Garden Restructuring

It is very useful having your own Ground Force team, and mine are the best going! Mum and dad came to visit for a special garden weeding and planting week. This ended up being, as always, a much bigger job. We ended up hacking back the honeysuckle (4 birds nests hidden inside and all saved for a display in my classroom), creating a completely new bed and turfing over an unsuccessful one.

I bought a lot of plants to give summer colour and mum and dad bought me a lot more for my birthday coming up. These have made a stunning difference and the garden is now full of colour - something it desperately needed.

It was a hard but very rewarding week and the garden looks fantastic. To top it all the weather was perfect, great all week and poured on Saturday, watering in the plants beautifully!

Missing Molly

It has been just under 2 months since Molly died. Although I can now talk about it I still have moments of utter sadness and anger for what happened. Worse, I still miss her terribly. I had no idea that she took up so much of my space and time in such a positive way.

On Sunday evening I let Molly out through the kitchen window. Less than half an hour later I heard her crying, not her usual mieow, but my first thought was that she had caught something and was announcing her arrival with gift. When she didn't jump through the window I knew something wasn't right and grabbed the step ladder. Molly was lying below the window with her bib and front legs covered with blood.

I couldn't reach her. She lay there mewing every time she heard me and I went into full blown panic. My amazing friends, Janine and Steve, dropped everything to come over and help get Molly off the roof but just before they arrived Molly somehow managed to jump up to the window ledge and I hauled her inside.

She was lame on one leg and bleeding but responsive. We rushed her to the vet who at that time thought she'd be ok, since her breathing and pulse were good. I left her there so they could x ray her and investigate the leg further.

On Monday the vet called to say that the x ray showed a pellet from some sort of air gun lodged against her spine. This was responsible for making her lame. It hadn't even occurred to me that she could have been shot. It takes some kind of low life to shoot a domestic pet. Worse still she was on the roof when she was shot meaning that the cretin that shot her was shooting in the direction of my windows.

She needed surgery to remove the pellet, but with my bill already at £600 and with no insurance, I couldn't afford the possible £2000 final bill from the surgery. The vet was brilliant and organised Molly's transfer to The Celia Hammond Animal Trust - a small but amazing charity which helps people who can't afford large vet bills but who fall outside of the help of people like the RSPCA or PDSA (who means test).

On Tuesday I picked Molly up and took her the Celia Hammond surgery. The vets there were fantastic and Molly was treated like a VIP, or should that be VIA? They scheduled surgery for Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday 10th June, following a successful sedation, the vets administered the anesthetic. Molly stopped breathing. Resuscitation didn't work. The vets tried to bring her back for over 10 minutes but the damage was, in the end, too severe.

And that was it. One minute she was perfect, and the next she was gone. I was shattered. I knew that writing this would be hard but I needed to tell it. I still miss her, and this is how I will always remember her.

If you would like to make a donation to The Celia Hammond Animal Trust you can do so via their website by clicking the link above.

Before and After - Theatrical Changing Rooms

It is the day before our first performance of The Odyssey. We arrived at Carlow Town Hall with a bus stuffed full of set and props. Our director was first to see the venue 'it is interesting. Let's just say it is a little unloved'. And it really was. A beautiful room with high ceilings and great acoustics - it even has blacked out windows. It amazes me how such a great room is left to house a few archive boxes of 'dead files'.

So we mopped and swept and hoovered and even cleaned toilets, and by the time the set was in and the lights were up, it was a different room.

Next job was to try and drum up an audience. As far as we know, there has been no publicity for the play at all. We each picked up a pile of leaflets and hit the streets. Most people we talked to seemed interested and a few said they'd come along, but how many of those were being polite... I guess we'll find out tomorrow night.

See below for before and after photos.

Before:



After:

Junk, Dust and Floppy Discs

I finally got round to clearing out the ICT cupboards in school. I say cupboards, but really I mean cupboards, filing cabinets, spaces under tables, offices and drawers. There was old ICT kit and software everywhere and I had no idea what we had.

