Weekly Reflection: Google Teacher Academy #GTASYD

Turns our the golden tickets were actually white. (picture by the author)

The Google Teacher Academy.

I’m sure I’m not the only person to compare receiving the acceptance email to two days in a Googleplex with 50 other passionate educators to finding a golden ticket in your inbox.

After all, the competition for spots for the 50 spots open in the bi-annual programme is pretty fierce. I know there are many fabulous teachers who missed out on coveted spots and there participants in Sydney who travelled great distances for the event. Moreover besides being an Internet juggernaut, what glimpses I’d had of Google offices looked more like the fantasy of Willy Wonka’s chocolate room than a sterile working environment.

While I didn’t spot any Oompa Loompas during the two days I spent in Google’s Sydney office, I certainly spent time with my mouth open in awe of my surroundings like Charlie however I’d be lying if said there wasn’t some Augustus Gloop gluttony going on during the many meal breaks.

Chocolate Unicorn in action (note wagon wheels were all eaten)

The pace of the two-day programme was nothing short of frantic and subject to rapid change. After we were placed in teams by the sorting hat it was straight down to work. I remember thinking early on in the event it must be close to lunch given the amount of content covered only to find that we had barely made it to morning tea. Unlike many teacher sessions, there was very little sit and listen. Instead most group sessions focused on fast-paced creative challenges which showcased how to use google tools to enhance student learning.

What surprised me event was how much I don’t know about the services google offers. I’ve been using google since 1999 and considered myself a pretty knowledge about the suite of products available. But even I was amazed at the variety of online tools in google’s toolbox: newspaper archive, Google Moderator, Google crisis map, the world wonders project to name just a few.

Not a bad place to eat lunch (view from Google’s sydney office)

What I really found fascinating was a deeply unsexy topic, scripts. For me it’s exhilarating watching a google script do its thing. No more do I need to beholden to clunky learning management systems that don’t do what I want them to do. Scripts give me the freedom to manage my online learning environment a lot more effectively. What’s more it is easy for me to collaborate with other teachers as I can share my decisions and students work a lot more easily with my colleagues.

Google indulged any serious internet geek’s request for a tour of the facility. Unfortunately I can’t go into great depths about all the things I saw. However as I walked around the alcoves and colourful breakout spaces, I couldn’t help but feel that our schools need an infusion of some of google’s company principles.

I want a school library like that!

Shouldn’t there be places in schools for kids to eat high-quality food whenever they are hungry?

Why do playgrounds only ever seem to exist outside school buildings?

Why are so many online student learning spaces closed off from the world?

Yes I know finite cash resources, breakages and administration are all cold hard realities to these ideas. That’s impossible and/or irresponsible you say. However in order to make something a reality, you must dream it first.

Confession time.

The true value of the Google Teacher Academy isn’t actually about the technology or the glorious environment, it’s the connections you make with other teachers. There’s nothing quite like being in a room filled with passionate educators, you can almost see waves of energy pulsing as new solutions to old problems are found and exciting possibilities unfurl during the conversations we had over those two days.

Google Teacher Academy’s Sydney Kiwi contingent

One of the most surreal aspects of attending the Google Teacher Academy is meeting people that you admire and respect online in person for the first time. It was really cool to meet people like Jay Attwood and Chris Betcher in person as what they’ve shared online has helped me so much in the classroom. I would remiss in my post if I did not do a huge shout out to the lead learners, Googlers as well as Allison and Danny from CUE for producing such an amazing event.

What was particularly cool was the strong New Zealand presence at this international event. Nine New Zealanders were selected for Sydney and our contingent was bolstered by the awesome Dorothy Burt and Fiona Grant who lead some of the sessions at the academy. There really are fantastic things happening in New Zealand classrooms and I felt incredibly humbled to be accepted into the Google Certified Teacher community alongside these awesome educators.

So for anyone reading this thinking to yourself,” nah there’s plenty of rad educators out there and I’ve got no chance of getting in.”

