Too busy to blog

It has been a long time since I have blogged on here. I have been working with lots of people and some of the work has been consolidating what we started and can be read on previous posts. Lately my visits have become different. The teachers I am working with are beginning our one-on-one sessions. Before I have even opened my laptop they are talking about what they have done and can I fix this problem or saying "I have a list for you..."Teachers are really directing the sessions.

There is some really fantastic and innovative thinking and work happening. I am really looking forward to the mini-conference where people will present their action research and show their work from this year. Dave and I worried that we would have to beg people to present at the mini-conference, we might need to do a bit of pleading but plenty of teachers have contact us immediately and are happy to present which is encouraging.

One thing that is very noticeable, when I have asked people to share at the conference, is their first reaction- that their work is not as good as others and it probably would be of no interest to anyone else. I think this is just a natural reaction. I have been challenging people to see that everyone has completed a different project and have approached it in unique ways. That is of interest to people. Some people have had amazing growth and change over the year but feel that as they started as one teacher described "as a blank canvas" they can not do all of the whizzy things that others can do.

I think that it is very important for these people to present. For two reasons:
They are fantastic reminders of the change that has happened, and change is sometimes so gradual we do not notice it ourselves or in others.
And it is important that everyone in our cluster sees themselves in some of the presenters.

One of the teachers I spoke with last week felt that technology did not come naturally to her and it has been such a frustrating, but in the end rewarding, process. She thought her work was perhaps not a very good example of action research because she hated it so much to begin with and she probably did it wrong. I think her voice is the most valuable for people that felt the same. We had a fantastic conversation about learning and challenge and getting the right balance between the two. She explained how she avoided difficult things at the beginning of her ICT journey because she was worried that things might go wrong. Now she looks for things she can't do and is confident that she will be able to work them out eventually.

She was so pleased with the outcomes of her action research and all that she had learnt from it. Until we looked through the results and had this discussion she said she would have said the process was largely a waste of time. It wasn't until it was finished and she could see the whole thing come together and reflect on it, she realised what she had achieved.

I think the best is yet to come for her. She has largely been working away on this without many people realising what she has been doing. If she does present at the mini conference I think the feedback she gets from other teachers will take her thinking to another level.

Can I enhance communication and learning in a network of learners?

Last year I was lucky enough to be one of the Lead Teachers in the Otepoti ICT Cluster. I learnt so much during the year about enhancing teaching and learning with ICT. Mostly I learnt from working with the other Lead Teachers, the facilitator and the teachers at my school.

All of the Lead Teachers chose some aspect in our practice to focus on for the year, it was not about choosing an ICT skill and then changing our programme to fit additional learning in.
It was to ask the question, "What could help me to enhance what I am already doing in this area?".
Sometimes I only had a question, I had ideas about what I would like to do but didn't know how to do the things I wanted to do. That was where all of the wonderful people involved in our cluster came in. It seemed as though just as I was struggling with something or whenever I was in conversations with others, answers to my problems or questions could be found within the skills and knowledge of other people around me. You don't know what you don't know, thankfully other people do.

Now that I have a new opportunity to learn even more from the growing number of people I am working with, it occurred to me that I will be doing the most learning. This didn't seem fair and I thought there must be a way I can share this learning.
"Can I enhance communication and learning in a network of teachers?" could be my action research for 2009.
Having seen how effectively some of our amazing Lead Teachers used blogs to communicate learning with their classrooms I thought perhaps a blog would be a good way for all of the teachers in our cluster to see what each other are doing and learning in their classrooms. A blog can be used when it suits them and so that they can access what they are interested in by searching the blog.
Hopefully the blog will become a place where I can share and record all of the fantastic things I am seeing in our cluster and bring them to teachers in a way which is time efficient for them.
2009 the year of the blog.