monday...

Think about this, we were told on friday that today, monday, there will be a HOD meeting instead of a Department meeting. However, in morning briefing this morning, it was announced that it has now been changed back to being a department meeting again. Come on Leaders of Learning, get your act together and sort it out.

KnowledgeNET Part 2

I couldn't make it to the user group meeting on Thursday for this, instead I emailed them for some minutes of the meeting, I got there powerpoint. I eagerly opened the document and was surprised to see a road map for 2007, now 2007 is a long time, 12 months, 365 days... I won't go on,

• The road map contains...
• New and Improved WYSIWYG editor
• E-Portfolio System
• Project Management Tool (includes assessment drop box)
• Goal setting tool
• Blogging tool for reflections
• Easy to Manage - "My Best Work"
• Teacher Skill Profile
• PXT to KN with Image Gallery
• Interoperability Project
• New Interface

Now this is a good start to what is missing from the current system
The editor they are moving to is a FCK editor, I like the name, I think I will enjoy saying this one in class, "Open the FCK editor."

The Interoperability Project is linking the SMS more up to knowledgenet so that you can click a button in the SMS and save a file that can be uploaded to knowledgenet and all the users, marks, and assessment information can be put up immediately, I can see issues on timing and workload for this.

The new user interface will be more tab based, and act more like moodle, it will have drag and drop features, be modular, and have a simple navigation system not like the current model.
Think windows live pages.....

So I look forward to what knowledgenet has to offer and hope that these changes are sooner rather than later.

yet another **** up

This morning I went into school later than normal, I sat down and waited for the morning meeting to start. As the HOD turns up, she turns to me and says have you read the SMS messages, I reply, no, I have not opened up my laptop to check any messages yet. As she watches me grab my bag and fumble for my laptop out of it and open it up I wonder what is going on. As I wait for filemaker pro to open and connect through the wireless using TCP/IP I start to wonder, what have I done, has there been an email complaining about something I have done, I ask, and she says "Wait and see",

Finally I can login and I see the message. The Department meeting that was planned for Monday has now been moved to next Monday, as there is an HOD meeting that is now taking place on Monday instead. So what does this mean, well on Monday was to be the moderation for the NCEA assessment tasks that our year 11 students spent 3 weeks on before the holidays, as well as to continue planning for what is coming up in this term. Now the HOD spoke to the leader of learning and she has said that she is not needed to go to the HOD meeting, instead you can do two department meetings in a row instead, I tended to laugh at this point. Why does our HOD not need to go to the HOD meeting when it has been called at short notice?

Now this might seem small, but is is yet another muck up by our SLT that causes some problems within the staff. Mondays Staff meeting was cancelled with no days notice, department meetings are changed, at least with at least one days notice. But when the leaders in learning last year made the calendar for this year maybe they should have left Mondays blank so they could do whatever they want to do without mucking everyone up.

tuanz conference notes

Notes required for a report on the TUANZ conference on the 30 March 2007 at Eden Park.

Creating the walled garden: Web 2.0 Tools for your district. This session was split into two areas, one focused on the tools, the other focused on how easy they were to install and get running.
Presenter Miguel Guhlin

Miguel looked at the use of blogs in the classroom to help students develop ideas. b2Evolution is a blogging software that he recommended. pmwiki is another. Protected versus public content. Should all the information be available to everyone or is there cases where the information should remain within the walled garden.
RSS Feeds, a particular piece of software to manage all the feeds that you could subscribe to is bloglines.com
Then he looked at setting up the walled garden on your laptop.
setting up PHP/mySQL and a web server using WAMP and how to install web applications such as wordpress on it.

For more information see http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/wiki/index.php?n=Main.Walledgardentools

The workshop provided simulated hands on training on how to setup your own blogs, wikis, image gallery a la Flickr using free open source software tools. We were promised a CD that never eventuated. The software shown make any computer a server and a platform for global communication and collaboration. The benefits of the walled garden is that you are not dependent on external systems for students to use, instead being able to model the appropriate use of social networking strategies in the classroom.

Focus on Adaption of technologies for better learning outcomes: How to get it right, or how not to get it wrong.
This was presented by Karen Rollerston of Manzana.

