3-way conferences involve Student, Parent(s) and Teacher - but the student does the majority of the talking!

Photo Story 3 is the perfect introductory medium to get the ball rolling and a great way to celebrate the things that are being down well and identify the things that aren’t going so well. It’s also a fantastic demonstration of embedded use of technology in the classroom.

Here’s the steps we used to create our 3-way Conference Digital Story:-

Step 1:
Storyboard

Class brainstorm about what my parents might want to know about my learning over the last two terms and what I would like to share with my parents.

Results: Reading; Writing; Maths; How I get on with others; My work habits; What I might need to work on; Something I am really proud of or my own choice of something that I would like to share.

Step 2:
Photos

Partner up and take a photo for each curriculum area I will be talking about.

Step 3:
Script

For each photo on the Storyboard, write down exactly what I have been learning (the learning intention), give an example of how I learnt it (the final product); Was I successful or not and how do I know? Include assessment results, state whether or not I’m working at the expected level for my age group.

Step 4:
Photostory3

Import the photos my partner took of me.

Record my script for each photo.

Add Copyright free/Royalty free released under Creative Commons music (at a very low level).
(Limited to a choice of two tracks only)

Create wmv. file ready to play at the start of my 3-way Conference.

Step 5:
DVD copy

For parents who would like one to keep or to send to relatives.

Reflection on using Photo Story 3 for a 3-way Conference

The power of hearing a child’s voice whilst seeing a photo of them at the same time, never ceases to amaze me and sometimes I sneak a peak at parent’s faces and see a look of total amazement on the majority of the faces watching the digital story their child has created.

Most students will identify their weaknesses and be “up-front” to their parents about them. Some are quite hard on themselves but the writing of the script allows the teacher to gently point out any “discrepancies” before the recording stage.

The beauty of Photo Story 3 is that you can leave all the bells and whistle stuff (like the slide transitions) to the programme to do automatically. This means that students can concentrate on the content - the part that really matters. But it also allows you to do that bit yourself if you want to explore that part of digital story telling as well.

This was most definitely a success with many positive comments from parents. Nearly all the questions that parents came to the 3-way conference with were answered. It was such a positive way to start a 3-way conference even if it contained some not so positive work habits of a student!!

This is the second time I have used Photo Story 3 with my class for reporting to Parents. Each time in reflection there are things I’d do differently.

1. Revisit ALL the learning that had taken place over two terms in a big brainstorm BEFORE starting the project as most students only wrote about what we’d just been learning.
2. Reverse Steps 2 & 3. When the photos were taken first, the students wrote their scripts to the picture taken and we had to have a big class discussion about the difference between the “doing” and the “learning”.
3. Have students create own original music to add to background.

Would I use it again next year? Absolutely!

Waiting for this ……..

to start!

For those of you that haven’t yet indulged in a K12 online conference - it’s an absolute must!

And it’s completely free!

Since there doesn’t seem to be any spare PD money for me to attend our local ICT conferences, this fabulous, timeless, powerhouse collection of top-notch presentations will most definitely ease the pain of not being able to attend NZ’s very own ULearn08 in Christchurch.

Did I mention it’s free?

Just look at the wicked keynote speaker line up!!
Stephen Heppell, Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Gardner Campbell, Chris Lehmann, Vicki Davis, and Julie Lindsay

You can attend in your pj’s if you want.  You can even download presentations and play them on your iPod nano if you want!

Oh, and did I mention that it’s free?

I quite enjoyed taking time out to create my very own Mr PicassoHead. Not that I overly-rate my abstract art skills!

This could be a new way to create an avatar, or explore the elements of abstract portraits without needing to be able to draw in the first place! (Excellent for “Mrs Can’t Draw’s - like me!)

There’s even a rather large gallery of inspiration to check out if you’re stuck!

Check out Mr PicassoHead here!

Now I’m off to play with MapME - another Simple Spark recommendation!

It made me smile so I hope it makes you smile too!

Imagine taking this kind of idea (everyone doing the same thing but in a different part of the world) and putting together a video as a collaborative online project!

Anyone interested?

But things are slowing returning to normal and though I’ve not been blogging very much, I’ve been reading an exceptional amount of blog posts.
Lately, many people have been playing around with wordle and their de.licio.us links.

Coolcatteacher (Vicki Davis) refers to it as  “seeing a lot about who I am”

I couldn’t resist seeing who I am …… via my de.licio.us tags!

Have you wordled your tags?

I love the simplicity of this idea to encourage and enthuse students about Reading. I think that anything that makes Reading fun is worth a try. SO, I’m going to give this a try with my 11 year old students - I just hope that they don’t think it’s too silly. If we just do it every so often I think that it might just work. I know that it would work brilliantly with younger students!

I’d be really keen to know if you try it and how it goes. I will blog about how it goes with my students when we’ve had a go.

The video itself is by Bill Farren. He’s an educator in the Dominican Republic blogging at Education for Well-being. His message is quite simple:

The purpose of education should be to create well-being.

