Lead Teachers 24.08.09

I am in the middle of my 2nd lead teachers day today watching a clip from Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. I can see a lot of myself in this when I think about my presentation slideshow for the cluster EXPO and there were definately lots of things I can take on board to make a more detailed handout and a less 'busy' slideshow! Unfortunately this means I can't just export the slides as the handout!!!! I enjoyed that shortcut. Great prep for the upcoming cluster share.

We have been learning about peer coaching - very interesting. Not natural for me yet as too tempting to slip into the instructional mode. Really good things to keep in mind. We recorded our ideas using scribblar which has potential as a good tool for the classroom but there are a few thing to be aware of: anyone who is a guest on the page can edit the postings, it's better to set up separate pages rather than multiple pages in the same document as when people are all editing the page if they flick to the next page everyone goes to it together! Very visual and lots of 'gadgets'!

We discussed the milestone report which our friend KP does for us! Loads of awesome discussions surrounding what we will do at SPS for our cluster share and we are keen to get going.

Really enjoyed teara too.

Using Voicethread!

Well yesterday and today I used voicethread , linked to our current inquiry,with my class for the first time and found it excellent! The first time I did it I got a bit flustered because I hadn't set up all the children's identities so I did all the comments under mine! Today I had another go and managed to switch identities to give different children a chance to record their ideas under their own identity with a picture they chose themselves! It was very exciting but the children definately need some more practise. Some of them are getting the hang of speaking loudly but they are all speaking very quickly so it's difficult to understand them. I think they need more practise with presenting their oral sentences too. Not quite sure how I can get round this with Year 0/1 as I tried scribing for them and getting them to read their idea but unfortunately many are not confident readers so this isn't an option. And they come up with great ideas during the practise but then can't recall it for the recorded version! Perhaps I should just record each attempt and delete the ones that are no good?! Any ideas anyone!

Here are our first attempts! I highly recommend giving this a go it's a powerful and simple tool that can be adapted to many different purposes.