It was basically a infomercial on there product, there version of the smart board and associated software. Enabling technology in the class:

• People
• Processes
• and Technology

Peoples ability to use technology, the seamless integration into the classroom, being able to prepare students, return an investment

some of the factors that affect the integration into the classroom are:

• culture, of the school/community
• the teachers ability to adapt
• support from the supplier
• Professional Development
• Time
• Supplier Selection

The third wave? Moving towards an Online Learning environment. Knowledgenet reloaded in coronet
Presented by Phil Buchana, Ian Collier, and Sheila Morrison

This was an interesting workshop. they kept referring to knowledgeNET as a LMS (learning Management System), however CoroNet are using it more as a tool to put up information, class projects/assignments, relief and course outlines. They make use of the forum software in knowledgenet to pose questions and have an online discussion. But they still relay on other products to act as a drop box to return information to the teacher or to get the student to print it off when they are at home and hand it in at school.

Presentations were given on how some teachers use the KnowledgeNET in the class and some of the benefits this has had. With distance education and the use of KnowledgeNET as a Content management System and the forum as well as Video Conferencing to get the one on one interaction between the student and the teacher.

They do admit that there is a problem with the WYSIWYG editor and that there is no drop boxes, however knowledgeNET are working on these issues, however I fear, we will be waiting still as this was to come out two years ago.

Interesting speakers, It is good to find out what problems/solutions other school face with KnowledgeNET and it is the same as we have at our school.

Teaching 2.0: We know exactly what to do Yeah Right.
Suzy Gould from STORYexpress

Such a wonderful presenter to finish off the workshops with.

Go with the flow versus know before you go. this is one of the problems teachers face in today's digital word, with some teachers wanting to know before you go, research and find out more details, many students go with the flow, they see what is happening around them with digital technologies and jump in.

Web 2.0 allows users to control the data where as before the content was written and put up for people to view, now they can interact with the content, edit the content and put it into a form they want to view it in, not what the author may have put it in.

Tags, with blogs and wikis tags can be put in to organise content, tags have no particular rhyme or system. It is up to you, attitude versus aptitude.

a definition of web 1.0 was put up, links, flat, brochure, web 2.0 red/write you control the data.

some helpful links
www.kraztdad.com/colrpickr

this is a colour urban picker, select a colour from the colour palette and the software will interact with the flickr API to display urban images that display that colour.

A way to copy youtube movies,
http://www.vixy.com/ which is a online flash video converter.

Still waiting for Suzy to put up the slide show of the presentation as it was well worth visiting.

First Day back after the Holiday

Oh what a day it has been, kinda sucked in many a way.

Period 1, Year 13 web design students. Get them to design a flash splash screen to introduce the year 13 web design class. hey, they did web design including flash design last year, thought i would see where they were up to, what they knew or didn't, the case being on the didn't.
Now at the beginning of this year there was issues of getting flash to run on these computers, I was informed that this had been sorted out, I feel a tui ad coming on here. Of course when it was tested at the time it worked, now more than 30 days later the issues are more problematic, what the solution I now know at the time was use the trial verison, I now have to give out the macromedia studio code to the students to get this going, something I never want to do.

Period 2, Year 9, oh sweet year 9's, always busy and wanting to work. yeah right, try half the class not being able to log in, no idea what is happening here, there accounts are shut up tighter than a, a, a, a, we will leave it here. The only way to fix these accounts is to do a reset profile on them. Kind of a bummer when you have 15 accounts to do as well as password resets. But once we got over that hurdle away they went for the last 20 minutes of the lesson.

Period 3, Year 12 programming, yes, something they can get there teeth into, gamemaker, a nice little software program to get them top do some real programming, well in some ways drag and drop and get to know a little about how programs are setup and made.
I have all the handouts ready, however the exercise files they need I did not have on the virtual hard disk. Got that sorted and the profile resets done. Get them into it and away, and then they go and run the final version. It stops with an error, not enough memory, oh well, have a look, yeap 256 meg of ram, however it wasn't that memory it was the graphics memory, it was set to 8 meg of VRAM, gamemaker needs 32 meg of VRAM, Virtual PC 2004 neither Virtual PC 2007 supports more than 16... so I have no idea on how to get past this at the moment, I have tried and tried and tried but why didn't they set it up as what I asked for at the beginning of the year, a local partition to run gamemaker and c#, oh the C# is another story.