Apply.

The worst that could happen is you get a ‘thanks but no thanks’ email and you can try again.

But maybe you’ll get a nod and get to spend an incredible two days at the Google learning with and from an amazing group of educators. But don’t just take my word for it, read reflections from other teachers who attended the event.

The obligatory pose in front of the google sign.

Weekly Reflection: invisible work

Over the last two weeks of school holidays I have watched my twitter feed light up with hashtags from barious conferences and hui happening around the country: #ignition2013, #NAPPNZ13, #byod13 #tfchch13. It’s a sign of the  New Zealand teaching workforce learning and sharing together.

That’s just the tip of a rather large iceburg. Up down the country there were teachers toiling away in their schools making resources, catching up on marking, photocopying, designing wall displays.

There’s often a fine line to be tread with holidays. Teachers sometimes have to put up with dark mutterings about how we get 12 weeks of holidays a year. It can easy to cast to take the role of a martyr, listing the hours of holidays spent working on that massive ‘to do’ list.

We all know the spiel.

We know those who start the spiel don’t actually care.

So we shut up because really who wants to listen to a teacher whine about how incredibly difficult the job is.

Nevertheless I can’t help but wonder why it is we seek to minimize the invisible work that teachers do to keep their classrooms afloat.

If I were a cynic, I would say it is because teachers go against accepted wisdom of our modern society that people will only work hard if there are cash incentives involved.

Call back days not withstanding, teachers don’t have to come to school in holidays. There are no billable hours, nor bonuses for doing that little better extra.

In fact teachers will often end up paying out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, a conference or a pair of shoes for their students.

Teachers do so not for recognition or a cash rewards but because they want to make their classrooms better places for students to learn.

They do so for the joy of it.

Weekly Reflection (Re)igniting passions #ignition13

Image by author

Term 1 holidays for me are now synonymous with ignition. For those not in the know ignition is a 2 day un-conference. You throw a 100 or so passionate educators in a room and MAGIC ensues.

When I look over last year’s post, I remember how super-charged I felt after attending the event. I know the learning in my class has changed as a result of ignition. As I mentioned in my ignite talk, so many of my great ideas came out of attending the event. Goodie buckets for the start of the year, the classroom redesign, even the submission came about through conversations and collaboration at ignition.

This year I came away with more questions than answers.

Key competencies 

The more control I give over to my students, the more I realize how important integral those key competencies are. Learning what makes an effective learner and making those key competencies more than buzz word is a challenge for my class and I over the coming year.

Moving professional learning into the 21st century.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a terrible student when it comes to the traditional weekly PD. If something doesn’t hold my interest, then I will quickly wander off the task. However ask me to find resources to support teaching contexts  or a new idea to implement in the classroom and I’ll jump into action.

With ignition even though I was tired after a busy and long first term, I was well aware I had given up my time and money to be there. There was no slacking off, there was engagement.

I can’t help but wonder how we expect teachers to create an individualized programme for our students when there is often little choice about how, who and what we learn about as teachers.

Should more time and money be freed up for teachers to make their own decisions about their professional learning?

How do we do this?

Secondary schools are a mystery.

The more I talk to secondary teachers, the more I realise I have no idea what goes on in schools after year 8.  All I have to go on are my own memories which are well out of date. If I was to identify a weakness in the education sector, it’s that teachers and schools don’t talk  to each other enough. This is particularly the case with the primary/secondary divide.

Are we short-changing our students by not communicating?

Do teachers collectively put too many problems in the too hard basket figuring next year’s teacher/s can handle it?

Moving out of the education sector

There’s always a risk when you bring a group of like minded people together that you get people agreeing with each other. As ignition matures, I think a challenge for the unconference is how to engage with people interested in education (which is a lot  of people) and the people working in the sector.  Again, I see a disconnect between the people  charged with making educational policy and the people charged with implementing it.  Having creative industries come in would for me be fascinating  however there’s always that risk that this dilutes the purpose of the event.

