#OneWord2016: SATISFACTION

A challenge has been set for the connected teachers of Aotearoa by #EdBlogNZ:

I accept that challenge.  Click here to be part of the challenge too.

My #OneWord2016 is SATISFACTION!

The last couple of years I feel like "I ain't got no - satisfaction" - to quote a famous song.

The first part to getting some satisfaction is to start and finish the year in the same place.  It's to know what is going to happen next week, next month, next term and, hopefully, next year.  Not in a concrete way, but in a settled way. 

Here is the definition of satisfaction:



How I am going to do this and what I am going to do to achieve this sounds very vague, but at the moment it has to be, because things are still up in the air a bit.  But I'm working on bringing things back down to earth - in a good way.  I like to get there on the most windy, steepest, precarious goat track... it's how I've always done it and how I always will, and I just have to go with the flow.  Try and keep up with me during 2016.

And cheers to the other teacher bloggers who have completed this challenge before me.  Your blogs were an inspiration.  So check them out:

• Marnel van der Spuy with the word fierce.
• Kerri Thompson with the word punk.
• Philippa Nicoll Antipas with the word relish.

#edblognz ULearn15 Blogger Selfie Challenge #cenz

If at Ulearn - Find a blogger you admire, shake their hand and take a selfie with them to post on your blog. Then find a new blogger and do the same! If you’re feeling really generous buy them a coffee! Write about it too!

This last week I went to ULearn15 at Sky City Convention Centre in Auckland.  This is my fifth ULearn in a row, and at each one I have found inspiration and met amazing people and reconnected with old friends from many areas of my life. 

This year the networking was awesome.  I got to meet bloggers and tweeters and inspirational educators who I've been connecting with for up to four years (the amount of time I have been on Twitter as I joined at the end of ULearn11).  This is how I have built up and widened my Personal Learning Network and become a connected educator through Twitter and going to ULearn, Educamps and EduIgnites.

On Wednesday night I attended the Twitter Dinner.  There were about 55 people there, not all of whom were attending ULearn.  @digitallearnin organised the evening and had us interacting with a game of Twitter Bingo, as you can see below.

First up for the selfie challenge was @st3ph007 or StephT who has the blog Four Seasons in One Kiwi.  I've always really enjoyed reading her blog posts.  They challenge me in some of my thinking.  Often I agree, at times I do not.  @st3ph007 has also supported @kerriattamatea in her establishment of the #BFC630NZ quick education chat each week day morning of term which I have participated in on occasion.  @st3ph007 also is a regular participant in #edchatnz and has been known to put her wisdom out on Facebook pages I frequent too.  It was fabulous to finally meet Steph and hear her passion for education in the flesh.

One of the Breakouts I went to at ULearn15 was presented by @Cherie59789095 and it was about networks and clusters, a hot topic currently.  It took me a few minutes to click on to the fact that I had been interacting with the presenter on Twitter for quite a while as I wasn't able to click into the online resource for about 10 or so minutes.  I had the opportunity to have a long chat with Cherie later in the evening after the Gala Dinner and I was thrilled to make the face to face connection with such an amazing leader.

During Brunch on the last day @vanschaijik who is also known as Sonya, sat beside me, and soon after we were joined by @mrehu.  Sonya is one of the admins for #edblognz and is a big driver behind TeachMeetNZ, a virtual PLD meeting space.  Sonya has also been a connected educator in many other ways too, which you can check out at http://sonyavanschaijik.com/.

I have been following @mrehu for nearly two years, I think, and at the Gala Dinner I met one of his teachers, @KNgarangione, who had come to ULearn15 with a group of the staff and she raved about working with him.  So it was a bonus to sit down with Maurice for a few minutes and shoot the breeze about our highlights at the conference.

And lastly, after a false start the afternoon before where our timing was out, @mjbuckland and I finally caught up and had that f2f meet up and chat about the conference this year and in the past, Twitter and the "take homes" we have. 

Alas, I failed to meet any new bloggers at ULearn15, but if you are a fairly new blogger and you are reading this and would like to help me out with a virtual meeting, or a f2f if you are in Hamilton, Cambridge or Te Awamutu, drop me a line at @melulater or through the comments.

It was great to meet all these people in the flesh for the first time this year, but also great to meet up with many other awesome educators that I have been meeting over the last few years, especially since 2012's ULearn.

Why do I blog? #edblognz #cenz

So here it goes, yet another challenge for #edblognz:

Write a blog post about why you blog professionally and some of the things you blog about. Share it using the #EdBlogNZ hashtag so the newbies can get further ideas to blog about.

I started this blog four years ago next week at the end of ULearn11, well actually the 21 October 2011, but we rearranged when the term breaks were that year for a wee Rugby World Cup that was happening in NZ that year.  This is my first blog post:  ULearn11 - learning, discovering, trying it out for myself.

