Meeting with the local Kura - Te Kura o Nga Ruahine Rangi

During Term Three I met with the local Nga Ruahine Kura.  The purpose of this meeting was to build a stronger relationship between the Kura and Auroa Primary School, and my classroom and look at ways in which we could engage the students and work together.   From what I was able to determine at the Kura I was the first visitor from Auroa Primary School.

I was able to open a dialogue with the Kura and look towards the possibility of working together in the future.   The Kura seemed receptive to this but it will be important to look at opportunities to work together in the future, such as hosting some of the students at some point.   We have already had an opportunity when we have a visitor to Auroa School from France, who will also be visiting the Kura as well to spend a day there and experience the Kura.

This needs to be the start of an ongoing relationship and one in which the Kura and Auroa Primary School learn from each other, have shared experiences and can work for the benefits of the students.

New Years E Resoultions

Generally speaking I don't 'do' New Years resoultions, however I have been intending to revitalise my online work this year, with that in mind I felt that it would be appropirate to publish what I was intending to do as motivation for myself.

#Comments4Kids.  This comes from Will Chamberlain who is the major contributor to this site, an amazing concept, a great idea and such a worthwhile concept.  I've decided that I need to promote the hash tag as much as posible within my PLN and at other opportunities.  I also want to pledge that I will comment at least once a day for a full calendar year, which of course will mean 365 comments minimum on students blogs.  That's quite a few, but well within the range of what I have been doing in a general sense.  I've never actually tracked how many comments that I would leave in a year but I suspect it would be near a thousand.

I also want to involve myself significantly when theres the #comment4kids week, again its a stellar idea from Will, something that's such a great networking and collaboration idea.  When I think back to my online work the 'push' that I needed came from one teacher who left a positive comment to the students that were working with in my classroom.

#Twitter.  My PLN on Twitter (NZWaikato) has reached a point that its generating new connections all the time, I've got just over 1,500 followers.  I've been managing it pretty closely, I've included in my bio 'If you're not an education please don't follow me' this tends to keep away most of the commerical followers that my account attracts, it isn't perfect, but I do recognise the need to be more pro-active with my account.

#2012/2013.  In New Zealand the school year runs from the start of February to mid December.  That means a year of students has just finished and in four weeks time another will start.  I'm very lucky that the incoming group of students (23 out of class of 30) are students who have already been in my classroom.  I need to continue to develop the work with these students and utilize what they've done online to raise their work.

#Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration. I've had some great positive online experiences in the past five years, the length of time that I've been active.   The highlights have always started and finished with great collaboration, what ever the platform, what ever the site collaboration I believe is the key, if you haven't tried it, that's one challenge that I would encourage you to work on.  Share.

#ContinuetobeInspired.   If you haven't visited some great sites to get inspired then you should.  These four pages always inspire me: Linda Yollis - best class page in the world, two years in a row.  Will Chamberlain, Mr C's Class page, my biggest online inspiration.  Mr Millers Class - a great inspiring site with wonderful ideas, content and digital intergartion of the site.  Check them out they are all maverlous.