable for me. It also meant the class learnt to self-manage themselves and make vital decision about how to make the most of their time. I would be lying if I said the whole class was perfect! Yes, I still had to direct some and set criteria’s for them but that is part of the journey. On the whole, most of my students were able to get on with their work without the presents of the teacher.

To an outsider it may have looked chaotic.  But the class was actually learning! It is one of those times where I had wished I had used a camera to record the beginning of the year to illustrate the progress they have made. What I see are children learning to manage their time, understand the way they learn and how to be successful – a lot of what we try to teach them as part of our school values.

Next term, I would like to try and visit a few other schools to see how they do this. I know mine is quite basic and I would like to expand so I have at least half the day set up like this.   

So why Twitter?

Because I needed a job!

Moving back to New Zealand I knew the job market would be tough. There were more teachers looking for jobs and less jobs around. But moving to Christchurch where they were still recovering from the 2011 earthquake and Education Minister Hekia Parata announcing school closures meant an even tougher job market.

I took the novel approach of ringing the principals first and asking whether or not they would consider my application. To be honest I didn’t want to spend hours filling out an application form to find out I wouldn’t even be considered for an interview.  Most were brutally honest. As one principal informed me, he had already received over 100 job applications for one position. One criterion was that applicants had sound knowledge of the New Zealand curriculum and could show example of this. Something I couldn’t do.

I got it! I hadn’t taught in New Zealand for over 10+ years, I had no idea about the curriculum at all. But secretly, I thought my experience in behaviour management, leadership, mentoring, and even curriculum development might have counted for something.

But the prospects of no relief work, no job and knowing no one in the teaching field to even help out in their class was beginning to get to me. I had used the internet to read up on Key Competencies, the curriculum, navigated around TKI but memorising what was on websites that everyone else knew inside out wasn’t going to cut it.

So I tried Twitter.

To be honest I wasn’t sure what I expected. I had always thought of Twitter as a place celebrities bragged about themselves or argued with others. I had never thought of it as a PLN (professional learning network).

I was a clumsy Twitter user (and probably still am). I had no clue what anything meant and then suddenly I also had to pick up on the jargon New Zealand teachers loved to you as well!   I will admit it was daunting and at times I did feel a little out of my comfort zones.

 I think SherylNussbaum-Beach’s analogy of Twitter being like a river sums it up. The river keeps flowing but sometimes you might just walk past and have a quick look, sometimes you might hang around and dip your toes in, other times you might spend hours swimming around.

And it is true. The wealth of knowledge I gained in the space of a month was amazing. It linked me to teacher’s blogs, articles, videos and probably the best thing edchatnz. -free professional development! I learnt that in 140 characters you can say and learn a lot.

Once I got over my fear, I stopped lurking and joined in with my first edchatnz and haven’t looked back. To be honest, I am not sure if it did help me get a job but it did other things;

• I connected with others who are moving towards a MLE or who experience/expertise in this.
• New innovated ideas to use in the classroom.
• A wealth of knowledge regarding blogging, QR codes, gamification and that is just for the students!
• Teachers sharing resources and lending quick support to peers with similar interests.

The list could go on!

Most of all, it allowed me to connect with some amazing people (who one day I hope to meet). It has shown me that there are other like-minded people out there and numerous individuals willing to share their knowledge and expertise.  And it is those people who are on Twitter that are making changes in the education system. Challenging the norm and taking risks. So I like the idea that I ‘hang out’ with those kinds of educators!

Having only been on Twitter for over a year I can honestly say it is the best decision I made. Yes, I do try and convince others to join as where else do you learn something new every day?