The Power of One

I’ll just go ahead and ignore the date of my last blog entry.

Soooooooo….

New school year, new position, new challenges.

How many different job titles are there for what I’m doing this year?! My specific title is Instructional Technology Coordinator (it barely fits on my name-tag). I have seen amalgamations of the position with terms like 21st Century, facilitator, coach, and integrationist thrown in for good measure.

If you have this position your main mission if you choose to accept it (and before it blows up) is to work with teachers to integrate more technology into their lessons. Simple.

Not really.

If your school has never had this position before *raises hand* then the challenges are great. Great as in huge not great as in yippee!

Over the first couple of weeks of school though I have come to realise and unearth the “power of one”.

Just working, talking and planning with one teacher from each grade who is open to innovation, moving forward with new, experiential methods of teaching and enthusiasm for relevant and appropriate use of technology opens the doors to the rest of the grade level. This has happened in every grade but one for me so far and I am truly grateful to these teachers and I am proud to be working with them together this year.

I will post detailed blow by blow accounts on the following adventures over the coming months:

Kindergarten: The goal is to get an iPod Touch into every Kindergarten students’ hand by October break. Phonics apps being the target app. The One = @sfanhk

Grade 3: In English they will read a modern take on Icarus. I was quite pleased when in the middle of the meeting with “the one” from Grade 3 that I suddenly remembered Build Your Wild Self. Students will use this website to create their very own Icarus as a platform for a narrative passage of writing on being Icarus.

Grade 4: A big collaborative effort at the start of the Grade 4 year to test us all out! Stop Motion animation to illustrate the 4 stages of a rock. Sets, props and “rocks” designed in art class, scripts completed in English class and animation done in our Science classes.

Grade 5: First attempt at class blogs in this school with both our Grade 5 teachers. Weebly for Education the platform. Students’ blogs still password protected we have not made that “shift” in the mindset yet. The One = @Shaza33

With Grade 1 we have briefly chatted and we have a general idea where we want to go but nothing concrete just yet. But I am extremely optimistic with that grade level. With Grade 2 I have to still to scope out “the one” but I am getting vibes…to be continued….