• We should educate in way that places personal well-being at the center of all educational decision-making.
• We cannot achieve personal well-being without also simultaneously promoting economic well-being, social well-being, and
  environmental well-being.
• We must strive to understand the relationships between personal, economic, social and environmental well-being.

This got me thinking about how “green” the teaching and learning is in our school. I wonder how bored my students are with their learning and I worry that some of them will become the “dropouts” in the statistics that Farren mentions. As our school continues along its journey through the Inquiry Learning process, perhaps this is a chance to push for deeper “green” teaching and learning in our classrooms.

Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
Not often - sometimes I get email notifications if I’m particularly interested in a conversation. Now because of the 31-day Comment Challenge, I’m using coComment, (which I actually signed up for ages ago, but never got round to doing anything more with it ….) and right now I’m just watching how it works.

Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?
I read certain blogs religiously, then other blogs if I have time - so I tend to comment on the same blogs. I do, however, comment on a new blogger’s blog if someone in my twitter network says “new blogger - please support”
Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments My Self-Review

Stay on topic.
I definitely do this. Comments are short.

Contribute new information to the discussion.
Not something I do all the time and definitely an area I could improve in and want to improve as part of this challenge. As I said above, if someone’s already said what I’m thinking - I don’t usually leave a comment - unless it’s something I feel strongly about.

Don’t comment for the sake of commenting.
Not guilty - I’m too busy reading all the posts in my reader to do this one!!

Know when to comment and when to e-mail.
Yes, I agree with this one - and I appreciate those people who read my blog that know it too. (It’s kinda like the way I treat twitter - somethings are not necessary for every man and his dog to read ………. )

Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all.
I certainly do not know it all, not even close. My mother always told me to treat others as I would like to be treat and this definitely applies to what you put in writing too.

Make the tone of your message clear.
Since my comments are relatively short - (aka: lacking substance …….. ) my message is usually one of encouragement or agreement.

Own your comment.
Always. I have never made an anonymous comment - again, something my very wise mother taught me - “if you’re going to say it - own it”

Be succinct.
Short comments usually are! I will keep this in mind though, as I begin to work on improving the substance of my comments.

Cite your sources with links or inline quoting.
Already a habit - comes from all those B.Ed assignments I think!!

Be courteous.
Thanks Mum, another thing you’ve already taught me well.

Don’t post when you’re angry, upset, drunk or emotional.
Never done this ….. especially the drunk one - I can’t read when I’ve drunk too much! Plus I don’t think I’ve ever been that incensed at a blog post ……. yet ………

Do not feed or tease the trolls.
I watched a couple of conversations when this happens - and I don’t like it.

This Self-Audit has definitely highlighted a couple of areas for me. The lack of substance to my comments was something that I was aware of already, but didn’t quite know how to move beyond it. I’m hoping that, by taking part in this 31-day comment challenge, this area in particular will improve.

I’m also looking forward to reading some new blogs and taking on the challenge of keeping to Gina’s guide to blog commenting.
And if you are part of The Comment Challenge remember to add the ” comment08 ” tag to your post.

Now, as I reflect on why I struggled with the very age group I love teaching, I try to imagine how interested my students in New Zealand would be with a native Spanish speaker who spoke very little English and arrived in front of their class to speak in Español.  As I do that, I begin to understand – but just a little.   As an 11 or 12 year old, having a very limited amount of Spanish, I would struggle to understand what the visitor was saying, let alone be able to put together questions to ask them.  It would be hard to concentrate for a long time when the words spoken do not make very much sense – (as it is for me when the people around me are speaking very fast in Spanish). BUT is there no value, importance or interest to this age level, for a chance to speak to a native English speaker and find out first hand about another country?  Are they not far enough along their own English learning journey to relish the chance to converse with someone who speaks English as a first language?  Are they not stakeholders in the conversation?  Or is it purely the age? 

No matter what the answer/answers, as a teacher, I would be very embarrassed if my students called out or shouted at the visitor all at once, or began to chatter away while the visitor was answering someone’s question.  No matter what language you speak, manners, consideration and simple politeness can considerably decrease the divide the lack of language causes in communication – don’t you think?  And then I read this ………… http://educatingthedragon.edublogs.org/2008/04/08/the-great-unspoken/ 

How embarrassed and disappointed I feel.  I don´t know what to say. Your thoughts and/or comments would be appreciated.

Since I have not taught in any other areas apart from Napier, I can not compare Paraná schools to anything but my own school and those that I have been lucky enough to teach or relieve in. 

My own students back at TIS do not realise just how lucky they are with what is available in their own classroom.  I don´t think the teachers of my school or other New Zealand schools realise how lucky we are with the many resources that are provided for us in our schools.   

I am so grateful for the school that I work in.  I am so grateful for the resources that I have.  I am so grateful for the technology that I have access to and I am so grateful for the opportunity to experience life in another country to make me realise just how grateful I am. When I return to my own school and classroom I will be reminding myself each day to take advantage of each and every opportunity I am presented with, to make the most of what I have and to forget about what I do not have.  I now have a far better understanding of what I take for granted and what others do not have access to. 

I think the pictures speak for themselves.