Group+Hugs

This is a 'skite' site. A place for us to acknowledge effort and excellence and //comment// when we happen to notice our colleagues doing something special to promote effective teaching and learning.
Wasn't it fantastic to see the wonderful job that the teachers are doing with the wonderful learners at Pekerau! It was great to see all the learning that is going on and the amount of hard work that the teachers are putting into providing learning experiences for children that are providing them so much. Keep it up guys!
 * Well Done Pekerau**

One of the things that we need to do is to acknowledge the good things that all of us teachers do every day. It is all too easy to point out the omissions or mistakes that we make among the multitude of decisions taken on a daily basis. This means that we have to "hunt the value" in our colleagues work, not wait for someone to come to us! For instance Sarah and Claire discovered that I had been given the after-school games hockey games to organise and said, "Oh we'll do that!" and took the job off me. Great stuff you two. Do it again. Ruary Laidlaw, St. Pats, 21st April
 * Post term 1 stress **

Great opportunity to take some time to focus on personal techie goals and practical issues with collegial support. Ruary (St Pats) worked on Digiblue Videos taken that day during their senior syndicate stream trip - got heaps done. Clare (TAC) developed a wikispace with links and directed teaching for her fledgling Spanish class. Jackie (TAC) sourced and built up links for the English department nested wikis. Ginny, Anne and Sam (Pekerau) explored available resources and worked on their individual class sites. All in all - a lot of work done and great to be able to talk and share with each other. Thanks to all for your efforts - Home baking promised for the next session (3 April - same place, same time). :-D
 * Donna's Drop in Sessions (College Centre of Excellence lab - 3.30 - 4.30pm )**

Wow, anyone recall all that whining I've been doing about celebrating your progress and achievements using short videos and/or slideshows ??? Well, Pekerau have come through with a slideshow from each syndicate area, celebrating some of the work they've been doing with students. The whole team deserve to be proud of their efforts! This work has been shared with the BOT and parents to help inform the wider community of the work happening in our schools. Change ain't easy, but these guys think it's been well worth the trials and tribulations. Awesome. Can't wait to see what's coming ! :-D
 * Video/Photo Records**

Here's an example of some social action as the result of an inquiry. Ginny's Year 3/4 class have been investigating options for eliminating problems around an open drain at the back of the school. They went right to the top. **[|Link to Courier article.] (Page 7, Thurs. 15th Nov.)**
 * Way to go Room 4 (Pekerau)**

A few weeks ago we had two teachers from Pekerau School come to our staff meeting here at TAPS and talk to us about how they are using their class wikispaces. Ginny and Joanne were open, honest and so very willing to help us build our own spaces. It is just the beginning of some great opportuntities for cross cluster collaboration. They helped us get going and did not try to gloss over the time and effort that is required to make and keep these sites updated. As a result we were left with a true representation of how wikis can work within a classroom and how they can work to improve the links between home and school. A BIG hug from us to Ginny and Joanne(1st yr teacher!!!).
 * T/A Primary PD Collaboration**

What a great bunch of First Year teachers we have at Pekerau. Nicky, Jo, Christine, and Anne are doing a fabulous job and we are so lucky to have 4 such dedicated and professional teachers on our team. Because of Christine and Nicky we are going to have the fittest group of Year 5 and 6 children thanks to their Lunchtime Running Club. Jo is leading the way with her Wikispace for Year 2 and Anne's creativity is showing through in her exciting classroom displays (have a closer look at that awesome '5' on her door)! -The Group Hug Co-ordinator
 * First Year Teachers @ Pekerau**

I've just got to congratulate all those committed educators that are beginning to explore the possibilities inherent in using our wiki sites and supporting the development of our Community Learning Network. We're all really interested in how our colleagues use these vehicles (Wiki's an Blogs etc) to support learning, provide necessary information and develop community links etc. In particular, over the past couple of weeks ; - Yeehaa - Donna :-D
 * Wikid Stuff**
 * Les T (Year 9-12 College)** - for his work in establishing a site for the **College Agriculture Academy**. Les quickly built the framework for the content and has provided much needed faculty information for parents and the wider community. He has plans to add relevant photo's, continued class material for revision and supportive learning links. Brilliant. Keep an eye on this developing space.
 * Miriam M** **(Year 1/2 Kihikihi) -** Ok, who said we can't use online environments effectively to support learning with our 5/6 year olds ??? Not Miriam, obviously. She's using **room 8's class wiki** to post the kid's daily news writing (sits her laptop on her knee and the kid's take daily turns to summarise the class news). These little ones can show their parents their work - almost AS THEY DO IT. Miriam tries to get examples up there daily ... records voice and songs (podcast), makes movies, scans in work, takes photos (yes chn can do this). What a brilliant way to share our learning intentions with parents, and demonstrate the activities their child is participating in. Isn't this what it's all about - no more delayed information, no more closed-classroom doors? Mum and Dad can access instant information and involve themselves in their child's development from home and work. Welcome to the 21 st Century.

Today I had the priviledge of working with the **Home Economics faculty** @ TAC. What a fantastic team - Maree, Pam, Tracey, Pauline and Narelle (student teacher). Working in shifts throughout the day (between classes) this team designed, built and modified a collection of nested wikis to address their faculty needs for an online learning environment (in spare moments one team also created some new resources, to support directed-learning ). The skeleton for this supportive learning environment is now established and it will be interesting to observe how they choose to further develop it. Their goals as a faculty are to use online learning environments ; 1. To provide 24/7 directed teaching access to students - to support their class programmes, at each year level 2. To provide immediate, relevant and supportive programme information to parents and caregivers - to encourage a more effective home/school learning link. Donna :-D
 * College Home Economics**
 * DID YOU KNOW** - this faculty delivers programmes for Food Technology, Hospitality, Soft Materials Technology, Wearable Art, Flatting Skills, Childcare and ...Home Economics. Wow ! It would be well worth organising some collegial visits here to explore possibilities for collaborative, interschool projects and the sharing of curriculum expertise. Why not give Maree a call.

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