Cassie’s Laws

What is participation and learning? That’s the question I asked myself whilst driving down to Camelon last night for a twilight on the subject. Although I knew what it was I wasn’t able to translate my thoughts into a form that someone else would understand.

The CPD session was in the world cafe format, this really helped me as it meant I could talk about my ideas in a small group as opposed to the normal size of audience. Soon I realised that I use the theories involved in pupil participation within my own classroom everyday without even thinking about it.

Through  the blog I am able to get indirect and informal evaluations of lessons through the comments left by children in the class.

Another way I try to involve children is through our suggestion box and our worry box.

I also try to encourage honest opinions from children about lessons and we discuss things that went well and things that didn’t. When discussing this I realised that this was in fact a barrier to participation and learning as some children are not honest about how they feel. It tends to be the children that sit in the class and absorb everything you say as though they are a sponge. At first I had to spend a lot of time explaining that it was ok to say if they did not like something. I found that quite often they were writing or saying what they thought I wanted to hear and what they thought they should say.

Overall it was a really good course and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Well, after getting a bit of a shake last night I decided it was time to post again.

I know it does sound like a bad excuse but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to work on this. Between the two blogs I think of the CShore blog as being the most important and I devote more of my time to it. Margaret said that I should concentrate on this as well so here goes.

I’ve been really lucky this year in that my school are really keen to use ICT in the classroom. I have come across a few hurdles but on the whole everything’s been fine. The only problem I have really had has been trying to explain my ideas to others. Often I can’t explain to others what is in my head and I feel like I have to really sell my ideas when I am seeking approval to run with them. However, as the year has went on I have become more confident. I have decided that I will now, within reason, try things out for myself in hope that it all goes to plan and then show others the results rather than try to explain them beforehand.

Margaret gave me a really good idea last night, yet another one! We have recently started to use Thinking Hats within the school and it is yet another thing to fit into the curriculum. I was thinking of it in a bit of a negative sense as it takes away the tiny bit of flexibility I had left within my timetable. The part that I wanted to use to explore ICT amongst other things. However, Margaret suggested a way to link it to ICT. I had not thought of doing that and although it sounds really obvious I think when you are in the middle of everything it’s often hard to see a way out.

I’ve been feeling like I’m fighting an uphill battle lately but having the change to talk last night really helped. I got a bit of a row and was basically told to stop being so negative about everything. So, that’s my plan!

Off to work out my plan of action for Thinking Hats.

Just home from a twighlight: Preparation for interviews.

I think I was beginning to live in denial with regards to the employment situation. It was always at the back of my mind that come June I would probably be unemployed but after tonight it has really hit home.

It was explained that there will probably be “significantly less jobs this year than last.” My friend who was in my position last year was unsuccessful at the interviews and I know from her that there were 11 permanant posts within the council. I dread to think what significantly less than 11 is! Luckily she managed to get a job within Clanckmannanshire council so at least her story has a positive ending.

It was quite alarming to hear them discuss the interview process. Although the speakers made an excellent job preparing us for the interview, and tried their best to help is remain positive, it was clear from their talk that the situation is pretty bad. It was explained that every person that applies for the jobs will be ranked. We will be ranked on our performance at the interview alone. Each question at the interview will have a possible score and our totals for each one will be added together and we will then be organised into a list from highest to lowest. It does sound a very brutal method of selection but I understand why the process has to be completed in such a way. It was also added that out confidential report will have little bearing on our score and the only reason this will come into the equation is if too many people have the same score.

After 5 years of hard work it is demotivating to think that only a small percentage of us will receive employment from this interview. I keep asking myself what do you need to do to be the person who gets a job? The speakers today simply said that you need to give a good interview and sell yourself. I hope that the opportunities that I have been given this year by Margaret and the support from the school, especially from my 0.3 and my stage partner, will be enough to help me along the way. I hope to use the experiences I have had to convince (for lack of a better word) the interview panel that I am worth employing!

However, as they also mentioned tonight, if unsuccessful at these interviews there will be other opportunities for employment throughout the course of next year.

For now, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

 This was created using wordle. I’m not sure how to make it bigger. 

 This was created using LunaPic.

Cross observation’s now over and there are no more observations until after Christmas! Phew!

It’s parents’ night this week so hopefully by this time next week I can also say that that went well. Hopefully!

