"It's on the wiki" is in the Gazette!

Our Central North Shore Cluster wiki features in the latest volume of the Education Gazette this month. Nice work everyone ;-) Catch a preview online here...

Cluster Reflections from uLearn08

We have set up a page on the wiki where cluster teachers who attended uLearn08 will post their reflections over the next 2 weeks. View it here.

It is also useful to see how teachers are applying some of their new learning with students. Helen attended an inspiring breakout from Sara Taylor which she recommends for all junior classroom teachers and has also tried out with her class. View Helen's reflection here.


What teachers are saying:

"Spending time with colleagues from my own school, the cluster and a range of learning environments in New Zealand is a wonderful opportunity to hear and see the great things that people are trialing and using in their schools" (Karen)

“A highlight for me would be the planning, preparation and presentation of our breakout with a member of my syndicate team. The planning and preparation process gave me an opportunity to reflect and highlighted how far we have come with our ICT PD...It was not just the tools that we were using that has changed but also how our pedagogy has shifted when planning... It was also personally very special to present at Christ's College (a lovely venue) in the same room where I attended an inspiring session in 2006. I would have never have guessed at that time that I would be presenting at the next Christchurch ULearn conference" (Stephen)

“The whole conference really got me thinking about how can I use my skills and knowledge and enthusiasm and passion to really enable my students to change the world!” ( Jo )

tags technorati : ulearn08

ulearn08 Reflections & Connections

Even before the conference started the impression was there were alot of first time presenters at a national conference contributing this year (including our own Felicity from Northcote Primary and Karen from Sunnybrae Normal, ably supported by Stephen and Helen - see their presentations here).

Through the conference back channels, twitter and during the actual conference it was wonderful to see and hear so many teachers sharing and supporting each other, receiving feedback on their conference preparation and tips and encouragement from those who had presented before. Having access to these online is invaluable and there is some impressive work and resources being shared, well done to you all. (see my delicious)

The technology is being utilised in ways that I find attending a face-2-face conference is quite a different learning experience for me than it was 4-5 years ago. For example can you follow this...

• I am attending the Unconference in Breakout 7

• Participating in a F2F with Dave, Ian and Neil

• I am also keeping up with the next table's discussion in the Unconference on twitter ettiquette through the conference website backchannel
  

• @heymilly is in another breakout and leaves a comment in twitter ( see below)

• @mumbleboy and Luke in Auckland see the link in my twitter response to @heymilly and join the conference backchannel along with others from around the conference.
  

Will Richardson commented in the opening keynote that before we can teach differently we have to be able to learn differently. As I left the Unconference that day I wondered how learning would be for me if I were a student at school today?

Thanks to Christina for highlighting at the Unconference - Te Awamutu - you have a message.

tags technorati : ulearn08