It took a day. I went through everything and created a literal (well almost) mountain of junk for the bins. I found an old, but pristine Valiant Floor Turtle, complete with an old, huge floppy disc for BBC computer! The floppy went but I kept the turtle as an interesting antiquity!

In the process of the clear out, both ICT suites had a good spring clean, although I ended up grey with dust.

So now I know exactly what we have, and where it is, and the number of cupboards filled with kit has halved. It was incredibly cathartic and left me with a feeling of true contentment and the knowledge that I could build on what we had without duplicating resources. Brilliant. Now I need to get the server in.

TeachMeet NEL09 Part 2

2DIY from 2Simple. Simple enough for year 1 to use. Children creating their own games and taking great pride in seeing them published on a school website. Great piece of software.

2Simple also looking at the potential of augmented reality. This really is cutting edge.

Now the raffle - I never win anything, but the cause is great. £550 raised for the Cuban school.

Tom Barrett: "Mr Barrett, I have got glue on my laptop"

Technology used right along with traditional classroom tools. "Giving children a permanent technology choice in the classroom makes a huge difference."

Using GoogleEarth - "...most engaging tool out there." Using Vocaroo with GoogleEarth to plan a journey in a story. Setting location marks and adding notes to tell a story in snippets.

Using IM applications in class. Most popular online tool with children.

Sharing bookmarks with kids using delicious.com. (Something Cleveland Junior and Becontree Primary are already doing).

Twitter used in class - only 95% thought he was bonkers. 5% less than last year.

Edith - Year 9 student. Does X=Y?

Talking about technology tribes and Digital Natives. Am I Native or a Bridge? Am I young enough to be Native? :o)

"Young people are helping their parents catch up (with technology)"

Are we challenging students (Natives) enough? Recent OFSTED report says no.

Ollie Bray (www.olliebray.com): Maps, Mashups and Milkfloats.

Games based learning and using Wordle.net

Using free online tools to engage children.

www.geogreeting.com

GoogleEarth - showing the world spinning. Children start to have geographical conversations.

Task in a bucket (location lotto!) - pull a location out of a bucket and fly there on GoogleEarth from your school location.

www.bighugelabs.com (be careful how you type that!)

Thanks to the organisers for a fantastic evening (Lords!), and thanks also to all the sponsors.

TeachMeet NEL09 Part 1

Oh dear, I’m at TeachMeet NEL 09 at CEME with my Mac and every intention to blog live. CEME obviously doesn’t like Macs. I can see the Network but I can’t connect no matter how hard I try. So I am reverting to Word and cut and paste!

Next problem: Which room do I choose? I want to see quite a lot of these speakers but they are all in different rooms!

Rats!

Ok I’m in the main hall. Not sure if this is the right choice for me. Can I float?

Tom Whitehead: Fruit faces - use technology to be inclusive.

Oh, that's better! Finally connected to the Internet and breakout rooms moving into main hall.

Leon Cych: Speaking about BBC Learning Open Lab. He is developing a resource showing teachers using different web 2.0 resources.
Also interesting to know that Leon is passionate about Second Life as a learning environment.

Andrew Trimble: Using digital audio to enhance literacy. Pupils recording their play script dialogue. Demonstration of how to transfer their files on to computer ready for podcasting.

Jerome Monahan: Active approaches to everything.
Where hast thou been sister?
Killing swine.

Wonderful sight - a room full of teachers doing actions to text from Macbeth!
Aha! Leads to video conferencing - Global Leap.

Debbie Forster: Computer Clubs for Girls. www.cc4g.net Aimed at getting girls interested in IT. Starts from primary school. Now introducing boys! Pack going out to secondary schools www.bigambition.co.uk

Money raised by raffle goes towards rebuilding Celia Sanchez Manduley School in Cuba which was destroyed by hurricane Ike in 2008.

Break now. I need some food and a beer!

