My little space in the world

The judging yesterday was really interesting. We were either an A or a B – I was an A and so was to stand at my presentation from 1.30-3pm within which time I would chat with my 3 judges, the media and of course other teachers. The Bs then were to go from 3.30-5pm. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) us A’s got the short straw and couldn’t get away from our stands until nearly 4.30. The room was light – tiled floor, tiled walls and tiled roof –but REALLY noisy and so with language barriers at times you were really straining to hear people’s questions, and they were straining to hear you. It was quite different in KL where we got our ten minutes with the judges to ‘sell ourselves’ – this was instead 3 really neat conversations with the judges about the teaching and learning that happens as a result of my project – and gave you the opportunity to really talk passionately about what you believe in – as well as what you do. The three judges all came around separately and with two of them I didn’t even know I had been judged until after our conversations!! I feel really happy with what I was able to share with them, and certainly feel worthy of my place here!! The language barrier was no problem at all – 1 US judge, 1 Canadian judge and 1 Danish judge who spoke very fluently and who obviously understood what I said by the questions she asked.

We find out tomorrow morning if we are shortlisted – there will be something on our presentation if we are. Those who are selected then have to re-present their poster to another panel of judges mid-morning for another couple of hours!

Yesterday we were put into our groups by the tables we were sitting at –for the collaborative projects. Luckily ‘Aussie Mark’ and I were together and we were joined by a Canadian, and two other very good English speakers from India. There goes half the battle – we all speak and understand English!! Somehow we have to take from our visit to the old part of the city and the markets today an idea to create a collaborative project from. Our concept that we are looking at is ‘Sign of the Times’ where we are taking the idea of the signs – an international language – and basing our work around this. Hopefully this will shape out fine!!

I have been very kindly taken under the wing of the Aussies mainly, however Stewart Ball the APN from the UK team has been wonderful too (he is a Welshman obsessed with rugby – so I wonder if that has any influence???!), One of the Aus teachers from the School’s track has nicknamed me ANZAC – so at least their creating some sort of Alliance with me!

Microsoft Aus are picking up my dinner tabs!!! Aren’t they wonderful?? Jane has been great and has been really inclusive in involving me with what they are doing.

Today has been a great day – but I am not the only one on the Berocca’s now!! The Australian contingent got wind of my Berocca’s and who was I to not share them after all that they are doing for me?!!! Yes – it has been hectic and VERY tiring – however we have had lots of laughs too!!

It is nearly 1am, however I have only just got back to my hotel room, and Skyped Roly and the kids. Seeing as I don’t really have anyone here to ’share my day with’ I think I’m finding this e-mail/blog thing quite therapeutic for me!!! I know I won’t be able to sleep until it is done – so hence the update!

I continue to be grateful to the Australians who are treating me as one of their own. Tonight in the bar I was introduced to a Dutch teacher by one of the Aussie teachers as Deidre from our far east island – New Zealand!! ANZAC has stuck – and I think that will stick as my name for the rest of the conference – thank goodness only one big day to go!!

Today we had a ‘field trip’. Our big challenge is to work in groups of 5 to create a unit of work that would work in any of our countries, where ICT enhances the teaching and learning. While we don’t have any language barriers (like we had in KL with this) we do have 2 VERY PUSHY Indian ladies who I am scared of!! Aussie Mark is a charming, quiet, but clever person – and is handling them very well considering!! Anyway we had to go on this field trip and take an idea from it to use. We have taken the focus of the ‘international language of signs’ as our focus and are shaping work around that. If it turns out to be any good I will flick it on to you teachers out there! Our field trip took us to the markets this morning (what a place to have to go!!!). It was very expensive though and it was interesting to see our tour guide have his pockets filled with cash as we left each of the places – his commission obviously!! I puchased tee-shirts for Roly and the kids and some funky (but simple) pieces of art for the walls at home. We then were taken on a guided tour of the old part of Salvador. The buildings are amazing and leave the historical buildings in Oamaru for dead. We went into a Catholic Church that makes the Basilica in Oamaru look like a plain old church!! Everything was detailed ten times more – and also guilded in gold!! It was interesting walking around and I was pleasantly surprised how clean it was, and how very few hawkers we saw, and how safe we felt. The fact that there seemed to be a high police presence might have contribute to that!! The Canadian teachers had been there on Sunday and said that it was a total contrast to what they saw, and what we have since found out was that Microsoft had the streets cleaned, the beggars moved on . . . and of course the Police in place in order to ensure we were safe!! So the reality is that we have seen a beautiful part of the world, walked the amazingly cobbled streets, however probably not experienced anything like the real world there!!

