This is Jacquie’s

This past year has been a time for reflection as both my life, and the lives of the people around me, have been affected by various events beyond our control. The steady courses we all seemed to have been on for a while have taken a sharp turn and forced us onto different paths. Many of the students I teach have to face constant changes in their lives as their parents are posted elsewhere. This is something that has always fascinated me – how often is what we do in life actually what we had planned or hoped to do? It begs the question as to how big a part serendipity seems to play in where we end up. How do we face up to the bends and forks in the road?

It would be interesting to see if it’s possible to ‘capture the concept’ of the diversions and happenstances that occur in our ‘journey’ through life (although this is perhaps too much of a cliché?). This is very much a fledgling idea but it seems to be a move in the right direction as it generated some instant images that would be challenging to achieve with my current skill set.

This assigment turned out to be another character building activity of patience and forebearance in the face of machiavellian software with a mind of its own. Suffice to say it is done, nowhere near to my satisfaction, but at least I managed some of the basics like uploading images, creating page and external links, and a bare  minimum of design. What it has really done is confirm my desire to follow a course of some kind to develop some skills before year 2. Much of the information on the site is inaccurate as I had nothing with me, so the site will be removed/totally edited once the course is over.

“Two things rob people of their peace of mind : work unfinished and work not yet begun.”
(Anon – or possibly Rehab)

The embryo website

Hopefully I’ll have time to update this podcast – I had grandiose plans for background music and effects involving ‘Angel’ by the Corrs, but it’s 2am and these scripted ramblings will have to do. Add podcasting tutorial to my new goal list please…

Final Reflection Podcast

I chose to look at Voicethread as it was suggested as a possible application for sharing in an educational setting www.voicethread.com This is a really neat site. Simple to use, full of tutorials and samples to look at. So what is a voicethread? It’s an online media album that can hold more or less any type of media (images, documents and videos) and then lets you share your work with others and allows them to make comments – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam). It’s even possible to add a comment via your cellphone. You can also export, embed in webpages etc. It basically gives you an easy access, user friendly format that allows group conversations to be collected, shared and commented on, all in one place, from anywhere in the world. You can choose the setting to allow access from private to fully public. By clicking on the ‘Go Pro’ you can buy access to unlimited space and other options (n.b. look out for the small print that appears to give a free upgrade for educators.) Although there are other sites out there that do more or less the same thing, I like the simple interface and ease of use. For an on-line course it would be a very useful site for sharing media ideas e.g. commenting on a joint powerpoint or video project. Tutors could use it to create how-to video,  the video doodle feature would be especially useful for this. Another use would be to have students share a design or a math problem and then use the voice track to explain why they have made certain design decisions, or explain their work.

In an educational setting it would allow our students, and especially  our international students to be able to share with peers, distant relatives etc. The comments would give great feedback; imagine having grandma comment on your electronic portfolio. I think it’s easy enough to use, even with the younger students, and will be giving it a try with my support students this year.

I followed the 1 minute tutorial, uploaded a few photos and made this in no time at all

#voicethread that works!

Staring at the empty post page, wondering what to say………is it really over?  Did a distant Time Lord bend reality slightly and telescope the last four weeks into just a few days? If he did, how did we fit so much into such a short space of time, yet how come I feel that I’ve known everyone for years? I hope the other cohorts have been as fortunate as we have in their groups. We have an amazing mix of minds, personalities, experiences and talents, all passionate and informed and ready to share. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much at ease in a new group, or so supported. Carrie and Jing have encouraged, cajoled and pushed us to work well outside our comfort zones with incredible results. The intensive nature of the course is its strength – if you had the time to think about what you were being asked to do…………….

So where do we go from here? One of my favourite quotes is ““Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” by the poet, William Butler Yeats. At the moment my bucket is overflowing, but once I have had time to sit down and go through everything, reflect and assimilate (and get some sleep), I’m sure a raging firestorm will ignite from the damp embers I have right now. It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye, but now we know we can Skype, wiki and blog to our heart’s content, so it’s not goodbye but à bientôt, hasta luego, Bis später, 당신을 빨리 보십시오, until next year!

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” ~Henry David Thoreau

My vision for my students is, I’m sure, the same as most educators – to provide a safe, stimulating learning environment that encourages curiosity and independent thought; and in addition for my LS students, an individualized programme according to each student’s needs and abilities that challenges each student to realize their full potential. This technology plan hopefully sets out  how I will achieve the goal of integrating appropriate technology into my teaching strategies and learning objectives.

I got a little carried away with my plan, partly because I needed to convince myself that I had one. Here is the link.

