Well I am in week 14 but in an effort to keep up with my course while I am away I have just completed week 15 as well. It is absolutely crazy at the moment with Timetables, Reports, MIICT and getting ready to go away. However I am enjoying learing about PowerPoint and have picked up few hint and tricks. However I have found most of this pretty easy.
I had a very interesting meeting with some lovely teacher on a fact finding mission from another Christian School which is very similar to ours but at the same time very different. It was good to share some of the things we are doing and pick up some pointers from them too. I hope to go and visit their school some day too.

Tags: MIICT, PowerPoint

Well who’d of thought that such a simple program could be used for so many diverse topics and lessons? It was very interesting to look at Photo Story and see how it could be used for my Business Management class. I decided to use it to teach my class about Viral Marketing and get the class to create their own Viral Marketing campaign using Photo Story.  I hope when I get to that topic next semester that the kids will enjoy it.  It also has many other uses and I suspect students from about grade 4 up would love it.  I am going to use it to help kick start the prep class into IT by creating a video of the Preps and what the like best about school. I will get them to take photos of one another and create a voice over. We can then email it to their Mums and Dads. I hope this will be a good way to show staff that ICT can be used even in Prep.

I am finding it quite challenging at the moment to get the staff into ICT there is so much going on at school and it is the wrong end of the term. Iwould love to have more time to get with staff and really show them what can happen. I am trying to communicate with a fortnightly newsletter which has had some good response. Also I am trying to go to as many different sub school meetings as I can and talk about IT what the staff needs are. Which is starting to have some impact but not much.  Everything is being swolled up by the fact that we are as a school possibly being reviewed this year so some staff are writing curriculum and everything is being collated and gotten up to scratch. Oh well I guess ICT integration is a long term proposition.

I am sure I will get lots of ideas when I go to NECC later this month. I am really looking forward to it and am sure that will learn so much about ICT and have great ideas for Bayside.

Well test over and lesson plan is almost finished. I didn’t realise how much work it would be to complete so hopefully I will get it done by Friday. It will be interesting to connect with my students on Wednesday and see how they are going on the lesson plan and get their feedback. I have found already just in the preparation of the plan for submission I have ahad to change what I have given the studnets. Good teaching practise to reflect on your lessons though so that is OK. It will be interesting to see what the final product looks like.
Well also being a little distracting is the NECC 2008 conference and trying to choose sessions. There is so much to choose from it is very overwhelming but I am sure that I will get there eventually. I am very much looking forward to the trip, getting to meet new people and learning more about ICT in education. It should be excellent!

Well I have finally done I have sat the Word exam and actually passed.  Soooooooooooo relieved to have that under my belt. Am having definite flashback to what it was like to be a student and my empathy level with my students has increased considerably. Now just to get that lesson plan under my belt………… Am starting to see some ICT movement at school which is encouraging especially in those middle school years (5-8 at our place) where there is far more room for creativity within the curriculum at that age. Am fighting against the too young/not enough access to resources in the junior school and a very traditional looking senior school where you can’t possibly use ICT in your lessons too much as how will student possibly hand-write in their exams.  It will be an interesting challenge trying to change those mindsets I am hoping that doing the MIICT myself and being able to share these resources will help in someway. Anyway time will tell have to be patient and we have to get the infrastructure right. One thing at a time……Off to the Gold Coast tomorrow morning for a developing leaders conference hopefully it will be really valuable.

Well I have finally finished all of the Word training, I feel like I have learnt so much and can now use Word so much more effectively. My only problem is to retain the information! It has been incredibly bust at school this week with reports being due and this being the first reporting cycle on our new software. Always seems to be afew gliches but the support from TASS has been outstanding! I have really enjoyed using the word lesson plans and have begun to work on my lesson plan for submission. Looking at a mock up of a website for my year 11 class where that can show me where they have got their design inspiration from via hyperlinks. Will have to email this to Belinda and see if it is OK.  We had our conference call today it is good to hear other voices and know that it is not just you going through this crazy enjoyable thing alone! Well I had better get onto installing the practise exam and going through some revision. Hvae fun everyone and all the best for the exam!

Well week three has come and gone. This week I learnt all about formatting in Word. Lots of new things to learn. I thought I knew this area pretty well but there is always new things to learn. I have found that if you do the training then go and practise in Word before doing the post test I generally scorte better on the post test. I diod however make some stupid mistakes you really have to read the questions carefully. I am really enjoying doing the lesson plans, the two we completed in week 2 I can see immediate application for in my Business Managament class, usign the dictionary and adapting it to a glossary of terms, something the bus man kids always tend to struggle with, coming to grips with the terminology, and the jurasic park one can be adapted for my research project into accounting packages for small business. Much better than a PowerPoint presentation!! Can’t wait to try them out in class.

Have to start thinking about my lesson plan idea…really have no idea where to start. However I am sure that all will be revealed soon!!

Well must go now have to get ready for the run for the kids tomorrow. 14.4 kms plenty of time to think about a super creative integrated lkesson plan!!! Might keep the mind off the pain!

Well here I am in week two of the MIICT course.  I have completed my first 5 pretests in Word, I thiought I was reasonably competant in Word, that is until I failed my first 5 tests.  Ahhhhhhhhhh!  So much work to do.  However thus far I am very much enjoying the training and improving my skills. I am hoping to be able to really learn what it is to ‘integrate ICT into the curriculum’.  I find it is one of those educational buzz phrases that is being bandied around at the moment but teachers at my school don’t really know what that looks like.  I am hoping to be able to clear up some of the mysterys of this and be able to clearly show my staff ideas that they can use straight away in the classroom and do some serious demystifying……(that’s correct taking a class of students to the computer room to type up an essay is NOT integrating ICT into the curriculum!!).  I get to be concerned about this for my school as I am the Head of ICT with a focus on staff training (Business Manager and techie look after all the hardware and software purchasing) so I guess it is my job to make sure ICT is being used in a relevant and meaningful way.  Not such an easy job I am discovering! Any hints and advice would be great!

This is my second blog.  I use a blog extensively with my year 11 Business Management class as I team teach the class with another teacher and find that it is the best way to keep myself and my students organised.  If you would like to check it out the link to it is in the blogroll.