There have been a few people going down with tummy bugs here. Obviously the tap water isn’t safe to drink, and so we are avoiding things like lettuce etc too, however much of the fruit smells really awful. One of the Australian women thought she would play it safe with breakfast this morning and stick with just the fruit, however ended up being brought back from the market in a minivan, and then wheelchaired to her room, where she spent the day on the toilet! Food poisoning is the suspected problem!!! In contrast tonight we went to a fantastic restaurant where we sat on a balcony over the sea, and had the most devine food. Yet again – Microsoft Australia picked up the tab (and at 1750,00 Real – about $1500 for 8 of us, I was pleased I wasn’t having to try and bring back a receipt to claim that one back!!).

This afternoon we sat through some VERY dry corporate speakers, who really didn’t do much to inspire us to be honest. It would have been more valuable to have heard from the Innovative Schools and to hear what practices they have in place. We then had 1 1/2 hours to work with our team on our Collaborative Project, of which we (Aussie guy, Canadian girl and I) have accepted that it will never be what it should or could be – however we need to respect the pushy Indian ladies and we’ll just see how it goes.

Tomorrow morning we have to present our projects again to half of the teachers, and then we go around and view the projects while the other half present. Then each country is allowed one vote. Me as NZ gets one – and Aussie as 8 get one – so another ANZAC alliance has been drawn up – I won’t say any more!!! We then find out if we need to present our work to more judges, and if so – we do it all again for an hour!! Somewhere then we also need to work with our group to get that work all completed as it needs to be handed in for judging mid afternoon – the pressure cooker stuff is happening!!! I can see the 40+ hour trip home being filled with sleep!!!! We have one final keynote as late as 5pm (til 6pm) before being given an hour to get sorted for the Gala dinner in the evening. It is all a bit of a mystery really – we know we are not allowed to wear high heels, have to wear as much white as possible, and get taken there on buses!! I’ll need to get myself sorted before all of that as I am out of the hotel about 7am on Saturday in order to be home about 7pm on Monday night!!!

One thing if for sure – I am well showered here. We are all finding – even with the air con we still need to shower mid afternoon because as soon as you step outside into the humidity you are sticky!!! I’m then finding that I need to shower before I go out at night and of course first thing in the morning. I am pleased to say that the walk around outside this morning has added ever so slightly to the pale colour my skin was, and I feel a little bit like I have had a few days in Otematata!!! (That might be where the similarities end!!)

Well everyone – that is my day today – and tomorrow looks like a biggie too. I had better get to bed, so that I can at least get a few hours sleep in order to get me through tomorrow.

Yesterday was a busy day (as they all seem to be on trips like this) – however only the last few hours of the day were conference related!!

I got up in the morning to look out at the fantastic view from my room. I am on the 20th floor of the 22 storey building and have a fabulous view right up the beach. By 9am it was already 29 degrees and it got progressively hotter as the day went on! After breakfast I ventured to the pool where the deck fans out over the sea – it is very much a scene from the Love Boat – pool in the middle and deck chairs along each side – bar in the corner (Just expecting Isaac Washington to pour the aqua!). 3/4 of an hour there was enough – and by last night I had a nice ‘glow’ on!!

When I decided I had had enough sun I thought I’d catch the hotel bus to Salvador mall. While waiting on the bus I met two lovely teachers from the UK – Jane (who is actually a judge) and Mandy who is also in the Teacher’s Forum. We had already waited for 30 minutes for the bus, so the 3 of us got a taxi to the mall. The mall itself was recommended by the Hotel staff, however was very ‘westernised’ and terribly expensive. A pair of jandals would have been NZ$60. We wandered for quite sometime, and then decided to catch a taxi back to the beach and walk down the beach to our hotel. We did this, however were ‘chased off the beach’ by some guy – and we still don’t know what he was saying to us!!! We walked alongside the beach for a while, and decided to have another go – however when we looked down at the sand, although it was looking beautiful, it was full of bottletops, glass and god knows what else – so we continued our ‘beach walk’ alongside the beach. We found a little ’safe looking’ place to have our late lunch and ordered what we thought were toasted cheese sandwiches (Surely that couldn’t be ‘unsafe’ food!!) – however what we got was a huge chunk of toasted cheese!!! My Portuguese phrasebook didn’t get that one right!!! So we had a bit of a laugh and headed back to the hotel. On the way we stopped at a pharmacy to buy some water. Obviously it is wise to avoid the tap water, however unlike in KL where our room was full of bottles of water – the only water at this hotel costs 5 Real (about $4.50) for 200ml!!! At the pharmacy I was able to purchase 3 1.5L bottles for 7.5 Real (about $6) – so a bargain!! The UK contingent are really neat and it turns out that Ollie from Scotland flatted with a guy from Dunedin for 3 years!! He was very excited to think I came from somewhere near there!
Late this afternoon the conference started proper with a school’s display of innovative ideas and programmes – what a diverse group of presentations. It is really interesting to interpret what each school views as innovative, with some of the presentations from some of the most developed countries being years behind where NZ is. I think it speaks volumes for our NZ curriculum and the ability that our NZ teachers have in interpreting the curriculum and then just using the ICTs as a vehicle for letting the learning happen. I got the feeling that some of the schools had been handed technology or shown a programme and told that they had to make it work. What was also really bizarre is that most of these presentations had taken a good part of the afternoon to set up, were available for us to view for two hours – and then pulled down so that we (those on the Teacher’s Forum) can put our presentations up for the rest of the week!!