Be the change you wish to see in your school

You might want to change your school or even New Zealand education as a whole. The easiest place to start is in your classroom. Perhaps I’m lucky that I teach at a school that encourages people to try new things. But at the same time it’s really easy to go back home and keep doing what you’ve always done especially when the inevitable obstacles come your way. You don’t have the facilities, cash, your leadership doesn’t get you. Obstacles aren’t there to keep you from doing something, they are there to show you how much you  want something.

Lets get to it.

Weekly Reflection: Sharing the love (and lollypops)

Heart shaped lollypop (image used under creative commons)

At the beginning of the year, I introduced my class to the concept of lollypop moments. The concept comes from an awesome TED talk by a guy called Drew Dudley, who argued that true leadership was in the little every day things that we do to make each others lives better which he called lollypop moments.

I bought a huge bag of lollypops from Moore Wilsons and over the course of the term, the kids have taken it upon themselves to nominate each other for acts of random kindness. The challenge has been to get the kids to move away from nominating their immediate circle of friends and to seeing the good in everyone.

Sharing has been a common theme this week. Before easter a group of my students approached my team leader about the possibility of our syndicate (that’s a group of 3 classes) running a talent show. And this week it was the big event. We hadn’t given over much class time in the preparation for this event. Nevertheless it was to see most of the kids step up.

Were all the acts a polished performance?

No.

But a huge amount of kids got up and gave it their best shot. In an era where we many expect to be passively entertained it was fantastic to see kids willing to create and share with their peers. The event was such a success that we will be doing another one later in the term.

This week was a bit bittersweet as we farewelled our principal to a new position. I will always owe a huge debt of gratitude to my outgoing principal as she was the one who gave me the nod 18 or so months ago and has had to put up with having me on staff ever since.

I’m not sure many principals would be happy to let a first year teacher oversee a group of 11 and 12 year olds making a submission to parliament, not bat an eyelid when finding out I placed half my classroom furniture in storage via twitter, or take the time to facebook you two days before Christmas to let you know you’d gotten into the Apple Distinguished Educator programme.

As I was sitting at my principal’s farewell, it struck me that we often wait until people are leaving to say nice things about people. What has been nice about this term is that through lollypop moments we are taking more time to notice the every the little actions that make life more interesting.

Just before the class headed out for their final PE slot, there was a plea for a few last-moment lollypop moments. What started off as a quick thank you for helping move furniture quickly began to snowball and before we knew it everyone in the class had something nice said about them by another member of the class.

It was a nice moment and a good way to end the term.

Weekly Reflection: Apple Distinguished Educator #ade2013

Passports (photo by author)

Intense.

Incredible.

Indescribable.

I’m out of adjectives to describe my week at the Apple Distinguished Educator institute in Bali. Seven days of hardcore geeking out with a spectacular group of educators in a breath-taking location is my nirvana. I frequently had to pinch myself wondering if I was *really* there and how on earth my application got accepted given the astounding level of teaching talent amassed at the event.

I didn’t know that much about the Apple Distinguished Educator programme when I applied. As result, this week was really a leap into the unknown. I was (and remain) a bit concerned about a company giving their seal of approval to teachers, when really I think teachers should be the ones giving the nod to good products.

However I liked that idea of learning with and from other educators passionate about using technology in the classroom around the Asia-Pacific region and I like using apple products in the classroom so I was quietly optimistic that I was in for a good week.

I was so wrong.

I was in for the one the most amazing experiences of my professional life.

Geeking out in Bali

At the risk of sounding like a cult member, the highlight for me was feeling like I was home. I spent my days and nights surrounded by people who share my passions and had me asking ‘show me how you do that.’

Which is really the point of the Apple Distinguished Educator programme.

Take a couple of hundred people who are already passionate about using technology in the classroom, throw them in a room together by day (and down the water slide at night) and you’ve got the makings of a tight-knit community of teachers dedicated to globally transforming education.