Personal Technology Plan

You may or may not know that I actually went to school in Plymouth many moons ago. My father’s job with the Ministry of Defence meant that we moved around a fair amount, usually only staying 2 years in any one place. We came to Plymouth twice, when I was 8 and again in my teens. So I finished my A level years at Plymouth High School for Girls, which is still there on Mutley Plain within walking distance of the university. I have (fond?) memories of the navy uniform with white ankle socks, a thick serge blazer and tricorn hat for winter, a stripey blazer and straw boater for the summer. You could spot the older students because their hats had fold lines from where they shoved them in their bags as soon as they were out of sight of the school. Of course, in those days there was no university on the current site, it was a school and only the grey stone buildings existed. The Drake’s Circus mall was a very old multi-storey car park with a strange exit system that meant you had to go up to the fifth floor and whirl your way down a very narrow central roadway decorated with paint scrapes from thousands of cars that misjudged the turns. In fact, this town centre is unrecognisable, although it has been reassuring to find the old market still in existance with the same stalls selling everything under the sun, and the gentle aroma of wet fish. The pasty shop is still there, but in my day there was a less extravagant choice of fillings i.e. with or without onion.

I sit on the bus in the morning and wonder if I knew any of the people. As I walk home at night I walk past the park where my siblings and I built a den in the bushes and played for hours during the summer holiday while our parents were at work. We had a packet of jam sandwiches and a bottle of ‘pop’ to keep us going and had amazing adventures up the Amazon or in the Wild West. We would have pretend battles with other kids, making raids on their dens in adjacent bushes. What lurks in those bushes now I wonder, how many kids still play out in the park on their own? Is it a good thing to revisit places of your childhood? I think so. For me it reinforces the old memories, which tend to be of the happy, carefree times. In fact, Plymouth is now a new and vibrant city, with most of the amenities that were probably lacking in my youth, although I never missed them. My sister and her family have lived here for 40 years, the last 30 in the same house and seem almost not to have noticed the changes. I’ve been reminiscing about the old days, but she has a whole  different set of memories now, centred more on her life with her family. So what’s it like to be back in Plymouth? It’s great because I got to meet an amazing set of new people.

We had a discussion last week about whether we would be able to give up our computers and other technologies and I said that I could easily. I still stand by this, although it maybe needs a bit of clarification. I am totally hooked on all the new technologies and want to become proficient in their use, both personally and professionally. On the other hand, if it all disappeared tomorrow would I miss it? Honestly? No, I would do other things and probably be a lot more involved socially! In the real world, giving it all up voluntarily would involve a total life change, job change etc. If I’m totally honest, the idea is quite attractive. I miss the ‘good old days’ of phone calls once a week, getting a letter in the post from my dad, meeting up with friends on a Saturday to catch up on the news and gossip – a slower pace of communication and life. The immediacy of communication, and expectations of a reply, the continual background ‘noise’ both visual and audio, that makes up the modern world is not ‘my cup of tea’. Does that make me old-fashioned? Yes. Does it stop me using technology? No way. A strange dichotomy.

Below is the link to my non linear PowerPoint. I had to totally revamp the content as my original would not run in kiosk. This new one remains within the parameters I set in my proposal, if in a simplified form. I will be modifying it as I’d like to add some additional reflective components, whilst still keeping the recall element and will also add in some student made images once I get into school and can access them. I may well change some of the sounds when I have time to tinker too. The PP will be used as an end of unit quiz (disguising the reading revision) for my grade 4 and 5 support classes, but will also be added to the student’s individual user folders so that they can access it whenever they feel the need to revise/review again. I am gradually building up a bank of these activities, although most will be done in IWB flipchart format. The encouraging thing for me is that the students are beginning to use these resources for free choice sessons. We’ll see if this rather rushed one meets with their approval.

n.b. After trying the Quiz out, I will also be narrating each information slide once I have a decent microphone. Maybe I’ll get the students who wrote the information to read their own notes.

WW2 End of Unit Quiz

Isn’t it strange that, as soon as you’re given the freedom to write whatever you want your mind goes blank. Maybe it also has something to do with the lateness of the hour and a few hours spent making PowerPoint slides! My mind is wandering more than usual so let me take you on a ramble through my thoughts as to why and how I have ended up full circle back in the town where I used to go to school. Back in those days I was very sure of my path in life. Work really hard at school, graduate and go to Cambridge University, study History and Archaeology, become a Professor and travel the world making finds. I got as far as being accepted to Cambridge, only to find myself being persuaded to take a Ministry of Defence posting instead. Despite it being considered a very good post, I only managed 2 years as my heart was never in ‘office work’.  I took a year out and funded it by becoming a nanny, hence the nickname Mary Poppins. The year out turned into two, then three and, after a year travelling with a Norwegian millionaire and his children, I took a three month post in Belgium to decide what to do next. The three months has somehow turned into thirty years and I am now an honorary  ‘granny nanny’. In that thirty years I returned to university to get a degree in speech therapy, worked in a variety of schools and clinics, and was finally invited to join the faculty of my current school in 2000.  Now I’m just beginning to feel the need for a change. Whilst pondering this one day after a very trying afternoon with ‘interesting’ parents, I picked up a leaflet that was lying on the floor in the hallway. No one knew where it had come from, but it was the MAET flyer. Serendipity struck again and here we are. The course looked very interesting on paper, and has turned out to be so much more than I expected. It’s been a great chance to meet an interesting, vibrant and passionate group of people who obviously enjoy what they do. I can’t wait for year two!