At these school presentations we were bombarded with gifts – I have (amongst other things) acquired pins from schools in Scotland and Malta (amongst others), as well as bag tags from Japan, Keyrings from Scotland, pens from places around the world, a cap and a travel mug from a girls school – somewhere that I can’t read the name of, a small paperweight from somewhere called Baku, and two stuffed koalas.

After that there was the official conference opening and we were entertained by some fabulous Brazilian acrobats, singers and drummers. The drummers were incredible and had everyone in the courtyard moving to their beat! The acrobats were doing things with their bodies that didn’t look physically possible – and the wee guy who would have been about 7 was unbelieveable!

I put up my presentation up last night and am a bit disappointed as we were told we would have a table to put some things on – it turns out to be a cupboard – half the height of the poster!!! So all of my ‘meaty’ stuff almost seems hidden. I’ve moved it forward and I’ve managed to dress it up with a NZ flag and my pamphlets and goodie bags, so hopefully the message still gets through! Sometime tomorrow afternoon we are being judged. There are three keynotes in the morning – the first being in Portuguese (I’m not that fast with my phrasebook, so I’m hoping there is an interpreter or subtitles maybe!!!), followed by a workshop, and then the judging.

The Aussie contingent have taken me under their wing tonight and I am joining them for dinner tomorrow night. Thank goodness they did, as I expected this to be like Chch and KL and all the ‘bits’ for attaching the poster to the board to be supplied -but NO they weren’t. Luckily Jane (the wonderful Aussie Microsoft rep) came to my rescue with rolls of double sided tape! How is that for building Trans-Tasman relations?? One of the Aussie team did mention something about the Bledisloe Cup AND double sided tape going to NZ in one week being a bit generous!!

This is to let you know that I am safely in Salvador and feel like I have had a BIG adventure already – and the conference hasn’t even started!
It all began at 9.30am on Monday 2nd November when, the Oamaru to Chch flight needed a ‘practice’ take off with alarms and bells before the real one happened. We stood in the Chch-Akland plane at Auckland for about 15 minutes while they had trouble with the air-bridge and I was also close ‘wanded’ and had my bags swabbed in Auckland!! In Sao Paulo (after being in Santiago) my flight was changed from LAN (with whom I had flown from Auckland to Santiago, and from Santiago to Sao Paulo) to TAM and me with very little Portuguese or Spanish (– in fact none – except for my phrasebooks!!) – and the locals with very little English, found my way (somehow) to a little LAN office in the back of the airport where a lovely young man (who spoke English) was able to direct me to the correct airline to fly to Salvador. In getting through to the domestic departure lounge I was down to just my trousers and tee shirt as my jewellery, watch and shoes were taken off me to go through the scanner!!! I was starting to get worried that if the bells went off again I would be creating an even bigger security risk by taking anything else off!! It was odd sitting in Sao Paulo Airport at 8pm Monday evening – only 11 hours later than I had supposedly left Oamaru, however it had taken a 26 hour trip to get there!! By the time I reached my hotel in Salvador – I had been travelling for 32 hours!

Brazil is football crazy – and I could tell that just from the airports!! There are all sorts of replica football things everywhere. The TVs in the lounges play soccer (even indoor soccer – which looks like there are thousands of spectators at the match!), and the young kids in the lounges (boys and girls) are watching intensely and passionately as if their lives depend on it!

I have felt pretty good, despite all the travel. The sleeping pill I took from Akld to Santiago allowed me to get 6 hours sleep (that’s more than I get at home sometimes!!) and then I caught another couple of hours in the next legs.

