Taihape – Footprints for the Future

Good to see so many teachers, on the last day of the ‘holidays’ too turning up for Taihape’s MiniConference. Many schools had made it their TOD & the whole school arrived on a bus together. Good to see also the involvement of BOTs (from Taihape School) I was able to talk to some of them over dinner the night before about how they saw their role changing from administrative processes – funding, property, compliance issues etc to being more involved in the learning journey of the school and the change associated with that. Lisa-Jane had spoken with them about all members of the school community being active participants in ‘lifting the lid’ on what is happening in their schools by using the 4 Power Model and examining who in the school has the Power over: relationships, decision-making, information & resources. How do our BOTs fit into the visioning & planning for learning & teaching in our schools – or by default is it left to principals & teachers alone (or even principals alone)?? Well Lisa-Jane was inspirational and thought provoking for many – there was also a range of workshops - at 45 minutes a session – just a taster for teachers to hopefully take back to their schools & investigate and develop further. I presented a hands-on Making Movies session. Teachers brought their own laptops, I provided the sound and pictures & walked them through the process of editing a movie. Once some of them had worked out how to operate the touch pad & buttons on their shiny brand new laptops we were away… My other session Developing Critical NetStudents was a bit of a disaster as I lost the plot halfway through having been working off the wrong presentation – I got so far found ½ my slides weren’t there & links were missing….aaahhh………kind & understanding group of teachers – all the CDs I made walked out the door with them so some resources for them to use & adapt.
It was great to have Rachel from St Joseph’s along to participate and keep me company on the trip over. I went to Hemi’s session on freeware/shareware – had a play around with Hot Potatoes & picked up a CD of loads of stuff (as if I haven’t got enough software that I haven’t got time to play with) & sat in on Jonathan’s MOE “What’s Happening” workshop – have asked him up to speak with Principal’s at our next Management meeting. Check out CORE for a brief review & pics of Taihape.