ConnectED 2017 @ Southwell School

Nathan Mikaere Wallis
Photo sourced from www.stuff.co.nz

Every year the ConnectED group of Hamilton schools hold a one day conference open to teachers in Hamilton and beyond.  This year I was very excited to find out Nathan Mikaere Wallis would be the key speaker at the beginning of the day and (for a little bit extra) you could attend a workshop with Nathan.  So I made my booking and paid that bit extra to glean more from Nathan.

I arrived just in time for the start of Nathan's keynote - I was somewhat delayed by feeding hay out to cows and jellymeat to a shed full of cats and I decided not to turn up smelling like a bale of hay... or jellymeat.

Teacher Portfolios on Blogger

First of all though I am going to reflect on the workshop I had with Allanah King on Teacher Portfolios/Inquiries.  This has really exploded over the last few years, with teachers needing to show how they met the RTCs which became the PTCs and are now being changed into something else yet again!  But what I really gleaned from Allanah was her Bling Blog that will now be the place I shall go to do something in Blogger that I didn't already know I could do.

At bling4yrblog, Allanah starts with the basic of how to set up a blogger account and then goes on to explain such things and more, as:

• putting up a post with a photo
• changing the layout of the blog
• labels
• adding comments to your side bar
• adding a YouTube video
• embedding a Google Doc
• blogging with your iPad

And that is just a small taster.  So I recommend you visit this blog if you are new to blogging and want to blog with your class and/or do your portfolio in Blogger.


One thing I would recommend, is start your portfolio with your own personal GMail account so you own it.  It becomes complicated if you start it with a school account and leave - sometimes moving it to your own account is not as easy as it sounds.  It also means that you have control over who sees your blog.  You have to specifically share your blog with your appraiser and colleagues you feel should see it.  Mine is private and can not come up in Google searches.  I give the link to the people I want to have it.


Nathan Mikaere Wallis

Nathan is a bit of an expert on the brain and how it develops.  Nathan would be a person who probably didn't have the most conventional pathway into what he now does.  He calls himself an outlier in a family of shearers and labourers, the kid with ADHD who broke all the rules.

One minute he is freaking out parents in the audience with how they have damaged their little darlings and the next he is speaking about the other things they are doing that counter balance said damage and make them ok.


Below is my Storify of the event with notes put in to speak to the Tweets produced from the keynote and the workshops throughout the day.

Networking

Over morning tea, lunch and the chill out session at the end of the day it was lovely to catch up with teachers I have met at other conferences (ULearn, educamps, eduignites, #edchatNZ conference, ConnectED) and through Twitter, NZEI, relieving and from schools I have worked in.  I also met some new people and learned about some new recreational activities from other people.


That networking is so positive and uplifting and allows one to share the learning of the day and how you will carry it forward with you in future days.


And then it was time to go home to feed out the haylage to the cows and feed a shed full of cats.... and a new calf!  This is Little Bub with his mum, Petal.

Mike Scaddan - Making Magic Memories

The last time I saw Mike Scaddan speak was when I was a 'baby' teacher.  The local Principals' Association organised for Mike to come and speak to the teachers in our district, and I thought he was magic.  So I was excited to see that Mike was one of the breakout presenters at ULearn12.

Breakout #3:

Teachers are magic.

There is something I don't know that I am supposed to know. I don't know what it is I don't know and yet am supposed to know, and I feel I look stupid if I seem both not to know it and not know what it is I don't know. Therefore, I pretend I know it.

   

This is nerve-racking since I don't know what I must pretend to know. Therefore I pretend to know everything.

 

 

I feel you know what I'm supposed to know but you can't tell me what it is because you don't know

that I don't know what it is.

 

 

You may know what I don't know, but not that I don't know it, and I can't tell you. So you will have to tell me

 

 everything.

 

   

R. D. Laing

There are three reasons to question:

• want to know
• someone else has the same question and is waiting for someone to ask it
• good for the presenter, so they know what you want to know

Everything is memory

Without reviews, memories are misshapen or destroyed.
As a result, learning has to start from new foundations everyday.

Sensory input:
Experience & environment
Repetition or strong emotion
Sense and meaning

Senses will be activated by an experience and it will go through filters.  If it gets through immediate memory, gets through working memory, gets through emotional & repetition and sense and meaning, then you have it - a memory.

The order we learn from birth:

• Olfactory  -  smell
• Gustatory -  taste
• Kinaesthetic  - movement  (especially the male - they need to fiddle, touch, move do.  The male right side brain is 15% bigger than the left side of the brain - it is the movement side of the brain;  the female left side brain is 15% bigger than the right side of the brain - this is the language centre of the brain).
• Tactile - touch
• Visual  -  for girls about 6, boys about 8
• Auditory  -  happens about puberty

Memory - strongest to weakest:

• Emotional  -  aisles in your memory
• Procedural - Body language e.g. to ride a bike, to type.
• Episodic  -  what happened in order
• Conditioned Reflex  -  if I said cup, you'd say saucer
• Semantic - content without context  (last by a long way)

Locational memory - kids doing maths on the mat, then they go back to desks with worksheets and become less accurate.

Kids who forget what you said - say:  where were you when I said it?  Get them to go to that location.... hopefully they will then remember.  -  the auditory kid.

Boys have to have rules, who is in charge, will they be applied fairly - then how can they break them?

Repetition is so important - talk about it, do it, explain it, show it - each time repeating the same content.

Everybodies brain is different.  A child's brain is different to a adult's brain, a teenager's brain in different again, an elderly person's brain is different again.

Boys are born with 50% of the hearing of girls.  They don't hear all the tones that females use, don't read the faces of the girls.  Boys need it straight and direct.

Multiple Intelligences is output.

How would you structure reviews?

• Lego reviews:  each child answers a question, gets a piece of lego; each group uses their lego to build a tower.  Good for factual review or key words.  One team member with teacher at a time.  Upbeat music good.
• March reviews:  put the skills to a march-repeat song.  Mollenburg March (the bread ad).  One tune, one review - or else it get mashed up.
• Interviews:  in partners they interview each other about the lession.
• Old McDonald review
• Visual reviews:  Smartboard, graphic organisers, pictures, mindmaps.
• Kinaesthetic reviews:  moving along a line from one end to another to state if you agree or disagree with a statement.  Frisbee throw: catch and answer - dial a friend if struggling.  Knots in a string for identifying things in order and then telling a friend what each knot was.  What grabbed you:  alligator clip on finger, add alligator clips for the other things that grabbed you.  Dice: six things to talk about on board.  Child rolls the dice and they talk about the thing of the number they roll.
• If you didn't do a review, why bother teaching the lesson?

Fish clap!!  This is so cool!!!  With a partner, stretch your arms towards each other and gently press together.  Now 'clap' your hand against your partner's arm.

If I lift the bar children will grow.

Three things that I will take away from this session are:

• More physical movement
• Using the reviews
• Repetition