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Conference notes

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on October 29, 2008 at 12:50:45 am
 

Conference notes

 

Ian McLean, Penrith Public School

 

 

 

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

 

Arthur C Clarke’s Second Law of Prediction. 

 

 

 Description: Early Stage One (Kindergarten) students at Penrith Public School have been involved in the creation of jointly constructed fables with the teacher-librarian. Character generation was through Circle Time discussions (English: Talking and listening outcomes) and drama and drawing activities. OASIS Web Enquiry was used to research fables. An online wiki was set up to collate ideas, write and edit the narratives (English: Writing outcomes) and present the final drafts to an international audience via the World Wide Web. Circle Time was used to evaluate the unit.

 

Aim: Participants will gain an insight into a practical use of wikis with young students; one example, with a strong focus on literacy, of how ICT can be embedded into pedagogy in stimulating and practical ways through explicit teaching.
 
Kindergarten weaves a wiki, Term 4, 2007
 

Handout notes

 

 

At School Libraries Leading Learning conference (28/05/08), Dr Ross J Todd challenged us to:

* have a clear vision for the future of learning we wish to see in our schools, with the teacher-librarian in a leadership role

* build from our own experience, and learn by doing

* chart the learning - ie. demonstrate excellence through evidence-based practice.

 

 

(ie. see Syllabus outcomes, pre- and post- mini-survey results, student quotes about their emotional responses)

 

 

The Beginning

 

 

Two NSW DET conferences (October and November 2007 - Using Web 2.0, especially wikis and blogs).

 

The presenters' challenge: "What will you do next week to incorporate wikis or blogs in your teaching?"

 

 

Me: "If I wait till I'm ready, I'll never be ready."

 

 

* Previous knowledge of HTML (Creating Websites for Dummies; HTML for Dummies)

 

* Contributor to Wikipedia - areas of knowledge/interest: Number 96, Luna Park, Star Trek, Andorians, superheroes

 

* Knowledge of book raps (listserv)

 

* Circle Time - useful for 2007 book rap joint constructions (Term 2 and 3) - Scan article

 

* Thinking skills, including brainstorming

 

* Previous successes when deconstructing types of texts; "Hot Seat" drama activities; "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and PSP "arts literacy"

 

* Guided enquiry (Lee FitzGerald & Ross J Todd, Scan) and rap wrap ups (NSW DET) - personal reflections of learning

 

* K-2 cyclic program - nursery rhymes, fairy tales, dreaming stories, fables

 

* In 2005 - my top English class (Stage 1) wrote core values fables for photocopied, illustrated book (narratives, Term 4)

 

* In 2006 - not up to the task?

 

* In 2007  - in teacher-librarian position and withdrawing G&T group of Early Stage 1s for literacy enrichment

    - originally intended to use butcher's paper brainstorm and Circle Time, plus personal reflection.

 

 

And then came PB Wiki...

 

 

"We selected the spotted zebra illustration (representing the school's Core Value of Respect) as the fable we knew most about already through our brainstorming. I pressed the Edit page button and started to type directly onto the wiki as the students selected what sentences should go next. Halfway through, I had hairs rising on my neck; it was feeling so... right. After a few sentences, someone suggested a line that I immediately realised was the last line of our fable. I told them we’d keep writing till we met that line again at the end. The story essentially wrote itself.

 

 

"We re-read the story several times as we composed it, and again when we were finished, adding some minor editorial touches but, essentially, it’s not much changed from the first draft.

 

 

"Within about ten minutes of uploading the page, I noticed a link on the sidebar. Moving the mouse across the link, it highlighted a message: 'Visitor from California'. A few minutes later we had 'Visitor from New South Wales'. Then 'Visitor from Norway'. I started getting the message as to how efficiently our little project was already reaching a world audience!

 

"The next day we also had several new 'New South Wales' visitors (several being me from home the previous night, I assume), then the enigmatic 'Visitor from parts unknown', and more from all parts of Europe.

 

 

"'We famous!' became the students’ catch cry. I keep reminding myself: they are five years old..."

 

 

Visit our Library pages or our wiki fables

 

 

 

References and further reading

 

 

 

10 ways to use your edublog to teach [web page]

at: http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/

 

 

AesopFables.com: selected quotes from the "preface" - general fable collection [web page]

at: http://aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?1&selquote

 

 

Emotional literacy [web page]

at: http://www.sueroffey.com/SueRoffey/EL.html

 

 

FITZGERALD, Lee. "Investigating guided inquiry: a beginning", Scan vol 26 no 2, 2007.

 

 

MASON, Ruth & CASEY, Grant. "Web 2.0 for learning: presentation to teacher-librarians, Nov 2007" [PowerPoint], Centre for Learning Innovation, 2007.

 

 

McLEAN, Ian. "Circle time and the school library: maximising opportunities for talking and listening at Penrith Public School", Scan vol  27 no 4, 2007.

 

 

McLEAN, Ian. "Exploring Web Enquiry at Penrith Public School", Scan vol 28 no 1, 2008.

 

 

MOORE, Peter. When are we going to have more drama?, Thomas Nelson Australia, 1988 (In particular, "Hot seat" improvisation games, pp 102-103).

 

 

MOSLEY, Jenny & CHILD, Pat. Circle time: ages 5-11 [Bright new ideas], Scholastic, Warwickshire, 2005.

 

 

pbwiki [web site]

at: http://pbwiki.com

 

 

Penrith Public School Library’s wiki [web site]

at: http://penrithpslibrary.pbwiki.com

 

 

Raps & book raps: Book Week 2007 READiscover rap [web page]

at: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/raps/readiscover07/welcome.htm

 

 

Raps & book raps: Possum magic book rap [web page]

at: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/raps/possum07/welcome.htm

 

 

ROFFEY, Sue. Circle time for emotional literacy, Paul Chapman Publishing, London, 2006.

 

 

Sue Roffey: promoting emotional literacy, individual wellbeing and caring communities [web site]

at: http://www.sueroffey.com/

 

 

TODD, Ross J. "Research columns two, 2007: Guided inquiry supporting information literacy", Scan vol 26 no 2, 2007.

 

 

 

Main sections of our school website to browse are:

 

 Cooperation      Environment      Learning      Respect

 

 

Visit our Library pages or our wiki fables

 

Penrith Public School Library Wiki © 2007 Penrith Public School, High Street, Penrith 2750, New South Wales, Australia. Telephone 02 4721 2158. Fax 02 4721 3466. No text or graphics may be reproduced without permission. All text and graphics © the original authors/artists of Penrith Public School. HTML by Ian McLean.

Library wiki first uploaded November 2007; this page added March 2008; updated October 2008.

URL: http://penrithpslibrary.pbwiki.com/

Main home page first uploaded September 2004; revised 2008.

URL: http://www.penrith-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/index.html

Email the Web Composer at: ian.mclean@education.nsw.gov.au 

 

 

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