Period 4, Year 11, Easy, some password resits and profile resets, I am now starting to get annoyed at this. Seems that they cannot do excel for too longer a period.

Period 5, Year 13 programming, sit them down ad keep them quiet, got then to carry on with there individual assessments in robotics today which are due at the end of the week. Man some students see it as a social class.

Period 6. Year 9, two password resets and trying to get gamemaker running. Hey they are working out of a book at the moment, i know it is not good practice but I need to get this running to do my other senior classess.

And no books from Craig printing today, hopefully tomorrow, I want to see what harry the southern man tuatara is like.

Staff Meeting part 2

Yet another staff meeting cancelled, so, when did they tell us, this morning at morning briefing. "Leaders of learning", I am really finding this difficult now. "Leaders at slacking off and getting the HOD's to do there dirty work." At the end of last term they reminded us that the first Monday back we had a staff meeting. Ok, I wonder what will be discussed, as all the HOD's were invited into school in the holidays for a day long session on IIP, Investors in People. Speakers where invited in to talk to the HOD's on making the departments a more friendlier and to provide a team environment.

No staff meeting, next week is a department meeting for us to moderate our latest NCEA assessments, that could have been carried out this week and the information given back to our students so they know how good or bad they have done. The ability to get the resits out of the way before the Mid-Year Assessments start in week 4.
Also I overheard another department discussing how annoying it is to have the staff meeting cancelled, as they are involved in the secondary numeracy project. To get the information required out now would be beneficial to them and the students, same thing assessment weeks are soon coming up.
And after school detention was listed in he notices, the AP stood up at morning briefing and apologised for the notice that was in there, shouldn't have been in there and to not read it out to the students. The table that i sit at thought that the after school detention should have been run as there was no staff meeting after school and that the AP should have taken it.

It will soon get to the point of when a staff meeting is on, that the response will be, "oh was there a staff meeting on, I thought it was cancelled as the rest of them have been this year."

Libraries

I found a post on the internet describing what Libraries might become, should they be willing to move with the times...

Labyrinth of Lassitude

As instructional leaders we must be on the cutting edge of new
technologies. Teacher-librarians should be seen as "early adopters" of new and
emerging software, hardware and instructional initiatives. We should be creating
spaces in virtual social networks such as MySpace, entering Second Life and
playing games to understand how these technologies impact student learning,
instructional design, library/computer budgets and information literacy
programs. We must understand how these new technologies impact on space and
library design and be ready to renovate our libraries to accommodate areas that
allow for collaboration (locally, nationally and globally), interaction (e.g
SmartBoards, Skype), portable computing devises, and audio, visual and text
publishing. The library should be the publishing centre of the school and space
needs to be designed to accommodate these activities.
Source: The Illuminated Dragon

I'm a bit frustrated with the idea that librarians are going to be the leaders in the brave new world, when they have failed so miserably to sell their wares to current school administrators. The realities of schools today preclude the use of teacher-librarians in the ways described above. Furthermore, while there are ample paragons of Web 2.0 virtue out there among teacher-librarians, they are few and far between. The reality, the sad reality, is that most school librarians are grateful to have enough books to manage, that they are prayerfully attentive to whether the next round of budget cuts will maintain their positions and fragile library budgets.

Rennovating our libraries to accommodate areas that allow for collaboration, interaction, mobile devices and ePublishing opportunities is a worthy goal. But it remains an unrealizable goal so long as the emphasis is on high stakes testing, and weeding out of anything unnecessary to achieving those purposes. If librarians, teachers should be focused on any achievable goal, it is the eradication of No Child Left Behind.

Until that happy day, we build on shifting sand, labor in a lost, lifeless, labyrinth of lassitude. One supposes that posts like the one above are merely remembrances of what should have been, could someday be, if only we remember what life could have been like without NCLB.

Maybe, this kind of writing is really about accomplishing what one director characterized as....

When one works without a net (mandate), one tends to pay more attention to the
needs of those one serves and perhaps a little less attention to theoretical
"best practices." Best practices are those that keep school libraries vital and
indispensable by providing the services that are seen as important by the entire
institution. We need to acknowledge that other people in education also have
valid perspectives about what is in the best interest of the children we all
serve.

Go ahead. Rage at the dying of the light. Wake me up when you're done.

