Take a proper break… You’ll be much more productive if you do !

As a teacher there is the temptation that come the summer holidays, this is the best time to get work completed such as getting all schemes of work written up, lesson plans, student lists etc. 

During term time we all know that ‘time’ does does not permit us teachers to complete all the tasks above to perfection and detail as marking takes precedence.  

In my early years of teaching, I’d be thinking that being away from looking at the stuff I am responsible for was a dereliction of duty, a lack of commitment to the cause.

Today I am happy to report that I was very naive for thinking like that. My epiphany came after a holiday to the British Virgin Islands, a couple of years ago. I was shocked at how much more productive I was when I came back to work. I felt my energy levels increased and I was more positive and creative at my job.

These days when school closes for the summer holiday, I spend the first 3 days just sorting out my files, doing backups and deleting files and email that is no longer needed. I also make it a point to write a plan of things to do before the start of the new school year. 

A week before school reopens I look at that list and spend an hour each day working on completing items from that list and this helps me to get my mind thinking about the new school year.

After 14 years of teaching my advice is to revel in your time off and chances are that you will be more efficient and effective when you return back to school. And no matter what you teach in a school don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

In the wise words from my ex Head of Department who is now retired ‘ Teaching is a Marathon and not a 100 meter race. Remember to pace yourself and reserve your energy.’

Something that we all must strive to accomplish due at our workplace.

Reflection: ADE Week in Amsterdam

It's been two weeks since i’ve been back from the ADE conference in Amsterdam and quite frankly I am still recovering from it. The experience was wonderful and the people even more brilliant. Sharing of ideas as part of the community and meeting new people was a great experience. Friendships I hope to last a lifetime.

I spent last week just reflecting and jotting down all the different things I learnt from the institute but also from talking to different ADE’s from EMEA. I have started putting together a plan taking into consideration what are the priorities at my school and what would work in the short term. I am sort of breaking this down into Whole school ideas and individual subject areas.

My main focus for whole school will be iTunes U and training teachers how to use it. For Departments it would be iBooks Author and subject specific apps. One of my other goals would be to get together a group of students who will be my ‘Tech Ambassadors’ in the school and will train and promote the use of apps to students and teachers.

Below are my top three ADE highlights:

ADE Showcases:

These were three minute long showcases and were started of by the Alumni and 2015 ADE’s. This gave us all an insight as to how ADE’s were revolutionising teaching in their schools and making change happen. These showcases also gave us ideas as to how existing and new apps were being used across different subject areas and gave us an opportunity into looking at the workflow which is so important in our role.

Also if we needed more information all we had to do was to post a question in the discussion area of the iTunes U course or meet the ADE personally which was really helpful. One of the other notable showcases were the ones teaching SEN children. It was really moving to see how iPads have made a difference in their education and also how fortunate some of us are to teach in 1-1 iPad schools.

Bill Frakes:

We were very fortunate to be given a masterclass by award winning Pulitzer prize winner Bill Frakes. He gave us an insight into his life, his passion, some fabulous stories, but most of all how to take great pictures and in his words ‘It's all about the light’.

Follow Bill and Laura at:

www.billfrakes.com

www.nebraskaproject.com

www.strawhatvisuals.com

@billfrakes

@lheald86

Education Leadership: A time for change

Another highlight for me was being part of a great group of people who share the same vision as me but are in different roles within education. Just getting to know their story and being part of what they want to achieve and develop is itself an honour. We hope to share good practice, ideas but most importantly support each other with any queries and our projects going forward.

Finally I would like to say that being part of this ADE community keeps me buzzing with ideas based on discussions and forums but it’s important to focus on what will work in the classroom in our school and take small baby steps with our teachers in order to show them the big picture with numerous possibilities.

ADE Class of 2015

Received the most wonderful news of being accepted to the ADE class of 2015. All the hard work has paid off. I am honoured to have been selected and super excited to embark on this new journey and challenge. Looking forward to being part of and working with the ADE community.

