Pintrest

A large feature of this blog will be ICT related.

As my school's nominated "ICT (almost) native" (I do remember the days of the green screen (just) and the days before texting) and also being a self-confessed computer geek (and proud of it), I am out to find lots of cool new ICT toys and interesting ways to use them.

Here enters, Pintrest.

Pintrest is an online community of pinboarders. It's like having a pinboard in your house only it's online. 

You maintain your own boards and you can follow other people's boards to see what they find and pin to their boards.

If you liked what they pinned, you can repin it to your own pinboard for safe keeping until you need it.

If you find an interesting image or idea online, you can pin an image directly to your pinboards and the website maintains a link so that you can go back to it at some point in the future when you have need of the pin.

People use Pinterest to keep ideas for crafts, inspirational quotes, parties, weddings, holidays and home building. Really, you can keep pinboards of whatever you want.

You can follow a person (ie, all the boards they have) or just the one or two boards that match your interests. New pins (posts) from the boards you follow will show up on your home page when you come to Pinterest so you can see what your friends are finding and repin what you love.

What I love most about pinterest is seeing all the cute teaching ideas that people post from their own work or from teacher blogs they follow. I pin things to my pinboards for possible homeschooling in the future, or for teaching my class right now. I also follow pins to their original blog (click on the thumbnail to visit the pin and then click on the picture to visit the original source) to see other ideas from the same blog or resource. I've found a number of great blogs to follow through Pinterest.

To sign up for Pinterest, visit www.pinterest.com and request an invite and follow the prompts on the invite emailed to you. You can sign up using a Facebook or Twitter account but the two only communicate if you tell them to (ie, Pinterest wont publish anything on your Facebook wall without you agreeing to it.)

Use the search box in the top left corner to find me, Caz Aldridge, and my education pinboard, Coolest Class In Town.

Happy pinning.

Challenge Made, Considered, Accepted!

This week at school, it was appraisal week.

In past jobs, appraisal time has been a daunting experience which insights fear and anxiety for some weeks prior. At my current school, however, these tend to be a much more enjoyable and uplifting experience.

Rather than dwelling in the retrospective. I love the chance to set goals and awake the learner strength in me.

I'm fortunate that my Principal is one of those unique characters who sees strengths as much or more than weaknesses and who sees that I am my own harshest critic. She encourages me to face my folies in a loving and nurturing way but stands ready to check that critical inner voice, offer a more impartial perspective and gently prod me forward, towards new challenges.

Having said that, this week, I got more than I was expecting. As we came to then end of our appraisal meeting, one happy little principal took great delight in showing me to the deep end of the pool and pushed me in (metaphorically only, of course)!

I'm sure over the next we while I will share a number of the different challenges set before me, and it will become evident whether I find my flippers and make like a duck to water, or slink into the depths, resurfacing only periodically to breath. My main goal at this point is just not to make like a rock, and sink!

So, for now, challenge one...

"Caz," she said, "I want you to start a professional blog"

My first thought, "She's crazy! What would I blog about?" but then I realised my concerns boiled down to two main issues.

1) I'm a new teacher, what wisdom can I offer to other teachers when I'm still learning so much myself?
I quickly realised that we are all still learning and they do say, "The day you stop learning new things, is the day you die". Quick check of pulse. Yip, still living so yip, still learning.
Later one of my kids (aka, my students) answered a maths problem in a way I hadn't thought of and I realised that sometimes a fresh perspective on things can be as helpful and insightful as any great amount of experience.

2) Nothing I do is really truly 100% mine. I can't claim it.
True, nothing I do is mine alone, but neither is most fashion design and most artwork. As humans we look at what others do and think, "would that work for me?" We take ideas and inspiration from all sorts of places and we develop and change them to suit our own situation and purposes. I love finding cool new ideas, but, I almost never use them exactly as is. I am constantly adapting and changing programmes to fit my purposes. I'm sure most other teachers would do the same.

and then there was Preston....

Picture this; I'm sitting in the office, trying to draw out of Preston (8) how he worked out the answer to a maths problem. Expecting a big explanation about bags, carrots and doubling things, I asked "What made you choose to work it out like that?"...
Preston looks at me quizzically and says "My brain!"

Sometimes, it's just that simple.

So, Lyn, this is for you.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!

p.s. tag... your turn!