Copied from http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/archives/2007/04/entry_3022.htm

Mountain Biking

I am in charge of the Mountain Biking at the school, it is an incredible sport to be involved in, only problem is the paperwork. RAMs forms and SAP forms are a big part of it. I have to put down in writing all the Hazards, Risks, and anything else related to the sport and area that we are planning on visiting. Each trip requires a site visit first.

Some of the ones we have already gone to are Woodhill Mountain Bike Park
Whitford Mountain Bike Park,
future rides will be going to Hunua Bike Park

I am also looking at the students getting involved in the Auckland Mountain Bike Winter Series that is run through collegesport as I think it would be a great experience for them. It has four events

Round 1: Sunday 20 May Entries close: 14 May Round 2: Sunday 17 June Entries close: 11 June Round 3: Sunday 5 August Entries close: 30 July Round 4: Sunday 19 August Entries close: 13 August

Riverhead Forest Woodhill Forest Hunua Whitford Forest

What I hope is that my mountain bikers will have a little knowledge of the area that they are going to be competing in.

School Holidays

Two weeks of a break from students and a hell of a lot of marking from the term. Thank god for this product, it helps get through the marking with my mind still sane.

woosh

I am looking at using woosh as an alternative to Broadband, It means I can use it anywhere in the country, well within major centres as I do more and more Union business. Hey I can check my email while stuck on the Auckland motorway. I will let the blog know how well it goes.

KnowledgeNET

KnowledgeNET is our schools perfered choice of Learning Management System. Now the Ministry of Education has set up a website that provides schools looking at using an Managed Online Learning Environments, now I have been using a number of these over the years I have been with the school. I have used Blackboard (hate it), Mindspring, this was when it was Encarta Class server (This was a nice environment to work with), Interact (This is used at Christchurch College of education and is so far the best that I have used) and now KnowledgeNET. Some of the major issues I have is with this one, it claims that it is a Learning Management System, however it is more of a Content Management System. I wrote a bit of a paper on it last year and thought that I would share it.

In my school they are currently using KnowledegeNET as their LMS (Learning Management System). I do agree with you that it is not a LCMS, it is not even a LMS (Learning Management System). The students cannot really manage there own learning through it. It is a place to put up documents (resources) it has the functionality of a dog. There is no place to test students, there is no drop box for students to hand in work, even by a set time, only if they hand it into there public space. But then that is available to everyone.

Out of the CM Briefing terms – Definition of information management terms, a LCMS (Learning Content Management System) combines the capabilities of a content management system(CMS) with that of a learning management system(LMS). This allows them to manage both the content of the training materials, and the administration of the course itself. http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_definition/pdf/CMb_Definition.pdf

There is no course to really manage within KnowledgeNet, within the MyZone Courses, navigation is, Course Outline, Forum, Noticeboard, Personal Calendar, Resources and Welcome. You can add extra folders in to house different units of work and subsections, but that is still documents (documents can be webpage, word document, excel, spreadsheet, adobe pdf files, macromedia flash objects), but as any part of teaching, formative and summative testing and recording is still required. Knowledgenet lacks this.

KnowledgeNET provides the ability to create resources, or Learning Objects via the use of an online web page creator WYSIWYG, that you can create Learning Object and include images, text, flash, links to other websites, files. Although it is limited in its use.

------------------------
What is KnowledgeNET?

The KnowledgeNET is a Learning Management System built to meet the challenges and opportunities presented in an information rich learning landscape. If you can use a web browser, then you can begin using your KnowledgeNET and create a truly lifelong learning environment for teacher, students and parents to share and explore.
Mark Tredwell.

What is the KnowledgeNET?
KnowledgeNET is an unparalleled New Zealand learning management service that facilitates the effective sharing of knowledge and communication between cluster schools, teachers, administrators, students and parents delivering a rich teaching and learning environment.
-----------------------
Copied from the KnowledegeNET User Guide

KnowledgeNET Features:
• A comprehensive intranet/extranet solution for schools.
• Permissions Based so that every user has their own customised environment to ensure that they see their relevant classes/subjects and school information.
• Cut and paste technology to easily add content and new data including uploading images and files, placing links, creating tables, inserting flash animations plus other multimedia. Permission rights can be assigned to all data.
• Discussion and resource sharing with bulletin boards, online chat, file sharing tools, polls.
• School and staff notices
• Calendaring and booking forms
• Interoperability with other school services including all student management systems, library software, internet gateways and filtering systems.