Creating a stop motion film with EAL students

Over the last two weeks I have had the privilege of working with EAL students in their English lesson. In order to get them to talk and work with each other their task was to create a stop motion film of a gadget that has moving parts. Their film needed to be a minimum of 30 seconds albeit creative and original in groups of 2 or 3.

We first had students planning their idea on paper and then doing a trial of their idea and modifying it to make it work. They used various props such as lego, tubes, ping pong balls, arts and craft to make their idea work. It was amazing to see the quieter students speaking up trying to get their idea across and most importantly enjoying what they were doing.   

We showed students how to use the free iMotion app by Fingerlab for their stop motion film. The free version allows you to save the film directly to your camera roll. The students then took the film into iMovie and edited the start and the end. Some of the examples of work using iMotion and iMovie are below.

ECIS Tech Conference Munich 2015 - Sessions

Here is a brief synopsis of what I found useful from some of the sessions:

Apps:

Doodle cast pro - Alternative to explain everything

Adobe Voice

Pic Collage

Voice thread

Croak.it

Vine

Skitch

Blogging by Tricia Friedman @FriedEnglish101

Excellent validations on why blogging has a place in the classroom. Have students to plan out what they would like to blog, could be in the form of mindmap ideas or digital drawings. Start with the name of the blog, the main question of the blog and if possible ask them to draw out the main question to make it visible.

Another good suggestion by Patricia was to bring the mentors and professionals to the students to get on the spot professional advice. Also to encourage the culture of Quad blogging and to teach kids how to comment on articles and blogs.

Google Educator and Google Education trainer: Apps Events

This session was very useful as it gave an in depth insight into the difference between a Google Educator and Google Education trainer. It is something that I have been very interested in and wanted to complete for some time now as we use Google apps at my school. I have set a target to myself to be certified as a Google Educator by August. I am also interested in doing one of the training sessions held by Apps Events in the use of Google Apps.  

Thinking more deeply about Technology Integration in the IB: @pilarqibo

I was very interested in this discussion as we have just embarked on managebac and all the teachers are in the process of rewriting the curriculum across all grades. After discussions with our MYP and IB coordinator this is going to be my focus next year at my school. It was interesting looking at the guidelines for tech integration when planning a unit of work. More information and training needs to come out from the IB to have these guidelines imbedded when planning a unit of work.

Slam Sessions: Cool ideas for everyone to know and try out

• Using Quicktime player to project or mirror from an iPhone
• Google Keep on the laptops has more features enabled
• Addon in Google sheets for Mail merge
• writenowbooks.org - is like a youtube for books
• slidescarnival.com - templates for google slides
• Horizn App - excellent to film on the iPhone as it takes out the black line spaces at the side when filming
• Google drawings - To create hyperlinks to various documents when doing a project
• Appear.in - to use like skype without the need to have to log in
• Video Notes - Addon to drive. Allows you to take notes while watching a video and saves directly to drive
• Quiet Tube - Video appears without all the videos and ads at the sides. Especially useful when teaching different kinds of learners

ECIS Tech Conference Munich 2015 - Keynote Speech

The last couple of months have been manic with planning for new units in the MYP, reporting, observations for Stronge standards, my ADE application, training for my Google and MOS exams coupled with our IT department not sorting out issues for staff; it just felt like I was getting nowhere. The ECIS conference was just what I needed - motivation and to take things into perspective of where we are as a school and what needs to be done.

The Keynote was given by Kim Cofino @mscofino and she talked about the different kinds of learning in the classroom. She made the point of how ‘education needs to learn with technology the way students live with technology’. A point so relevant to educators to keep up with the tech savvy generation of students that we teach. she focused on 6 main areas in her keynote which I will summarise.

Lets take advantage of being Mobile and get students out and about to explore new areas around us. Trust them to customise their devices and teach them to be responsible administrators of their devices. Using social apps that our students use the most such as snapchat and twitter. Using interactive and media rich resources to track progress and engage students. Motivating students to keep learning, allowing them to connect with others, and to actually “be” a part of the content they’re learning about. Applying a more “just in time” approach, and allow students to engage with the content within the context of their course learning.