A New Lease of Life

I finally got round to buying my first ever scanner today. It is something that I've been thinking about for several years, but never quite got around to.

Since I started to edit the school website I have thought it would be good to be able to have the ability to scan documents like the school menu, so that I could add them to the website from home. Not to mention that it is handy to be able to scan books or pages of books for use in various lessons. Of course, that is all work related and I could use the scanner at school. However, I have a large stash of colour and black and white negatives and I have wanted to be able to convert the best of these into digital images for some time now. Obviously then, my scanner had to have film scanning capabilities.

I decided on a Canon CanoScan 5600F. I wasn't sure what to expect, quality wise, with the film scan. My test scan is below. It is scanned at 4800dpi. I was pleasantly surprised by the crispness and colour of the image.

First Photos from the New Camera

I had the perfect chance to try out my new camera yesterday. It was a beautiful crisp day in London, and a walk along South Bank gave plenty of photo opportunities. I have uploaded a set to flickr.com but below is a preview. I'm very happy and I am convinced that I made the right choice of camera.

New Camera

Panasonic DMCTZ5 Digital Camera - Black (9.1MP, 10x Optical Zoom)

No mucking about. I can't cope without a camera, and since this one has been tried and tested in the family, with great feedback, I decided to go for it.

I have just bought 6 of these:

Panasonic DMCFS3 Digital Camera - Black (8.1MP, 3x Optical Zoom)

for school. I am hoping that they will be simple to use (reviews suggest they will) and produce a really good photo. I don't see why kids in school should settle for grainy, poorly focused photos. If you are going to do photo work - do it properly!

Molly Doesn't Like Snow

It's been snowing hard in London and I woke up to this magical sight this morning.

I was very excited when it started settling last night, but this morning was a real wonder - I haven't seen snow like this since Christmas in Vancouver! My spirits were lifted even further by the phone call to let me know that the school was closing for the day.

So I donned boots and coat and picked up my iPhone (now my only camera since my trusty Canon PowerShot A75 died last night), and trudged out into the virgin snow.

I was loving it. Molly, on the other hand, did not know what to make of it. It took several minutes of hard thought on the door step before she decided to venture out and then it was with carefully placed paws in my footsteps.

Eventually she found somewhere she felt comfortable.

I left her there for a while but when I went to let her in I found only deep paw prints in the snow leading in a little loop of the garden, and then they vanished. That was when I heard a pitiful mewing from the other side of the fence where I can only guess she fell off! Trauma over. She is back inside and now apparently happy to stay on the sofa all day. I wish I could wake up to such amusement every day!

Last night's snow fall

The snow wasn't so deep last night - but still a little daunting!

Busy Start

It has been the most interesting and busy of beginnings. Dropping into a year 6 class, the term before their SATs, was never going to be easy. But despite being 'tested', having 2-3 lots of marking every day and being in a new school, in a new borough and working with systems I'm not used to, I'm having a ball!

There is a lot to get my head around just teaching in year 6 for the first time, but there is also stacks to do with the ICT.

I arrived at the school with an ICT action plan in my hand, and just 4 weeks in I can start ticking things off. My first discovery was that the ICT policy is 9 years old - ancient for any school policy, never mind in a subject area in which your equipment is out of date in 18 months! So I am in the process of writing a new one (although it might have to wait until the half term).

So far I have:

• written an action plan
  
• begun developing a strong ICT team with Robert, our fabulous IT technician
• bought photo editing software and 6 digital cameras for pupil use
• invested in a data logger which is already being used by year 5
• unearthed a 6 year subscription to EducationCity.com. 2 years gone and no one knew about it! It's being used now!
• started blogging with year 6
• introduced a cross curricular ICT and art topic for year 6
• worked with Robert to research a server for the school - watch this space.
• started to re-write the ICT policy
  

I feel quite proud of what we have achieved so far but there is still a lot to be done and it is going to need to be carefully prioritised. Next on the agenda is a big cupboard sort and resources purge. But that is for 2 days in the holiday. Will keep you posted!