Through the use of the KnowledgeNET you can give your students and staff the best possible opportunity to maximise their teaching and learning capabilities, without any technical hurdles to leap over.
Copied from: http://www.knowledge-networks.co.nz/products_knowledgenet.php

Administration of the system is also a problem; you cannot add members to your subject without having to go through the ICT administration. A LCMS should be easy to use, and easy to navigate. Yes KnowledgeNET are working on this and have been for a while now, however version 4 was supposed to arrive last year. They are still running version 3.10b.

It is nice that it is managed from outside the school, but it would also be nice to have active ICT administrations at the school to ask if you have a question of how to do something.

What is a LMS, CMS?
Learning Management system (LMS)
Learning management systems automate the administration of training and other learning. This includes registering students, managing training resources, recording results, and general course administration. Learning management systems are designed to meet the entire needs of professional trainers and other educators.

Content management system (CMS)
Content management systems support the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information. Also known as ‘web content management’ (WCM), these systems typically focus on online content targeted at either a corporate website or intranet.

From http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_definition/pdf/CMb_Definition.pdf

The Ministry of Education states that a Learning Management System is A software package to manage and deliver learning content and resources to students, usually comprising a variety of applications amalgamated as an “integrated” package and used within an OLE.

And an OLE (Online Learning Environment) is the complete online environment where a learner can access a range of applications or resources.

These statements are from the Ministry of Education: Enabling the 21st Century Learner, available from http://www.minedu.govt.nz/web/downloadable/dl10475_v1/itc-strategy.pdf

Now, for a change of speed,
Most of what I have looked at here is for Education, Schools in particular.
Businesses require some of the same functions, they too require Content Management Systems and Learning Content Management Systems, but these can what till another time.

References:
CM Briefing: Definition of information management terms: CMb 2004-04
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_definition/pdf/CMb_Definition.pdf
KnowledegeNET User Guide available upon request
KnowledgeNET: Connecting you to your world
http://www.knowledge-networks.co.nz/products_knowledgenet.php
Ministry of Education: Enabling the 21st Century Learner http://www.minedu.govt.nz/web/downloadable/dl10475_v1/itc-strategy.pdf

One of the things I found after I had completed this was a link on the KnowledgeNET site that shows how KnowledgeNET meets the MOE guidelines. http://www.knowledge.net.nz/knscope.php
It shows how it meets Learning, Administration and Technical Facets.

My favourite part is in the learning facet.

Publishing tools (e.g. Blog tools) and Reflective tools (e.g. e-portfolio)
These are in trial format at the moment are blogging tools which will be used in the development of the Web-folios. The web-folios also contained reflective tools, strategic planning and self-assessment environments.

When are these going to be made available, I am having to set up PbWiki, Wordpress and WAMP as well as a number of other systems on a seperate server inside the school for students to do this.

International Day - Live Feed

I have been busy all morning using technology to provide a live feed of the International Day festival to another area of the school where students are changing and waiting before they go on stage.

I have my apple mac mini with quicktime broadcaster running in the hall with a DV camera plugged into the firewire port providing the feed.

Apple's quicktime broadcaster allows the images from the camera to be broadcast through the school network. One of things I find is that I have to put the IP address of where it is being streamed to, this would normally be a darwin streaming server, however it is to the laptop that I have quicktime installed on, not the IP address of the apple mac.

One of the things I keep forgetting is that you need to export a .mov with all the settings in, place the .mov file in a shared area and open at the other end(make a note of the other ends IP address) I don't have a streaming server available, so peer to peer works just as well.

At the other end is my laptop with a projector attached and 3.5mm male to two RCA male hooked in to provide sound to the projector. Now I have apple quicktime running providing the feed from the .mov file I put on the network.

Now why you might ask has he done this.
Well four-five years ago we ran a live feed using rca cable strung across the school, now I thought, why don't we use technology to do the same thing, no cable strung over the place, we have the network access available in all rooms, why not find a way to use it. I brought my mac mini and away we went.
One problem is that the video camera keeps turning off, just need to eject the tap and leave it, leave the cover open and it runs all the time or remove the tape.

