I am not an artist – at least I’m not a graphic artist (although I am a musician!). Sometimes as a teacher it’s hard to inspire your students in an area you are personally weak in – like art for me. How is it then that we are currently completing our 3rd major piece of art in 7 weeks? (Given my reputation for lack of art work – in previous years I’ve used the excellent art ability of my CRT teacher to produce art work!)

The answer is a session I attended at Ulearn09 presented by my friend Rachel Boyd. I really attended it in order to pick up some information to share back with our junior teachers but I’ve ended up using the ideas for my classroom. Her session was called “Juniors can do IT” – and if you get a chance to attend one of her workshops you must because it really should be STUDENTS can do IT (and teachers for that matter). I’ve embedded one version of her slideshow below:

Our first piece of art is demonstrated in slide #21 – photo symmetry. Here’s our result:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by dragonsinger

The second piece of art was a kind of blue screening effect (slide #22) where the students sketched a picture with them in it; then a buddy took a photo of them in the correct pose for the picture; printed the picture and cut themselves out; drew the background and stuck themselves into the picture. Here’s our results:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by dragonsinger

cc licensed flickr photo shared by dragonsinger

The third piece (and not all finished) was a take on Andy Warhol style pop art (slide #23). We did two versions – using 4 colours for each set of 4 pictures. Instead of paint or dye we used pastels or coloured pencils for our pictures. Some of the colour choices were quite inspired.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by dragonsinger

The best thing about art work like this is it draws on my strengths (technology) and incorporates creativity. Thanks to Rachel I’m exploring new avenues of expression (as is my class).

One of the huge benefits of eLearning is providing authentic contexts for students to work in.

This year, for the first time, I have students clamoring to share their mihi with others. Sometimes the Te Reo we learn becomes a rote kind of thing, especially if we’re not visiting a marae any time soon. This means that learning their mihi becomes just another thing to do.

So why the difference this year?

I had spoken with my friend Myles @ Melville Intermediate, Hamilton via Twitter and arranged to skype with a class at his school to share our mihi. Another friend, Claire, from a school in Dunedin got in on the act too. (We skype with them this week.) Suddenly there was an authentic reason to learn their mihi.

We used our school’s learning journey as the basis of our mihi and did lots of practise. My Maori students also were able to find out which iwi they belonged to with one discovering that she was a descendant of Te Rauparaha and then discovering that she and another student shared a connection with the Tainui waka. That was very exciting especially as we live in the area that Te Rauparaha lived. (Our mihi relates to Kapiti Island which was Te Rauparaha’s tribal stronghold.)

As our skype appointment drew close I asked for volunteers to share their mihi with the Hamilton class. Nearly 1/2 the students wanted to share so I had to divide them into two groups one for sharing with each school. Our skype session was fantastic and all those who shared are very proud of themselves.

Luke sharing his mihi (in the corner) with Melville students watching

We finished with a waiata – Ka Mate – appropriately written by Te Rauparaha! I used my RearSight gadget to quickly change the webcam view from front to back so the whole class could be seen while they sang/danced the waiata.

you can just see the RearSight attached to the macbook lid

We hope to skype with St Clair’s School in Dunedin this week and all those who shared last week want to share again along with those scheduled to share.

One side effect that I’ve noticed is that the students pronunciation has improved rapidly over the last couple of weeks – knowing you have an audience that’s not just your class really raises the standard for students (and teachers).

I’m not really sure who they are but I suspect they are sort of right.

I guess it depends on what we do with the change or even how we approach it but if we do it right it’s great.

The change for me is moving into a new classroom (ex-library) and up a level – from teaching Year 3&4 (Grade 2&3) to Year 5 (Grade 4). Our “middle” part of the school will have 3 vertical teams each with 4 classes and each class teaching a separate year level – Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 & Year 6. It’s the first time we’ve done something like this at our school but I think it’s exciting.

Because we are a full primary school (Y0-Y8) our Year 6 students are in a bit of a limbo – other primary schools that only go to Year 6 have leadership roles which the Year 5&6 students take up – but in our school those roles are given to the Year 7&8 students. By having vertical teams we should (theoretically) be able to see some of our Year 5/6 students being given opportunities to show leadership within our teams.

I was initially apprehensive of moving up to Year 5 – my previous experience teaching in that level wasn’t so great – but it was in our old format and I was job-sharing and once I realised that it was going to be different then I began to be quite excited by the prospect. Although I will only have 3 students moving with me (the rest being shared out among the other Year 4 & 5 classes) I will still have a core who’ve been through our fantastic year and who’ve done much of the eLearning experimenting/experiencing with me (including my fantastic student who featured in my Ulearn09 presentation). These 3 students will be my ‘experts’ for the first term.

My new classroom is going to be fantastic – we move in on Monday and when we visited the empty library today the kids started planning out where desks and “learning space” (not my term!) could be. We’ll have a week and a half in there before we break for our summer holidays. I shot a short video of the library before the books were packed; after they were packed and the shelves moved; I’ll shoot one on the weekend when my son and I move some of the gear over and then another short one with the desks and kids in there. Then I’ll merge them all and post here.

I’m looking forward to next year – it’s going to be another exciting, fast moving, thrilling eLearning journey for me and my class.

And my motto for next year?

I have two (which I am going to turn into posters for the classroom):

Both inspired by an old book (late 70’s publication) I have called “Skies Call 2″ full of skydiving photos taken by Andy Keech that has some truly spectacular photo shots. (The one below features on the cover of the book.)

My class will be the Room Nine High Divers. We’re going to dive into learning, take risks, enjoy new challenges and soar to new heights.