I am the Principal of a wonderful school - Waitaki Valley in Kurow, North Otago. I have been a teacher of all ages from New Entrants to Yr 9 at Full Primaries, a contributing Primary, an Intermediate and a College. I have a passion for ensuring that we as teachers are keeping up with things in the world of our kids - and ensuring that our kids of today are prepared for the unknown world of tomorrow.
Homepage: http://mylittlespace.edublogs.org/
While I haven’t had the opportunity to read this book – the Literacy List Serv has recommended it as a great book. I ‘googled’ it (as you do) and found the National Library’s Storytime Treasure Chest had shared it in September. The book itself is aimed at 4-7 years, however I see value in this […]
I love the new Telecom ad – it opens up a whole new train of thought about the kids in our world today. They see the ‘what could be’ and aren’t scared of it – they take it as an expectation that developments will continue to surprise us and change not only the world that […]
As teachers we are so conscious of trying to remove stereotypes – working to allow students to be accepting of all those around them, as well as allowing students to be ‘who they are’ rather than ‘who they think they should be’ by others’ expectations. This speech by an Auckland Secondary student demonstrates just how […]
2 posts on the same day – I am back into my blog! I thought that this was a great story on Close Up last week that really illustrates the changing face of our world. Two 11 year olds who have to research without access to the Internet. Various media forms really are a way […]
This is a podcast of an interview on the National Radio yesterday. Interesting to hear that Dr Hayward sees one of the current strengths of our education system is that it isn’t ‘full of’ testing – allowing children the space to think and not be under constant pressure. It is food for thought when current […]
I’m not normally a political activist, however there have been some political decisions made in NZ over the past four years that are really starting to undermine our education system. The latest of these on Thursday when the government announced that all Specialist Teachers at Yrs 7 & 8 will be axed. Here is my […]
WOW – another Microsoft Asia-Pacific Partners in Learning/Innovative Teachers Forum down – and more ideas and inspiration gained! I am now a ‘Master Trainer’ and have quite an insight into a few more tools in the Microsoft Suite. The brain is fuzzy, the eyes are tired – I am posting here so that I commit […]
The VLN (Virtual Learning Network) is a great community to be a part of -it is rich in communications and discussions. Even not participating actively – you can still ‘lurk’ and learn a lot, or at least take a lot away from it. While being a ‘lurker’ more often than not, I did contribute this […]
I am a real fan of Sir Ken Robinson – his messages are plain and simple – but have real authority too.
I have always been a firm believer of educating students about the implications of Internet Safety. For this reason we don’t have any blocks on anything at school -but we have clear procedures in place should a child come across something inappropriate. In the past 4 years I could count the number of incidents at […]