Because it was learning from other teachers which made the event special for me. I can often be found giving advice and helping people with using technology which I enjoy doing (after all I’m a teacher). However  it can sometimes get exhausting being a source of information and advice for others.

Over the course of this year, I have been secretly fretting that my teaching was getting stale and that once other teachers figured out my bag of tricks, they’d also figure out that what I do in class isn’t all that amazing.

I was in need of some inspiration and ideas.

Now my brain is exploding with new possibilities and new passions.  Everywhere I turned during the conference it felt like I was getting a glimpse into the future, of what might be mainstream in a few years time.

A moment of conference notoriety unfolds with the amazing @rebeccastockley and the rest of the institute watching on

If I was going to make a prediction, it would be watch out for Multi-Touch literacy. I loved how seamlessly layers of video, audio and images could sit in one document. There’s something almost primeval in the ability to manipulate information using your fingers. Multi-Touch technology books makes work seem so much more real and engaging. Immediately I thought of all the video and images I have of my class and my students and had a go at creating a mock up of a student portfolio.

I was impressed by how simple it was to use and how I could create a really rich learning story for the child encapsulating photos, videos and text to stand alongside the PDFs of standardised test results (though for some reason I can only see the first page). The files could just be dragged and dropped in making it very child friendly to use.

No faffing around with embed codes and trying to make existing work fit into rigid templates that don’t work. The results are just gorgeous to look at and have the potential to be published to global audience.

Hanging with my MacBook during a break

My post would not be complete without a big shout out to the Apple education team. I tend to be a bit wary of big business influence in education and had a secret fear that the week was going to be an extended sales pitch by some dull conformist corporate types who have no idea the realities of the classroom.

In reality, the Apple education team are a creative, caring, diverse group of individuals dedicated to making the programme a success. I was particularly impressed by how many of the team, some of whom I had never met, asked if I was ok after I had asthma attack during the institute. Before I move on, let me give a quick shout out to the awesomesauce Meredith who looks after New Zealand.

It’s hard to believe the week is over and in a few days I’ll be back to reality. Finding the time to keep my projects going when faced with the demands of regular teaching duties, managing access to devices and being the sole ADE in Wellington city will be challenging.

However what happens during a conference is somewhat meaningless; what really matters is what we do differently afterwards based on what we learned while there. As my roommate at the institute, the fabulous @donnasmithnz, said we need to keep #ade2013 alive.

I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned with other teachers at my school, #ignition2013, an ignite talk and also through educampZQN. To add to the nuttiness of my life, I’ve also got #educampwlg to organize and I have a few ideas to implement inside and outside the classroom in the pipeline.

So yes, I’m sure I’ll get a bit of a ribbing from some some quarters for selling my teaching soul to giant multi-national company and yes I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to work in a 1:1 environment. However I’m committed to using what I’ve learned over the week to improve the experience of students in my classroom.

Because really it isn’t about the technology, it’s what you do with it that matters.

#ADE2013 Part 1 – it’s what you do with the technology that counts

At the end of last year Apple called for applications for the Apple Distinguished Educator programme.  The application consisted of a series of essays and a 2 minute video. Despite being heinously busy trying to finish reports, I figured I’d give it a go thinking that the application process itself would be an awesome reflective tool to document my first year in teaching.

Never in a million years did I think that I my application would be successful and that I would get to hang with a couple of hundred awesome educators from around the Asia Pacific region.

But here I am in paradise with an important lesson already learned, never say no to opportunities. You might think there are other, more awesome and better qualified people that will get the nod. But really there’s no harm in putting your hand up, the worst that will happen is that someone might say no. And sometimes, you might get a yes.

And that yes can be life changing.

Already I’ve met so many fabulous educators, so many people to connect with and learn from.  I’ve got ideas from improv artist, photographers, doctors, techno geeks and awesome teachers that will make a difference in my class. Which is part of the reason I’m here. While I love geeking out and playing with gadgets I’m here to learn to be a better teacher.