Since I began this blog I started four others:

• One where I discuss the political side of education and society in general.  It is public.
• One where I review books, because I love reading.  It is public.
• One that is attached to my Curriculum Vitae as a link to give more information about how I run my classroom programmes and me as a teacher.  This is not public and is by provided link only.
• One that is my Teacher Inquiry and is a record of me as a classroom teacher for registration.  This is not public and is by provided link only.

So what have I blogged about on this blog?

• art activities I have done with my class.
• social studies units I have done with my class.
• reading units I have done with my class.
• writing activities I have done with my class.
• my class camp.
• how I run my Reading Tumble, my spelling programme, why I do handwriting and homework.
• how I use modelling books.
• technology I have used in my classroom programme with the pros and cons.
• courses and conferences I have been on like ULearn, ConnectED, Teachers Matter, Educamps, EduIgnites and NZEI.
• why I use Twitter and social media.
• blogging challenges like #edsketch and the blogging meme.
• being the new teacher and the challenges it brings.
• leadership.
• classroom environments.
• issues of the day in education.

I blog professionally because sometimes I want to reflect on what when well, what didn't and what I would do differently.  Sometimes I want to show off my students' work.  Sometimes it is to clarify my thoughts after PLD and conferences.  Sometimes it is just to share new information with colleagues.  This blog serves a number of purposes.  This blog fits the purpose I decide it will fit when I write the blog.

Cathedral Cove..... #edblognz

The Challenge:
Write a blog post about your favourite movie/song/piece of art including how it relates to your life as an educator.

This is my favourite piece of artwork.  It is by Diana Adams, a New Zealand artist, and is of Cathedral Cove.  I have a copy of this artwork, which was given as a gift to me by my brother and his wife one Christmas.

I love this picture because, firstly, Mercury Bay on the Coromandel is my most favourite place in the world.  Although we holiday closer to Whitianga, Cathedral Cove is the most iconic part of Mercury Bay to many people.  When I was on my OE in the early 2000s I carried with me a picture of the view out into Mercury Bay from our family beach house my Dad's family built 60 years ago in 1955 when he was at primary school.  My beach is the place where I am the happiest, the calmest.  It is my turangawaewae.

How does it fit in with my life as an educator? 

When I was a child I learnt so much at the beach.  How to fish.  About friendships.  About how families operate.  About nature.  About how to ski underwater.  About time management - or lack of it in my case. 

I lived in Whitianga for two years and taught at two local schools.  I loved the lifestyle and made some true lifelong friends, as well as getting to spend extra special time with my Grandma who was in her 90s and passed away a year after I moved away for a new school. 

It is a place I draw inspiration on as a teacher for how I teach and what I teach at times.  I took my class to my beach as part of my camp in 2012, because it is the safest beach I know.  See the post:  Room 3 Camp March 2012 - Day Three.  I've used it as inspiration for doing art, such as in this post Beach Scenes where I was inspired by walks along the beach and the bunny tails glued on the art were actually from my beach!

When I take work up to the beach to do, like reports, records, planning and the like, it never seems like hard work when you have this view to look out upon.  I am calm and focused with the sound of the waves pushing in and out on the beach.

 

Distant Dreamer.... #edblognz

The Challenge:
Write a blog post about your favourite movie/song/piece of art including how it relates to your life as an educator.

This is a challenge set as part of Connected Educator New Zealand (#cenz) month for October.

The song I have chosen is Distant Dreamer by Duffy.  I've chosen this song for many reasons.

These are the lyrics of the song:

Although you think I cope
My head is filled with hope of some place other than here
Although you think I smile
Inside and all the while I'm wondering about my destiny

I'm thinking about all the things
I'd like to do in my life
I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today

Even when you see me frown my heart won't let me down
Because I know there's better things to come, woah yeah
And when life gets tough and I feel I've had enough
I hold on to a distant star

I'm thinking about, all the things
I'd like to do in my life
I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today

I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today
Yeah, I'm a dreamer

I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today
Yeah, I'm a dreamer
I'm a dreamer

I am a dreamer.  I'm always thinking about what I want to do next with a group of children, what I think they can achieve as a group and as individuals.  I dream about what the future will be for the children I work with and how they will go forward in their lives.  And while sometimes I can feel upset or stressed out by the students I work with, or fellow staff, I know it won't always be that way.

I am also dreaming about how we can save our quality public education system from the GERM of neo liberal policies and how I can help fix the mess the current policies are making after a change of government in 2017.  And while the current situation does get me down at times, I know there are many people out there that are thinking just like me too.

I'm also dreaming about what other possibilities there may be out there for me in education and other aspects of life.  I love teaching, the creativity, the child's light bulb moment, the fact that every day is a new opportunity to learn and brings something different - but it is now time to explore what else I can do in my life.  2016 will not see me back in the classroom, I will be spreading my wings.