Conferences

Strong common messages coming through the Keynote addresses were that of collaboration and sharing of resources and skills. Andy Hargreaves began by sharing the concept of “The Fourth Way” where schools work together to make all in education strong and the strong help the weak. He shared success stories from Finland and Tower Hamlets in England where they turned their education around by having an inspiring vision, ambitious targets, high quality teachers who work together for the good of all students and an atmosphere of trust, cooperation and responsibility. Interestingly in Tower Hamlets (a very poor area) they also brought in extra non teaching staff to relieve teachers of the paper work so that teachers could concentrate on teaching! Thus there is a sense of aiming high but it is not for the sake of competitiveness between schools. As Andy says, the level of competition should not be between schools which results in a win-lose situation but should be a friendly win-win rivalry of collaboration.
 * // Learning@School Conference //**
 * // Rotorua 25 – 27 February 2009 //**
 * // Summary of Keynote Addresses //**

Jamie McKenzie’s early morning address reminded us that we need to put as much PD into supporting teachers with managing the ICT resources, as we do with providing them. He reminded us that smart teachers have a wide spectrum of teaching processes and should select the best ICTs to support their teaching. But for this to be effective they must know how best to manage the resources. He says he has yet to find a school in which ICT has been fully funded in the most effective way. Of course we never get to hear of the failure of any ICT resource initiatives as only success is ever reported. We would learn most if we shared our struggles and difficulties.

Pam Hook shared her knowledge of teaching and learning in an engaging and humorous way. She posed the question: How can it be that in schools where there is so much compulsory learning, we have so many students who leave school having done so little learning. She then discussed SOLO taxonomy. The final keynote address by Wes Fryer reminded us how connected we all are. During this keynote, Allanah King had Skyped a colleague in Singapore so that they could listen in to his address – that’s how connected we have become. He shared stories of how creative teachers find ways to connect themselves with expertise all over the world and connect their students. We watched a fascinating video clip of a teacher in America, Brian Crosby, who brought his student who was housebound due to cancer treatment, into his classroom via Skype. So he successfully ended the conference with the same message at the beginning – that we are all connected and so should work collaboratively in the best interests of ALL students.

**Breakout Sessions**

I attended "Social Projects - Leadership" by Steven Doyle.
 * Breakout 1 **

I attended "A case of the Blues - Screening now (Mac) by David Young, Jane Nicholls and Disa McLean. I found this workshop very interesting and useful as it was a hands on experience. I already knew how to do bluescreening with still images but this taught me how to do it with video footage. One can take the video footage with the digital camera. It is a presentation tool for children and can be used for them to explain phenomenon in a picture. Simply put the process is as follows: 1. Draw a background in //Seashore // (a free downladable programme which allows you to create layered pictures) or in Kidpix.  2. Save the background picture as a jpeg on the desktop.  3. Video yourself or something moving using the video function on the digital camera and save it onto the desktop.  <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">4. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Open iMovie -> photos. Drag the picture down (opened by movie clip icon). <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">5. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">On the moving image click editing and Video fx. Scroll down to blue screen smooth. Move outside fill, inside fill tille the background shines through <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">6. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Under Media Show photo settings lengthen the background time to be there for as long as the moving video runs. <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">By Helen Henkin <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 2 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 3 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> I attended "Connected, Confident or just plain Confused" by Martin Hughes I really enjoyed this worklshop as it gave me the opportunity to reflect on my teaching practice and my philosophy of teaching. //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">"The illiterate of teh 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">(Alvin Toffler) We need vision, skills, incentives, resources and an action plan. //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">"Catholicism is beautifully aligned with teaching - we continuously feel guilty about not doing things well enough'" //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> (Martin Hughes) Students need to be able to locate, evaluate and use information to create new knowledge and skills. The "Learning to Learn" model: <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">1. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Decide and locate - stimulus, vocabulary, questioning, searching <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">2. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Read and write - skimming and scanning, deep reading, critical thinking, collaboration, main ideas, co-construction, synthesis <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ; msolist: Ignore;">3. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Present and evaluate - collaboration, co-construction, self and peer reflection, modification, delivery techniques <span style="color: #009900; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">By doing this we are covering the key Competencies. <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[|http://www.tkhs.knowledge.net.nz] Learning also needs to become a habit.

Find a video on YouTube and click on the spinning traingular positioned circles and save it in a folder to use and then you need a falshvideo player to paly it. <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[]

By Helen Henkin

I attended "OSX Leopard - Making the big cat purr!!!" by Stuart Hale I attende this workshop because I thought it would help me understand how to use our school Macs better - it was very technical and a lot of the first part of the workshop probably wouldn't ever be used by me. I found it interesting though when he explained how we could free more disk space by eliminating all languages except English. I learnt how to repair permission and must check with Edtech at school if we need to do this (maybe they do it any way).
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 4 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">

How to fix permissions: Macintosh HD ->Application->Untilities->Disk Utility->click on top hard drive and click repair permissions.

Apple manuals -> <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[]

Go into Kidpix -> right click text and click on Alex to get the best voice.

Maori macrons ->apple icon->System Preferences->International->tick Show input menu bar and scroll down to tick Maori and Australian flag comes up and cliack on it and click on Maori (hold [option] key down when you type to put macron on letters

Stuart explained how the Time Machine works. He then explained how the icon with the 4 blocks sets your computer up into a number of screens.

If you want Word Art - open Comic Life and use Word to create it and then copy (Control c) and paste (Cpontrol v).

By Helen Henkin

I attended "Sustaining the Momentum: Life During and after the ICT PD Contract" by Fiona Grant and Stephen Gordon. I really enjoyed this breakout as I am concerned about the sustainability issues of our Cluster once the Contract is completed. Fiona Grant helped us to write the proposal that won us the Contract and so I was interested to see how she had worked in this cluster. The ideas shared during this session gave me ideas on how to collect data for our Milestone Reports. I need to create a timetable for adding to the Cluster website and for collecting of data for the report. Shared Principal and Lead Teacher Meetings are also a good idea. It was very interesting hearing how another cluster had coped. <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://centralnorthshore.wikispaces.com/ http://snsgate.wikispaces.com http://snsictpd.wikispaces.com
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 5 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">

By Helen Henkin

I attended "Enhancing Individualised Learning via online collaboration using a LMS" by Sandy Crump. I found this to be the least useful of all the breakouts I attended as I spent most of the session trying to work out how the presentation fitted the title. Another teacher sitting next to me was equally as confused and she asked me if we were perhaps in the wrong room. So I really did not get much from this workshop at all.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 6 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">

By Helen Henkin

I attended "How do we do it?" by Allanah King. This proved to be a fantastic way to end the Breakout sessions for the Conference. Not only is Allanah a very entertaining presenter but I learnt heaps about online communication tools to enhance my teaching. She showed us how to set up blogs and how she uses them in her teaching. Although I knew how to use Skype, she showed us how she enhances her teaching with this and we spoke to a teacher in America. I was introduced to Voicethread (which I had only heard about in passing before this). She explained what Twitter was. I really enjoyed this session. <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[|http://www.allanahk.edublogs.org]
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Breakout 7 **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">

By Helen Henkin