Coming into the Apple institute, I worried that the technology might actually detract from that mission.  After all Apple users can be a tad obnoxious about their love of iDevices at times. Several hundred in one room could run the risk of the event being a full on Mac love-in. However far from being a full on meeting of of the cult of mac, the conference thus far hasn’t been about having the latest shiny device or a 1:1 programme. It’s been about making connections, taking risks and asking big questions.Proving my maximum that’s it’s not about having the latest technology that makes a difference, it’s what you do with the technology that counts.

In the words of Bill Frakes, who gave an amazing presentation on creating engaging digital assets, the device doesn’t take the photo. It’s the heart, eye, mind, and soul  the black box is just a capture device.

I’m looking forward to learning more in the coming days.

Weekly Reflection: Learning to Let Go

Image used under creative commons licence.

At the end of the week I jetted away to Bali for the Apple Distinguished Educator Institue in Bali. I was pretty stoked when I learned of my selection back in December. Since then I’ve crossed days off my calendar and been doing the happy dance with increased frequency  but the realities of  the trip didn’t really hit until Thursday afternoon when all of a sudden I was struck by a terrifying thought; ZOMG someone else is teaching my class for a week.

Sure I’ve had the odd day of release here and there for various bits of PD and working on the Teachers & Social Media reference group last year but this is the first time I’ve left my class for an extended period of time. All up the trip encompasses three weeks due to Easter and I will be missing an important school event, the annual Fun Run. So on Thursday I had a sudden attack of the guilts and panic attacks and spent way too long at school dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts for my absence.

As I wrote up instructions about my class and its personality for the reliever,  I wondered if primary teachers by virtue of teaching the same group of kids for the year are susceptible to shouldering the burden of  thinking: ‘I am the only one who knows how to teach this class.’ While the result can be an empowering sense of mama bear “RAWR! YES I AM THE TEACHER” it seems like it comes with a heavy tax.

By casting yourself in the role of the superhero teacher you risk burning yourself out. You don’t sick days because it seems like more work to prepare for a reliever than to battle on with the flu. You say no to PD opportunities because you worry that your plans won’t be covered to the T and the kids might be unsettled by your absence. And all of sudden there you are; frazzled, isolated and probably battling a lengthy flu because you didn’t take any time off to recuperate.

So once I sent off my plans I decided to enjoy my week ahead and stop stressing about my absence from school.

Does the reliever teach concepts differently than me? Meh, who cares: as long as the kids get exposure to the concept I’m happy. Did the reliever get the kids to put the markers back in the right place? Eh, as long as the kids know where to find them, then no problem. Did the reliever follow my plans exactly? Bah. As long is the class is happy and learning, it’s all probably fine.

Phew another teaching milestone reached.

Goodie buckets and lollypop moments – making the first day of school awesome

This year I’ve resolved to share more of my practice online. I’m not sure how interesting it will be once the term really begins, but for now this school year is new and sparkly. I have lots of energy and want to share (as opposed to last year which just seemed to pass in blur of haziness).

Welcome (Back) Video

I teach a combined Year 7/8 class with my Year 8s remaining with me for two years. This has both its advantages and disadvantages. I already know half my kids and there was a culture established in the class. However for incoming Year 7s it must be tricky coming into a room where half the kids know each other and whats what. The video is an attempt to bridge the gap letting the Year 7s know what they might expect from 2013 and giving the Year 8s a reminder of some of the crazy stuff we got up to last year.

The Buckets

I followed @kathryntrask example last year and used buckets as a place for students to store their gear in the absence of individual desks.