The hotel is FANTASTIC!!! Not one that our usual school budget would extend to – and my view over the beach looks fantastic in the dark – I am expecting big things of it in the morning!

It is now 1am Tuesay morning and I have been up for something like 39 hours. I’ll post this and head to bed, and try and keep this updated when I can!

How exciting to think that others can see the benefits of using Blogs like this. I want to share with you two schools that have started similar such blogs after seeing what we are doing. Jono Young at St Joseph’s, Timaru has his Year 7 & 8s with the blog http://taniwha.edublogs.org/. Sally Morch from Greytown School has also started one with her Year 4 & 5 students – http://www.room7readinglogblog.blogspot.com. They are sharing their books in text and pictures and will be adding their podcasts in a couple of weeks time. Keep watching the developments with these too!

What a receptive group of teachers I presented to yesterday! It was wonderful to have such a responsive group who so openly saw the possibilities for using blogging to enhance their reading programme. There was a real ‘buzz’ at the end of the session and many of them talked of of their intentions of going back to school and exploring the possibilities with groups or classes.

If any of you are reading this post – I would love for you to let me know when you do set one up and let me know your URL (e-mail me or comment on this post) as I would really like to see how other people develop them. I was interested to hear one teacher’s idea of how kids could create comprehension activities too – that would encourage further interest and understanding of the books read. I’d really like to watch how others do develop this idea as I do believe I have only just scratched the surface! Keep in touch all of those of you out there!

To view the work that these teachers did in the session visit http://teacherreadingblog.edublogs.org.

Evelyn Mann’s keynote to open the conference was interesting.  She discussed the ‘literacy’ of drama and how drama reinforces many literacy skills.  The fact that you can ‘think, feel and represent messages through drama’ enables it to be a literacy.  This is interesting – as an e-fellows group, the discussions on ‘what is literacy?’ have been evident at all our sessions together.  We have discussed this exact concept – the literacies that are prevalent in so many contexts. 

She also discussed how drama is a motivational and inspirational approach to literacy.  This is exactly how I feel about my Reading Logs as Reading Logs project.  The online concept, the interaction with ICTs, the online conversations about reading have all been motivational and inspirational for the group, particularly the ‘Buddies’ (reluctant/at risk readers). 

Robyne Selbie also made an interesting comment in her welcome speech.  She commented on how the technology of today is actually creating more opportunities for writing and reading than previously.  How true.  When last did parents, brothers, sisters, classmates, teachers, strangers . . . give a reader public feedback that promoted further thought, discussion and ‘conversation’, as it does on our blog?

My presentation isn’t until Tuesday afternoon (feels a bit like the ‘graveyard’ shift!), however I am looking forward to my workshops and the authors dinner tomorrow night (I am having dinner with Kate De Goldi – and about another 30 teachers!).

On Thursday I presented two workshops at the South Island DP/AP Conference in Timaru.  It was a privelege to be a part of only a small number of workshop presenters, however it was also a privelege to hear John Hattie speak in regards to effective teaching.

He was speaking in regards to the aspects of teaching that ‘make a difference’.  These are the aspects that he has identified from years of meta-analysis of research.  I was particularly taken my the number of boxes that my ‘Bloggers group’ and my e-fellows project were able to tick in regards to Effective teaching practice that makes a difference.  The data in our school recognises that along with class teaching of reading, the bloggers programme has been able to enhance the ability of our readers.  Aspects such as peer tutoring, collaboration and ownership are all present, and according to his data create more effective teaching.

It was then a real privelege to have him appear at my workshop (and stay for the duration!).  While my presentations were on a range of ICTs that enhance teaching and learning in the Senior School, part of it obviously included my e-fellows project.  I was able to acknowledge some of the things John had talked about earlier in the morning, in my presentation!

Here is a little video file that I have recently shared with people both within and beyond our school. Already though it is out of date as our blog approaches its 300th comment (only 2 to go!!)

Bloggers in Action

The mentors have added a new dimension by trying to make contact with some authors – and now we have hit the jackpot!! Aidan’s post on Kate De Goldi’s ‘The 10pm Question’ has had the most inspiring post by the author herself. Click on the link and read for yourself!  I can’t wait to see Aidan’s reaction tomorrow at school!

The mentors have taken the idea of contacting authors and run with it. As a result they are taking more care to add detail and thought to their posts. In the last week Aidan has made contact with Kate de Goldi’s agent, Lucy has e-mailed Tania Roxborogh, Tyler has e-mailed Joanne Harris and others are waiting in the wings to make contact with Vince Ford. It would be great for them to make a post on the kid’s reviews and to get author’s perspectives of their writing. We wait in anticipation . . .