Technology Achievement Standards

Now I am working on my year 13 web design project, I want to students to create a website based on a topic, kind of a e-learning meets Learning Object, as I see the Internet moving towards these not the brochure based websites that currently exist on the Internet, anyone with a WYSIWYG editor and some form of graphic editing can go and create. History of an area is what people are going to be looking for in the future, what changes have there been. Now there is a website called Living Heritage, http://www.livingheritage.org.nz/index.html
This is a education website that looks at various history of people, buildings, landmarks.
What I am thinking is getting the students to create a Living heritage website based on landmarks in Auckland. We have many landmarks, north head(an old fort), One tree hill and Cornwall park, Rangitito island, Mount wellington, and the defenses of the first and second world war. I want to find a way to include this as I think it is a brilliant idea to get the students looking at where they live and what there is to offer.

International Day

Today is international day at school, and that leads into some interesting observations. The Indian students get into it in there saris and some of the boys get dressed up as well. The Pacific Island groups get dressed up, But what does a nz'er dress up in. What is our culture.

three students have adopted the Mexican culture for the day buy dressing up as the three amigos, which is a rather funny look.

The week is a highlight on the school calendar, with students bringing in there cultural food on Tuesday, playing cultural games on Monday, kilikiti is like a mixture of softball and cricket. Wednesday we have the cultural performances, and Thursday, will wait and see what happens.

Myself, I have dressed up in my normal school clothes, well when I went to school, white shirt, grey pants, black shoes, the old school tie, green with yellow stripes. Now I start to add more, a Blue and Yellow waistcoat and a Jimmy wig, a Scottish cap with a pom pom on top and orange hair sewen in the base of the cap. It looks good, and to top it off, I haven't shaved in a week!

What is a YANT?

A YANT is a teacher who is under 35 or in their first 5 years of teaching, that is what we have discussed at the PPTA meetings. A YANT stands for a Young and New Teacher.

I had a email asking for this definition today from another school as someone wishes to be the YANT rep as part of a PPTA branch.

Now I gave them the above definition, at the same time I emailed the Advisory Officer in Wellington asking for a more defined definition. I got an answer,

"I have not been successful in getting a clear definition from the files – the YaNT network was set up to cater for “teachers under the age of 35” and “recently appointed teachers” said the conference decision in 2000. That second part is not very helpful wording, and has led to the various lengths of time that have been applied.

I have now consulted the General Secretary and the decision is that the second part should be reworded “recently appointed teachers until they achieve full registration”. This will enable older teachers to receive the necessary support from the network until they can spread their professional wings, as it were.

We are aware that some branches may be applying different definitions right now and we have no wish to embarrass them, but we will get this wording circulated and hope that the confusion will end."

Now there are at least three other definitions that I have found on the net as well about what a YANT is;

The one I like the best, A YANT is not a Young Nat!

Accounts

One of the things I find as a teacher is the amount of accounts that you need access to, Not the ones on the network or anything like that. But accounts to access the School Journals online search and information facility. I am trying to gain access to a whole heap of Digital Learning Objects(DLOs) through tki's digital store at the moment and someone in the school has the user name and password for it, I know that the school applied for it on the 27 July 2006, but nothing has been said or emailed to the staff informing them of this great treasure.

As I sit here and wait for the email to flash up on my screen proclaiming what the user name and password is, I get to watch the conversation between all the house leaders discussing what room we will have a meeting in on the first Tuesday back from term at Interval. F3 or media room, I say why not have it out on the field, that way we wont have to book a room through the property manager :) sorry snide comment.

Update: found a site with access to the information, http://learningobjects.acg.ac.nz/BELTS/datas/cdrom.html

What is a first language?

One of the questions a student or his/her parents is asked when enrolling at the school is, what is your first language? Now I have friends that the husband speaks German at home and the mother speaks English, now what is their first language? The statistics can be flawed because the parents think that there child will be not accepted in the school if English is not there first language, which is rubbish. I have just completed the stats for the PAT tests which look at the students reading comprehension and vocabulary, it has been a long road since the second week of school when the tests were carried out in the hall and the class teachers entered the results. So far I have had to compare 2006 with 2007, year 9 last year and year 10 this year, have they improved, gotten worse?

