Grants+Braes+Milestone+3



Milestone Report 5.09.07

Name of School: Grant’s Braes School Name of lead teacher: Kay Masters

Milestone Report 3 Facilitator Meetings: 29.08.07 - proposed meeting with the facilitators at school reviewing protopages and wikis with Graeme and discussing milestone reporting with Kay has been postponed due to factors beyond our control. We hope to hold this session after this milestone date. Keeping in touch via email when dates etc need to be changed has proved very effective. The facilitators are also very good at keeping information and reminders flowing out. The development of an ‘experts’ list among lead teachers will go a long way to overcoming the frustration/time lag between reaching a difficulty in using a particular web2.0 tool and the solution.

Lead Teacher Workshops: 14.06.07 – teaching and learning 27.06.07 – reflection and planning 26.07.07- thinking skills 15.08.07- inquiry learning 1
 * Enjoyed the opportunity to explore the web2.0 tools that have the potential to open up school/home communication more freely. There are issues that need to be addressed as a school – purpose, equal accessibility, safety, time management and the impact this has on the schools 3year ICT budget and development plan ( due for review later this year)
 * Good to see the use other Lead Teacher’s have been making of the web2.0 tools. There is still a lot to get a grip on as far as uploading photo’s and other items. This also needs to be in context with the school’s guidelines of privacy and cybersafety. A clear purpose/goal for the use of these spaces needs to be understood by the staff.
 * A good overview of the various graphic organisers available and ways to implement them in study session. I have tried to incorporate a different one of these in each of the staff development sessions taken this term. See http://grantstaff.wikispaces.com/ to see the results of these in the various sessions.
 * Developed with other staff a school policy regarding the use of web2.0 tools for classes and a letter for parents seeking their permission to use their children’s images etc in the web situation. When this has been approved by the BOT those teachers who have pages ready to ‘go’ will be able to make use of these web2.0 tools.
 * Didn’t attend as we had our initial PD and set up day with eTAP. Have followed the powerpoint on line from the cluster website. This gives a good scaffolding to the process of developing a unit using the Inquiry Learning model. It has helped me to refine the process I already use based on providing challenges from a Bloom’s planning sheet for activities.

Cluster Workshops: 7 out of the 8 staff have attended one of the session on the development of web2.0 tools and have been encouraged to continue exploring them. Several have now built either class wikis or protopages.

Staff Meetings: The staff decided to explore the Habits of Mind (thinking habits developed Arthur L. Costa, Ed. D. And Bena Kallick, Ph.D. for Term 3. To make is it easier to grasp the 16 habits I decided to use the SUCCESS model and focus on one group at each staff meeting. The power points used for each PD session are then posted on the grantstaff wikispace so that staff can have access to them at any time. Each session takes about 30 – 45 minutes. There are conversations among the staff about the various habits covered and from those who made their goal to introduce some into their class rooms there are anecdotal accounts of the children using the language and ideas appropriately. One staff session this term was used by the eTAP tutor to introduce the staff to this SMS. This will be the focus for staff professional development in T4 so that it will be ready for use in 2008, hopefully.

Personal Goals: I had misread the times for one Lead Teacher’s session and it was easy to check this by using the Otakou website calendar. Having missed one Lead Teacher session being able to work through the associated power point has kept me informed with the direction the project was heading in so that the required ‘homework’ can be done. I have begun a staff wikispace for keeping the staff up to date re PD session and to encourage them to use this tool. I chose the wikispace as the protopage was inconsistent in its operating. Some changes were almost instantaneous but others took a long time to process, sometimes not even completing the step. Wiki’s have their own issues – if people have the address they can view every page. This can be an issue when you are wanting people to share their ideas and experiences when they are often reluctant to do this in what they feel is a public area. There has been a lot of healthy interaction between the staff at school and being a smaller unit this is still a very efficient method. Developing the concept of the opportunity that a shared space provides for all to be involved and be heard (especially when used by a class), will be an ongoing concern of this project.
 * [[image:pic1.jpg]] || [[image:pic2.jpg]] || [[image:pic3.jpg]] ||
 * Display of Posters in Y6 class. || Habit for the Week included in thinking board area of a Junior room || Habit being focussed on in a Y4 &5 room. ||
 * [[image:pic4.jpg]] || [[image:pic5.jpg]] || Posters on display outside the Principal’s office on the way to the staff room ||
 * 1) To keep up to date with the calendar of events and use the Lead Teacher space to revisit workshop sessions:

As mentioned before the thinking tools introduced during a Lead Teachers’ workshop have been intentionally included in each staff PD session that I have run. So far they have included a Ychart, KWL chart and a Tchart. Some staff are already familiar with these and use them regularly in their class programmes. Most have reported back at the next staff meeting of how they have included one in their programme.


 * 1) School Management Goal (if applicable)

This was not appropriate at the time of setting goals for the term. However the opportunity to have the eTAP SMS set up for our school this term became available in July with the date set for mid-August. We took the opportunity to do the initial training. All staff have created a log on.

By leading the professional development session for the staff this term with these as the focus has definitely helped me to understand what these are. A component of the sessions has been to share ideas about how the habits could be included in the classroom. I have also become more conscious of times when someone (adult, child or self) is using one of the habits or should have used one. It is this awareness that will affect my planning for next term to deliberately incorporate activities that encourage the use of certain habits (co-operation, persistence, managing impulsivity) in units of work.
 * 1) To become know what are the 16 Habits of Mind and be able to incorporate them in my classroom in term 4

Summarise.

There have been many positive outcomes from the last few months work with the contract :–
 * Teachers taking up web2.0 tools in varying degrees but all being prepared to give it a go with varying degrees of success.
 * The staff focus on the Habits of Mind and the sharing of the ideas and opportunities for encouraging our children to develop these thinking skills.
 * The beginnings of using a school SMS

Added to these developments has been the suggestions to increase the laptop to staff scheme so that all teachers will be involved, the inclusion of a wireless network for the school site, and the investigation of a pod of laptops for the school. These developments, while not directly a part of the Otakou ICT contract, have certainly been given impetus because of our involvement.