Image by the author

To get the kids a bit more psyched about the buckets, each bucket has some small gifts inside them:

A bucket with gifts = awesome

An eraser, because all of us are going to start the year with a clean slate. A blue piece of card for the students to make a postcard to mail home in a few weeks with their goals for the year. A yellow piece of paper to name their bucket (I’ll laminate those). There’s also a pencil to represent that we are each scholars and piece of vietnamese candy to signify our school theme for the first of the half of the year, globalisation. Finally there’s a lollypop which has extra special significance.

Late last year I stumbled onto this awesome TED Talk by a guy called Drew Dudley, who argued that true leadership was in the little every day things that we do to make each others lives better which he called lollypop moments. Now my Year 8s have already seen the talk but something really resonated with me about this idea and I’m going to use this idea as something to build on in the next few weeks as I build up my class’s culture.

Couch and comfy chairs

New Year, New furniture.

One of the big things to happen in my class is that we have new furniture. My class really was in need of some new furniture as the top was coming off one of the old tables, and some of them had bits falling off them.

Now the classroom has wave tables that can be easily reconfigured, a low level table, plus stools, the hokki stools (wobbly stools) thanks to my awesome principal.

To top things off my last year’s tutor teacher left my students her old couch which I know is something the kids will love.

On one hand it’s awesome having new desks and chairs but on the other, I was has having trouble working out how this furniture would fit around the room. Yes a few tables got moved next door as the kids in my class will often work on the ground and too much furniture tends to stop this from happening.

Cushions and comfy chairs

You might notice that a lot of my desks and tables are pushed against walls rather than in the middle of the class. Again this is deliberate, to improve the flow of the class. Having lots of furniture tends to impede movement  both of kids and furniture as it become a big deal to push a table out if there are three in the way.

I also don’t have enough chairs and table for every child to sit down at once. Again, this is deliberate. By not having enough kids need to learn how to share. It also means that students who want to work on the couch or the sofa can do this.

There’s also beanbag and plenty of cushions (which my students often plonk on top of). I’ve line up furniture against the board to take the focus away from the front of the classroom. I haven’t quite managed Stephen Heppell’s rule of three points of interest (not to mention there are not three teachers in the class, but nevertheless there should be multiple points of interest for people to see if they happen to wander into the classroom.

blue wobbly stool (I do have a few older desks out the back area of my classroom)

Bare Walls
You might have noticed that I don’t have much on the walls. This is deliberate. I know a lot of teachers like to have bright borders and pretty fonts and yes it is nice to have an aesthetically pleasing classroom. However I’m of the belief that the walls should be places for learning and if you are going to put up things, then it needs to have a purpose other than looking pretty. Over the coming weeks I’m sure that there will be questions and problem posing plastered all over the walls. I also know the kids will start putting up artwork that makes the standard, in fact maintaining our walls with colour and interest will I’m sure be part of my class’s morning chore.

A bare classroom wall (well save for a map on the wall)

At the moment I’m not entirely happy with my set up. It feels a lot more like a classroom at the moment rather than the library vibe I had previously. Nevertheless, there’s a good chance things will change a lot in the coming weeks and months. And truth be told, I really miss our igloo.

The kidney table just seems to work in that corner.

This year promises to be an exciting one. I hope to document it a lot better than I did my first.

Tomorrow my learners arrive and instead of freaking out like I did every term last year, I feel oddly calm.

Professional Development goes global – Why Twitter for teachers rocks

The days are starting to get shorter and stationary is starting to be bought which depending on your point of view is either the end of the holidays or the start of a new school year.

I’m going to go for a glass is half full interpretation and say it’s the start of 2013.

My holidays have been both equally manic and magic with 11 cities/towns, 8 border crossings and 3 cooking classes as I’m meandered around South East Asia in the space of five weeks. In my enthusiasm to dust off my passport, I left for the airport barely 12 hours after I waved goodbye to my students and will arrive just in time for the International Conference on Thinking.

Although most of my time has been spent marvelling at ancient and modern buildings in between eating copious amounts of street food, I did spend a couple of days in International Schools seeing the amazing teaching and learning going on there.