Tuanz Conference end session

TUANZ 2007 Conference

Miguel Guhlin - Interactive Q & A Discussion

Content - An example of a krumping session was shown via youtube of New Zealand secondary school students in uniform, now what was posted by the keynote speaker was that there seemed to be no staff around, students in uniform, was it controlled or uncontrolled. Is this an example that principals or the school wants the global audience to see. As this could be one of the first impressions that people get of New Zealand schools.

How does it affect

• students
• teachers
• parents
• principals
  

Who allowed the content to be put up, who owns the content?
What can be done to stop this from going up?

It was pointed out by the audience that this is getting students participating, that schools are multicultural and that this reduces that fighting in the playground. Others point out that the school has to set aside lunchtimes for this to happen as it causes problems with the duties as many students hang around to watch the krumping and other teachers have no students to
supervise on duty. There is worse stuff on youtube, today i had an example told to me of a fight at polyfest where a student was on the ground getting the s**t kicked out of him. There is also "Happy Slappy" fake fights put up and students in class in full school uniform putting there foot in their mouth. But it comes back to who allowed the content to be put up in the first place.
Now this isn't the video that was shown, but it shows a Krumping session at Tangaroa College in South Auckland

Krump session

Tui Road Fight

It is interesting when a member of the senior leadership comes into the staff room at Interval and announces that there is trouble at the Tui Road alleyway. The staff move with such swiftness and response it would make any SWAT team in the world envies, however with this we go quickly and swoop out of the staffroom. It was this when a comment was overheard. "Come on ***, get off your arse and get out there", with a response from ***, "It's ok, ****** is going I don't have to." Now at this time I think should I continue going to the trouble, or turn around and say F**k off, get off your arse and get out there, but no, I carry on out to the trouble running and jumping over the students and low fences in the way, open the side gate near where about 30 students are close to the fence, fling open the gate and see two high school students from another school running away, I see a couple of year 13 students hanging out near the flats and ask them, which way, they point towards Alexander ave and say there is 3 of them, I carry on and see a lady in orange delivering circulars and ask, she points towards the farm. I carry on looking carefully around me seeing of any other teachers are following, there are none, I get to the end of the road and see three students jumping the fence into a property. I wait, they jump back over the fence and carry on past the orchard and associated farm house. When I get back I to the school fence I see the DP and one of the AP's and teachers looking around and seeing what is happening as well as dealing with the mass of students that are attracted to any disturbance with the force at school. I get back in school and lock the side gate. I then go back to the staff room, the bell rings and I sit there finishing my cup of tea. Now I think about this all day, should I complain that a comment was made that a Senior Leadership team member didn't want to support the staff and said, "I don't have to go, ******'s going."

I wait until after school and visit the DP who went out and comment to him about the situation, he says he will have a talk to him. As in the Tui Ad, Yeah, RIGHT. But it raises the question, if this continues to happen will staff going out in support to help, or will we stay inside the warm staff room having our cup of tea and biscuits.

One of the comment the DP made was that a student who was amazed at how fast Sir ran, "My gosh, he is fit". I look at myself and think, Yeah Right, I can probably last about 10 seconds at full speed before something will break, or i run out of puff.

Staff Meeting

Today there should have been a staff meeting, now at staff meetings is the dissimulation of information to all staff. Normally this is one person telling everyone what they should be doing or debating an important topic in the school. The last couple of staff meetings have been put off due to the senior leadership have not prepared anything or just don't want to do it. Now these staff meetings are being used to get the electronic roll and the paper based roll up to date. Now this could be done in a Guidance meeting time, not the staff meeting time. Now you may be asking why does this matter. Well if they want to have communication with staff and show that they are "Leaders of Learning" then maybe they should show it. Prepare some type of lecture or information to put out to staff and show what you are made of, otherwise the staff will put you down to "Leaders of Discipline"

Update:
Staff Meeting Ideas

In the winter dropping the detention back to 45 minutes, the reason for this is for health and the shorter days. In June and July the sun sets at 5:13pm and 5:15pm, with this there is normally a dark twilight, if detention is carried on for an hour until 4:15 this would normally end in students and teachers possibly going home in the dark.

Guidance Meetings held on a Monday afterschool could also be used for form teachers to correct there roll instead of using staff meetings for this purpose.

If staff meetings do not go ahead as planned, how about teachers of junior classess getting together to discuss ideas and/or problems with certain students or how to excel others.