Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Holidays = Resource-making-days

After an incredibly busy last few weeks of term, we are finally on holiday! and of course, I have time to update.

In our final team meeting I was able to introduce Hapara to my team, showing them a few basics such as changing student passwords and uploading mass documents to student drives. I am excited for more people to be coming on board in using the wonder that is the teacher dashboard! I have even set up a shared folder in Google Drive with my colleagues, where I am putting all the activities and resources I make or collect, in the hopes that they too will begin adding in their own. I have big dreams of a never ending resource folder full of collaboration and innovative new ideas for the classroom :)

Back in the class, being one to one is going well. In the last week of term we had our parent/teacher interviews. I was somewhat apprehensive about the questions I was going to get from parents and how on earth I was going to answer them. Luckily, I quickly came to the realisation that the parents were thrilled that their child had been given the chance to take the step towards being a fully digital classroom. I was able to share the work they have done so far, the processes we follow when completing work, as well as how easy it is for parents to now view their child's work and the feedback given to them by their teacher on a regular basis. Overall the response was fantastic, and completely solidified my belief that this is - truly - an awesome opportunity for all involved.

As mentioned in previous entries, reading and writing is pretty much up and running with only a few kinks that need smoothing over. However, I am still pondering my next steps for Maths. I have several meetings lined up over the break with people I know who are already using devices in their math programs for more than just online games or activities. I hope to have collected a range of advice and resources by the time term 3 rolls around. This means the majority of my break is going to be spent creating, collecting and researching - but I'm okay with that! In fact, I'm quite enjoying it :)