Adventurous

At the beginning of extended hub today I asked my students what adventurous meant to them.

Developing the habits and for students to be able to see them not just in school, but in life, is important to us. We spend a great amount of time in Learning Hubs, and developing the relationships with these hubs is important. Without these relationships today would have been a complete fail. Students need to be supportive, give things a go, have trust in each other. 

I have been looking at doing this activity for the last couple of weeks, but weather and other activities have got in the way. Today, though it was hot outside was the perfect day.

Once students entered what adventurous means to them, I showed them this video

Getting students to realise the opportunities and the risks, rules for this were important, only one person on the slackline at a time. We want everyone to try, as well as safe.

Everyone gave it a go, tried different ways to balance, walk the slackline. It was one thing that struck me though, was the support from all the students to walk the slackline with support from a helper. Even though there were many failures, the support was there to try again. Something that I want to see from other areas of their learning.

Yes, even I had to give it a go, I had to demonstrate what would happen, they thought that I was playing shaking the slackline at the start when trying to balance, however with their own experiences they found the same issue. Conversations about breathing that came out of the videos were then had.

Students want to give it a go again, develop their adventerous, I wish to show them this video on where it could lead, but that can wait for another day.

Here are some photos from the activity today

I will end this post with another piece of information, this is from our hub curriculum

Next time, I need another set of post it notes to ask the question, what does adventurous look like?

Things to do next
Developing support, only fingertips to be used.

• Walk the line and hug the pole.
• Swat - two feet on the line get down as low as you can, go past the wobble point
• One foot Balance, 10 seconds
• Walk Backwards
• Bounce (gentle bounce) offload

Hand hold support

• Onload, 30 cm jump, 90 degrees to the line, up and forwards to get on the line, control forward motion
• Side jump

Vocab
Relax and Breath. Try to feel whats happening. And only exercise will stop you from shacking. And
believe it or not: Everyone is shacking with it foot and leg like a lot.
Shacking is when the line wobbles a lot when you try to stand on it.

Thank you to Steve for supporting me in the developing of the ideas.

Evidence for Digital Media Logo assessment

One thing that I keep thinking of is, what does evidence look like of logo development. Through one of the websites that was linked to earlier this week, I found a great tutorial that could help with showing advanced tools, plus I like the way that it was put together at the end.

First thing is first, sketching ideas, this is a great way to use a different space for the students to thinks creativity, something I would world allow them to wok where they wanted, to develop the idea, use the hallway, a breakout space, outside. Whee ever their creativity and imagination is best found. Use a visual diary, of piece of paper on card something that they can scribble over and take photos of or scan. 

I plan on getting my students to use vector based tools, opening then up to a produce outside of photoshop gives them opportunities to develop new learning using concrete information that they may already have.

Through the tutorial I like the way that the author has taken screen shots with brief pieces of information on how they created this. This type of method is shown in the level 3 digital media exemplars where students showed how they created their complex digital media. A tutorial that is published could allow next years students to learn how to develop and create their own ideas. It also helps the students to learn to use knowledge and skills from their other subject like english, to be able to communicate with and audience.

At the end of the tutorial I like the idea of a branding guideline sheet, it helps show the understanding of how the logo, colours, font can work to enhance the print outcome or website and it also informs where some of the unique ideas of the student come from through the exploration of the brand mark.

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The tutorial that I have taken these images and idea from is available at ​http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/creating-a-coffee-house-logo-from-theory-to-vector-in-adobe-illustrator--vector-10709

Wellbeing and a learner

Last year one of the staff challenges at Hobsonville Point Secondary School was wellbeing. 

HPSS Wellbeing Challenge - Term 4 2015

Aim: To develop a wellbeing challenge to encourage staff to look after themselves in Term 4. My initial thinking is to set a focus/challenge each week e.g. drinking more water, try a meditation strategy, get more sunshine, do some exercise, sleep well, reflect etc. Then provide some resources to support each week’s focus and encourage people to complete a weekly gratitude journal entry or reflection.

I have decided that this needs to continue for my own sanity. One of the things that I have seen happening for a number of years has been people putting tie downs between trees and then walking on the tie down. This had some interest, considering I wasn't in the right head space at the time. Now being at HPSS I am looking at new ways to look at our Hobsonville Habits. But the Habits are not just for the students, I believe that they are for us all at HPSS. It is amazing at the conversations that happen between staff, students, support staff that all mention the Habits.

From Sally Hart Blogpost

So why have I included learner in this post as well, I believe to be able to work towards the habits we have to learn. I am working on developing my learning in taking up a new skill, with that will come new knowledge. Doing a number of youtube searches ends up with hours of watching people do the cool things. But what about the beginning, what gear do I need, what resources? Having gathered student voice from the Individual Education Meetings at the beginning of the year with families and students many of them talked about wanting to develop new skills, not just within subjects, but also outside.

Two great sites for getting your slackfline gear,

torpedo7.co.nz

http://www.slacklineshop.co.nz

Beginners slackfline video, 3 steps,  

Having to break down the skills required

1. Foot position

2. Elbows above shoulders

3. What to do and where to look, what to do with your head

Setup at school this afternoon

Had to work out if this is possible at school and make sure it is safe.

Yes, the Health and Safety is important. 

I will be sending out some video ideas to my Learning Hub students, as we work out what a Learning Journal will look like and develop. Can students show ideas for developing their learning and their Habits. Do they understand how the Learning Design Model could be used to help develop the new knowledge and skills.

I look forward to developing my wellbeing, my learning as I myself develop confidence in this with my learning hub students.

Getting to know the learner

This week at HPSS, we have been having Individual Meetings with our parents and students in our Learning Hubs.
This has been a fantastic way to meet the new year 9 students as well as continue to develop relationships with the parents of last years hub students and to get to meet the new hub students and their parents.

Throughout the meeting we have been asking questions, which I have to say have blended themselves ratther well.

What are your interests and passions?
What sports do you play or would like to play?
What are your main strengths?
What do you find difficult?
What are you most worried about?
What are you most looking forward to?
Wht is your favourite learning area(s)?
What was your favourite thing about your previous school?
Parent - Looking forward to / expectations...
Parent - Worried about...
Student aspirations for the future...
Parent - how could/would you like to be involved with what we do?
Ideas for a personal and a learning goal to start the year.
Any other information.

As well as these questions has been information around an EOTC trip next week, checking parents details and the all important module selection booklet.
Getting to know the learner is an important part of what we do, having these meetings at the beginning of the year has helped as I did not get to meet some parents until the end of semester one last year, or through the information night during term one.

Students have yet to know what their timetable looks like, this is happening next week as students return their module selections forms and learning coaches enter it into the system. The main thing to look for around this is choice, learning area coverage.