Monday, July 9, 2012

A great opportunity

I was overwhelmed when my Principal and Deputy Principal called me into the office, offering me the position of Acting Deputy Principal while the Principal would be away on a sabbatical and the Deputy Principal stepping up into the role of Acting Principal during Term 2, 2012.
I felt both excited and scared, but embraced this wonderful opportunity given to me.
What a learning curve this was... 
I had to learn not to let staff issues effect me personally and only concentrated on the purpose of me being at school, which was and still is, giving my best to the students whom I teach.
I was impressed by the way the Deputy Principal stepped into her role as Acting Principal and was adamant to give her my utmost support as her Acting DP, but above all as a teacher.
In my Year 1 class we had a wonderful and amazing time with our Inquiry unit, using the SOLO taxonomy inquiry model.  We learned about endangered species and concentrated on the NZ Kiwi.  The students were inspired by this learning journey and literally absorbed the information.  A Year 6 student said she thought the 5 years olds were very intelligent because they knew big words about the kiwi.
This positive feedback and watching my students grow and being excited about their learning, gave me enormous confidence as a teacher.  I knew I was doing a great job, which was affirmed by my Acting Principal.  
I know, however, there are still lots of new thing to be learned.  Bring it on - I can't wait!
   

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Never looking back

One thing that I was sure about was that I will never fall into this online social networking service called Twitter. How wrong I was...

It all started when I heard of Quadblogging (which was created by David Mitchell), where four classes from over the world connect with each other to share and collaborate. As an enthusiastic blogger with my Year 1 class, I was immediately interested in this great concept and amazing opportunity for my students to give them a global audience when sharing our learning.  Proceeding to the 'sign up' form it asked your Twitter id and although you do not have to be a Tweeter to sign up, I thought this is it and signed up for Twitter on 8 January 2012!

I have never looked back ever since, as Twitter enables me to learn, share and collaborate with other professionals.  I also regard it as my personal PD. 

Since being on Twitter, I have learned about Daily 5, through their live chat via Twitter on 28 April.  What a buzz!  I was amazed and overwhelmed and just followed all the tweets for a couple of months, before taking the step to contribute to discussions and asking questions.
The outcome was that I bought the Daily 5 and CAFE books and I am slowly starting to integrate this into my class programme.

I have now even started my personal blog to share my ponderings about my own inquire, learn, grow and inspire journey.

What a great learning journey I'm having with Twitter!