Connected Educators Challenge 1

Although I've created blogs for use in the classroom I've always had trouble keeping with blogging, so I'm taking on this challenge to develop the habit and revitalise my blogging life.  I've started late so I'm just working on Challenge 1 now.

Thinking About My Teaching Practice
In 2013 I set up a digital class for the Year 7 and 8's at our school.  Thankfully the numbers were small - I had only used a google document once before and had no idea about registering our domain or much of anything else. We started with one google account (mine), each student had their own folder and away we went!!

We have moved on since then through a combination of following my nose and being supported by generous people who were much further along in the Learning With Digital Technologies journey.

I think the biggest impact this has had on my teaching practice is a reconsideration of what my role as a teacher actually is.  Having access to digital technology is moving me from being 'the teacher' towards being a learning facilitator.  This is occurring as an instant transformation - I'm often being lead by my students about how this translates into classroom practice.  It's exciting, challenging and sometimes a little bit scary!

Helping Me To Dream Bigger
Dreaming bigger is something that I've had trouble with lately - I seemed to have been bogged down in assessment data and feel the curriculum narrowing around me.  I have however been encouraged to dream bigger as a result of attending the NZEI Annual Meeting and Conference in Rotorua last week. One of tto he speakers was Professor Bob Lingard. Listening to him brought my me back to thinking about the big picture.  As part of his contribution to summing up the conference he quoted Raymond Williams as follows, "To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing." It reminded me to continue to dream about the possibilities of learning rather than despair about some of the forces that are currently working against creativity and student agency.  Thank goodness!