Activity 1: Create a reflective journal

Create a blog and a welcoming post. Your very first post should include a short introduction about who you are, what you teach and provide an overview of your teaching approach/style. You could include images of you, your class or things you are interested in or inspired by.

About Me
I am a mother, a leader, and an educator who is passionate about bringing 21st Century tools to children who would otherwise not have access to these tools.
My focus has consistently been on developing 'Responsible, Independent, Thoughtful and Onto-It' citizens by integrating ICT tools to make learning fun and engaging for students of all ages.
This leads to Inspiring Confidence and Achieving High Outcomes for all through Quality Leadership in a collaborative environment, whilst working toward our Woodhill School vision - Care, Learn Grow Together.

Here are some examples of the Innovative - Creative - way we use Technology.

Above is an entry written and filmed for the

 Hewlett Packard Competition, about our using Technology in our school. 

Above is an example of a Keynote presentation put together for a staff meeting, using a variety of support materials to promote thought and discussion

Above is an example of our children programming using Makey Makey in the classroom.

Above is an example of our junior children developing their oral language 

through presenting like a News Presenter.

Above is an example of using our annual speech competition and applying green screen background, to add flair to the presentation.

All these examples have been introduced and taught me in my role as a teaching principal.

My aim is to work full time in a school in the role of introducing, implementing and supporting Innovative-Creative-Technolgy with children to express and showcase their learning and achievement. 

Particularly children who are outside the school box - the quirky, the creative, the kinaesthetic, the divergent thinkers, the talk-to-learners, the peripheral children.

I believe these children need something other than the sit down, be quiet and listen, the 'current educational method.' However the tide is changing.

Reflection:

I have been blogging since 2011, and this assignment caused me to pause, take stock and reflect on the process, but more importantly, the philosophy behind and around it.
I feel the content that is posted should be up to the individual person and not assigned as a project. Therefore the information I am willing to share online publicly is limited to that which falls within my comfort zone and fits with my beliefs about personal privacy.
We encourage children to be selective about the personal information they share publicly, and I apply the same standard to myself.

Why Blog?
In the past we were reticent about talking about ourselves publicly. The question that always came to mind was, "why would anyone want to listen or read what I have to share?"

In spite of this, for the past several years I have been a strong advocate for school blogging,  encouraging and supporting staff to create classroom blogs. Resistance is not uncommon -  "why do I need to ..."

This reticence can be addressed in several ways:

• Provide a context in which to write - 'My Classroom Learning'
• Identify your audience - Parents and extended whanau'
• Identify your main purpose - 'To open up and share my classroom experiences with the world (parents and extended whanau)
• When this becomes your rationale then Blogging becomes much easier to do. 

Today, that reticence is on the wane, particularly in the case of generation m - the mobile generation.
For me, as a "pre gen m", I prefer to keep my personal life personal, and my blogging professional.

Reference

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on- reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf  

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Teacher-inquiry-into-e-learning/SAMR-model