dragonsinger - learning, unlearning & relearning » school

Time Lapse Fun

dragonsinger — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:40:22 +0000

Last week I tried my hand at some time lapse photography in my classroom. I did a little research (thanks to the sister of a colleague who attended Learning@School this year) and discovered some Mac software called gawker which runs on your computer taking photographs at whatever interval you specify. I showed my students how it worked then set my laptop up to run during 3 different blocks of time during the day: literacy time; maths time & lunch time (which was very interesting to watch). I’d like to get a whole day but that would mean a little more thought as I’d need to reposition things for power supply etc.

So here we go – a glimpse of Room 9 on St Paddy’s Day.

Digital Art

dragonsinger — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:32:28 +0000

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:

Juniors Can Do IT – Updated – By Rachel Boyd

View more presentations from Rachel Boyd.

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

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).

End of year posts

dragonsinger — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:00:27 +0000

I’ve just made a final post to my class blog – next year I’m in a new classroom with a new number and and year level. The new teacher who will be in the new Room 10 probably won’t be taking over the blog – although she’ll take over the Room 10 wiki later in the year.

In the mean time I’ve created a new class wikiand class blog. Next years students are going to be using edublogs for their ePortfolios so I’ve changed the class blog to Blogger.

Saying goodbye to Room 10 hasn’t been as painful as I thought it would be.

They say a change is as good as a holiday …

dragonsinger — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:54:41 +0000

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):

Learning is about taking a risk

Learning is about flying high

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.