I came across a new resource tonight on the blog mentioned below. I didn’t really have time to make up a story so I ‘borrowed’ Rachel’s fantastic halloween story. I don’t think she’ll mind!

I also found this on the same blog. It’s full of interesting resources, most of which would not be suitable for school however! I am going to have a good rake through it and hopefully find some interesting things for the class to use.

Unfortunately we had a lot of problems with our wikis last week. After a lot of fiddling around I found out that the problems was the RockYou glitter text that the class had added to their wikis. I found this site and hopefully there won’t be as many problems as last time!

Well, that’s our harvest assembly over. I was so stressed about the whole thing and Liz kept assuring me that there was no need to be. In the end she was right, it was great and I’m so proud of all the classes, they did a fantastic job.

I wanted to take pictures for the class blog but I couldn’t as all 4 classes were mixed in with each other so it would have been really hard to get pictures of 5LW only. I do not have permission to put photos of children from the other classes on the blog. Had I thought about this difficulty before hand I could have addressed.

Assemblies are one of the things you tend to miss out on as a student and this is the reason I was so nervous about it. I had no previous experience of planning or carrying out an assembly. However, now I do and it’s something else to cross off my list of unknowns!

The other main things on this list are parents’ night, testing and my cross observation.

I have no idea what to expect when it comes to parents’ night so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it all goes well. I’m also really unsure about national tests but I know I have the support of the school and I can ask the majority of the staff for help with this! My cross observation is in 2 weeks time but that time will fly in and hopefully it will be ok!

This week we started using wikis. Although it’s been a bit of a slow start and we haven’t had a lot of time to write on these there has been a lot of interest from the class.

This class have expressed an interest in writing on their wikis at home. I hoped this would happen and I have issued a letter to parents to check if they have computer access at home. Hopefully most of the children will have access to the net and those who don’t will be able to get time in class.

I’m hoping that the class will begin to comment on each others wikis. I haven’t really mentioned this yet, I want to see if anyone does it without me suggesting it. As part of our Harvest assembly Sam and Emma read out their poems. Sam typed his up on his wiki but Emma was off ill. Rachel offered to type up Emma’s poem and then she suggested it would be a good idea to leave her a comment on her wiki to let her know. I hope that this enthusiam continues.

I know that some teachers worry that not having a traditional structured ICT plan might mean that the children are not learning the necessary skills. After only 3 days of having a wiki the class have had experience of typing, copy and paste, embeding an animation from the internet, logging on to a website, using a search engine and manipulating text. I think using a wiki has provided a natural context for valuable ICT skills to be learned.

I am also hoping that I will begin to see the kind of online community that I witnessed with 7V last year beginning to develop. I know it won’t be the same as they do not have blogs but I’m hoping it creates a community that in turn will be a real audience for their writing.

I’ve just read Margaret’s latest post and as ever I’ve been inspired! I’ve managed to keep, and not delete , Margaret’s old class blog for a whole term now. Wooooo! I’m quite impressed that I, along with the blog, have managed to survive this term!

Margaret mentioned that some blogs don’t really stand the test of time. Through a lot of hard work, and sleepless nights!, Margaret kept her blog going for 2 whole years. Margaret mentions her reason for this was probably due to having a distinct focus.

Now that I am looking after her blog I don’t feel like I have the same distinct focus but we have definitely been using it as an online diary. I won’t deny that it has been a lot of work but I’m really enjoying it. It has just become something that I do, like preparing for lessons, marking etc. It’s part of my daily routine.

A year a go I would have came up with the excuse that I wouldn’t have time for something like this but now I think that that was due to not having an interest. As I had never really used ICT to promote learning in the class I had no idea the impact it could have. For this reason I think that some blogs may not last due to lack of interest either from the teacher or the school.

In a nutshell I guess ICT isn’t for everyone and it wouldn’t do if we were all the same!

I’ve been looking after Mrs V’s class blog for a few weeks now. I’ve been trying hard to make sure I keep it going and I’m really enjoying it. However, all I’ve done so far is copy the things Margaret had already found so as I was uo early this morning, I thought I would hunt through other school blogs for new ideas!

I thought maybe we could adopt a pet like this one.

I don’t think there’s a way that we can all agree on a pet so the fairest way to do it would be a vote. I have set up this poll using poll daddy.

Which of these pets should we virtually adopt?
( polls)