Update for Term 4

Where has the term gone? I just had my last official VC with my accounting students today. It only seemed like a few months ago that I first met with them.

This term has been really busy with lots of school visits. Where have I been:
DARGAVILLE - 30th October - Week 2 - Met David Bargh and Angela Troath at Dargaville High School. I enjoyed the discussion I had with David, 2 hours and then with Angela about the future of FarNet. They are both really enthusiastic and especially enthusuastic about the TAL Programme. (Tech Angel Leadership Programme). They have suggested that their Head Boy for next year work with the students as a mentor, so very encouraging. David was also very interested to hear about the Web 2.0 tools and how I could work with his staff to integrate some of these wonderful tools into their F2F classrooms.

NORTHLAND COLLEGE - I am probably at NC once a week, mainly because I have been working online with their Year 10 Bilungual Class - 10 Tahi as part of my university study. I have been doing some F2F lessons with them. I also have two accounting students from NC in my online class, so I have been trying to push through the work required for preparation for external exams.

OPONONI AREA SCHOOL - I visited Tiere and her new DP - Natasha Sadler just this week. Whilst they are facing some other challenges at the moment, they are both enthusiastic about the TAL programme and integrating some web 2.0 tools in their F2F classes. Natasha has a wealth of knowledge around Te Reo Maori, having come from NZQA, so I am hoping that we can utilise her expertise and experience amongst our teachers in the Far North.

SOME OF THE THINGS I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON:
Study - I am almost at the end of my journey this semester with the two online papers I have been doing through Canterbury University. I can't say that I am happy it has come to an end because it has been the best PD I have ever done around online learning. I have experienced a huge shift in my pedagogical thinking around elearning as a result, and have some ideas I want to share with some of my colleagues about a different model of delivering elearning. For a start, I no longer support the idea of an hour of VC teaching a week, but rather 4 hours of online learning for students with the use of VC, Skype, Adobe Connect to offer support in the form of a tutorial to students. We need to ensure that our online environment is robust and engaging, interactive and student centred and not just a repository portal for us to dump our work for students to look at if they have missed a class. I am thinking about approaching CAM to discuss how we could utilise some of our very experienced and talented e-educators to support our eteachers in their online environments. - GOSH - I hope that I do pass both these papers after all the work I have done.