I know what you are thinking.

It takes a special kind of nerd to set aside time on holiday to do classroom observations but my time was PD on steroids. I have come back brimming with ideas to implement in the classroom and a love affair with the Primary Years Programme. As I look about my ideas around barcamps, impact projects and even the Daily 5 I can see how the programme gives some conceptual grunt to my ideas about effective teaching and learning. I would write more but I fear that such one-way gushing would be a bore to read.

These visits simply wouldn’t have been possible without twitter. Through twitter I had already virtually visited classrooms and met teachers. However while online is good face to face is so much better. You get to hear the conversations, the sights and yes even the smells of the classrooms. Nevertheless it is ever so surreal actually being in a classroom that you’ve been watching over the internet or putting a face to an avatar.

In other news I was pleased and humbled to have made it into the Apple Distinguished Educator programme. The calibre of the candidates who both made it into the programme and those who missed out is truly awe-inspiring. Alongside a digital community to join, I also have four days of learning and networking in Bali just before Easter.

2013 is looking to be an exciting year…

Weekly reflection: It’s been a good year

When I first became a stepparent one of my friends remarked that once you become responsible for a child, the days are very long but the years are short.

I was reminded of that comment as I was grabbing my belongings in my empty classroom and realised that although there were some very long days, this year has been incredibly short.
If the first session of the first day was the longest hour of my life, the lead up to the final day of the school year just seemed to pass in a blur.

Like my many of my students I couldn’t wait for school holidays to start. I counted the weeks, marked off the days on my calendar, and went down my list of things to get finished in the final hours. But now that the end of the school year has gone I’m winging my way to Bangkok Burma I feel sad that I didn’t take more time to be in the moment with my first group of students.

As we watched some of the crazy videos we made this year, I looked out and felt very fortunate to have taught such a great group of kids in my first class. We’ve had our shares of ups and downs, messy projects that never seemed to run to schedule and yes there have been times of frustration we’ve I’ve wondered if I am actually making a difference. Sometimes in those long days progress can be hard to measure. But as one year ends another is just on the horizon and I’ve learned that empty classrooms are bookends, it’s what you do in between that counts.

Over the last week or so I’ve been gathering together all the photos and videos that I had on my hard drive and was staggered at how much digital content the students have created over the year. So much I couldn’t fit it onto a single DVD.

Putting together the content for my students reminded me that despite my many meltdowns into misery, my class has had quite a year.

We produced two awesome assemblies, had some fun with the Daily 5 in literacy blocks, set up individual blogs, we’ve read two novels out loud, made a youtube submission to parliament, redesigned our learning space, built an igloo, went to camp, had a go at some real-world maths, completed an impact project and a bar camp.

On a professional level, I really enjoyed participating in the educamps, ignition2012 and making a contribution to Teachers Council Social media guidelines. I wish I had more time and blog and my attempts at getting an educamp in Wellington were a bit of a F.A.I.L.

Next year I’ve been asked to be a keynote speaker at SocCon on the work that the class did on the digital learning submission. If feels good to be giving something back to the education community that has supported me in the last few years.

Over the last year I’ve had labels like, techie, creative or innovative attached to my teaching and frankly I don’t get it. Nothing I’ve accomplished this year has been as the result of any inherent talent of my own. I’m forever pinching ideas off people and adapting them to suit my needs. If anything this year has taught me the importance of nurturing those connections.

My main problem is that I seem to have far too many ideas and far too little time to implement then. As a teacher I often feel like I am being pulled in two opposite directions. Between those messy and crazy projects and all the must dos that need to be checked off. While I appreciate the importance of those signposts sure schools must be more than factories that spit out kids with NCEA credits at the end of it.

Because when all is said and done the students aren’t going to remember my lesson on inferencing or using place value to multiply decimals but I’m pretty sure they’ll remember the igloo or the day they showed up to find that half the desks had been removed or the year that they caught the reading bug.

It has been a good year.