Happy New Year

2008 has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. I have had some great moments; creative arts week was a fabulous work highlight, as was accepting my new job and I am really looking forward to starting that in January. There have also been some real lows, especially seeing some of my friends go through very difficult times in different ways. To these friends in particular I send my love and wishes for a better year in 2009.

And wishes for my 2009? I hesitate to make resolutions as they inevitably end up broken or forgotten; I have, instead, a wish for positive fresh starts.

• A fresh start with WeightWatchers and renewed commitment
• A positive start in my new job
• A year of good health (following nasty throat infections and 10 months of an inflamed shoulder joint this year)

So with only hours of 2008 left, I would like to wish all my readers a very happy new year and say, may the best of your past be the worst of your future.

Even More Christmas Fun.

The latest of the Elf Yourself videos. Having introduced Ted and Marley to the joys of Twitter and Twittervision, we then moved on to the very serious business of turning them into elves. And here are the results.

Creative Arts Week - Update

At long last I have finally finished editing my video overview of the Creative Arts Week that I was part of organising this year. Nothing very flash - just a short(ish) taster of the week, and looking back it still makes me smile. I have included two videos below - the first is the week's overview and the second is the complete Longsword performance.

More Christmas Fun - Elf Yourself

Another silly Christmas video to wish you all a merry Christmas and a wonderful 2009.
Thanks to Anthony Evans for introducing me to this site.

The Force is Strong on the Mac Side

After much thought and drooling over other people's, I finally bought an iPhone. I've had it for about a month and a half now and I have to confess that my conversion to church of Apple is now complete. For the first time ever all my contacts, diaries and e-mail accounts are in sync and up to date. I feel rather organised and virtuous. I have hardly switched on my PC since buying the Mac. The poor abandoned machine gets switched on periodically so that I can print but once I rearrange my network it will be visited even less frequently. Loving the iPhone but there are one or two things about it that annoy me:

• To do lists do not sync from iCal - in my opinion this is a huge oversight and one that needs sorting very soon
• Battery life is shocking - but I knew that before I bought it
• I don't like the iPhone version of predictive text - it doesn't appear to learn your regularly used words and it is all to easy to send out a text with a random word substituted
• All of the alarm tones are a bit weedy - none of them are guaranteed to wake me up

Other than that it is love all the way. May the force be with you.

Christmas Fun

My kids at school have been taking part in a Christmas sing off this week. They chose to sing the Carol of the Bells. I love the song but as you can probably imaging it is now firmly wedged in my head. This morning I decided to play with GarageBand on my Mac and see what I could come up with. This is the end result and yes I know it is a little out of tune in places and a bit rough around the edges but I quite like the result and it provides a little festive fun to my blog! And yes, all the voices are me!

Wordle.net

What a lovely website. Any suggestions on how I can use this in lessons?

A Door Opens

After seven years at Cleveland I have taken the plunge and last week I accepted a new job. It means working in a new school, a new borough and a new role. It is scary and exciting all in one go but I am more than ready for the move and it feels right. I'm still going to be teaching and in class full time but my new role is ICT co-ordinator and I have plenty of ideas to get ICT integrated across the curriculum, including the use of blogging in the classroom!

In truth, I can't wait to get started - there is lots to do and big challenges ahead but I am very ready for them. I feel very guilty about leaving my current class part way through the year but it had to be done unfortunately. So, half a term to go and I'll be gutted when it actually comes to leaving but for now...... :o)

An interesting find

It is amazing what you can find in a school playground. This incredible creature was found by a couple of the kids in my class. They spent their entire lunchtime gently cradling it in their hands and showing every teacher they could find. Their facination was as wonderful as the insect itself; and very understandable. This is the closest I have ever been to a dragonfly and it really was breathtaking. It is a shame that it had died but it seems to have died naturally and it provided a fantastic experience for dozens of kids and adults alike.