First Day in Denver

Up early and sun was out and really hot. So nice to feel the heat. A group was off to do a tour, I desided to do my own tour around the city so off I went. Walked to the convention center and went in side had a look around. Then headed up town and found Ross so got in some shopping. Then headed to the Colorado State Capitol building. Found the mile step. walked back to the hotel, went and registered. THe other arrived back and we haeded off up town. Jono needed some cloths as his bags got lost, went shopping, targets, lunch at Giordans World famous Deep Dish Pizzas.

Then desided to head out to the baseball at the famous Corrs Stadium and watch the Colorado Rockies play. Was a great night out.An awesome expierence.

Denver Flight

Finally arrived in Denver. Started at Auckland Airport, checked in and met up with Dave, Fiona, Robyn and some of the Tamaki crew. Left NZ at 7:40 pm after a very long flight, watched a few movies and got about 5 hours sleep. Arrived in Houston, lucky Dave waited for me and we ventured our way through customs. I get called up for an Agriculture check so am escaughted down stairs to baggage claim and off to get my bags scanned. Then came out at a different gate. Lucky Dave saw me and aff we went to rescane our bags on their way to Denver. Then through another security check of our carry on luggage. Mine gets pulled to the side and searched. Lucky got the clear. I said goodbye to Dave as he headed off to c and I headed off to E3. What a huge airport, very daunting and scary. (on my own) Found my gate after a rush along very long corridors. Flight now delayed an hour. Which was good to have a walk around go and get a drink and calm the nerves down. Next flight to Denver was a 2 hour flight and had movies on board so I watched another movie. We landed in Denver just on dark. I walked for miles and down stairs then on an underground train to take us to baggage claim. Found my bag and jumped in a taxi straight to the hotel. I bet all the others there as their plane had been delayed. Went to check in absolutely dying for a shower and bed. There had been a mix up on something and could not get into my room. Fiona, Dorethy, Dave and Russle were not due after midnight. Kept calm, and had to fight back the tears as I was very tired. Had some dinner Matt, Jono, Angle and Robyn arrived and Matt contacted Jenny in NZ and sorted our rooms. Nice hot shower and bed. What a trip.

ISTE 2024 Journey Begins

What a start for my journey to Denver. Heavy rain warnings for the Far North, it rained all day and all night and very heavy. The planes from Kerikeri the day before had been cancelled. I woke up Thursday at 2 am listening to the heavy rain thinking of the worst flooding, cancelled flights, not being able to get through to Auckland. So at 5:30 am my husband and I decided to drive through to Auckland before it flooded and I wasn't getting anywhere. So packed and hit the road at 7am. We took my jeep as it was high and had 4 wheel drive. Kaeo was just starting to come across the road.We made a good decision.

I called into Whangarei to log into the PLG meeting, we had some teachers online and some at Paparore school. Somewhere dealing with flooding issues. We were in the middle of our meeting when we went dead. I tried to get back in and no one was there. As I was tethering through my phone I thought it was my end. But no, a major pylon had fallen over and the whole of the far north was out of power. We arrived in Auckland with a blue sky and no rain. We booked into the hotel and had a nice relaxing night I slept very well with not alot of sleep the night before. This morning I sent Bill back on his journey home to the Far North which luckily there is power at my home. I fly out this evening at 7:40pm so my day has been sitting at the Pullman lounge getting lots of work done and preparing for term 3. Let's hope the rest of the journey is not as stressful as the start.

Brisk AI Professional, Level 2.

Completed the micro credentail Brisk teacher level 2 course. I find them great to see and try any updates and new resources. It is also good to get the back ground story. This at the moment is my favourite go to AI tool for planning and making quizz questions. I have been introducing it to my teachers I work with and am modeling it the PLG for our leaders. I will find their stand a ISTE to learn more about the fast and efficient AI tool. Maybe I may find a better AI tool at ISTE. Challenge is on!

Create Staffmeeting Term 2

Te Hiku Create Staff meeting Term 2 was an online meet with our schools so spread out with great distances between them it is very hard to get everyone together in one place. The other option for me is to have 2 separate ones with one out the East coast and one in town. But with 3 schools up north it is still a great distance for them to travel. I may have to look at holding 3. This term I focused on digital create and shared some AI options for teachers to try in the classroom. We all meet together and I went over the Kaupapa of create and shared the AI tools and reminded them of other great digital create options. They had some time to explore and create and then we went into year groups. Each school had added create examples to a slide and sharred them in their groups. Mark Pickard led the senior group and Edwina the middle and I led the juniors. It is great to see so much creation happening across the cluster and lots of digital tools being used.

Auckalnd Matematics Association Saturday session

I just gave up my Saturday morning to attend another really informative morning with the great team from AMA.Being a very wet winters morning did help. I joined Vince Wright on his expertise around Geometry or Space as it is now called in the refreshed curriculum. He had a focus around 3D shapes . He made the connections between the 2007 curriculum levels for 2,3 and 4 to the new phases of the refreshed curriculum. He really emphasised the use of language and using the correct terminology. Also the importance of getting students to group 3D shapes and explain why they belong? Building up the attributes or as he called it the features, properties and characteristics. Sometimes being explicit with the language face, vertex, edge, opposite, adjacent, parallel. He talked about visualizers- objects and spatual. Using nets and allowing students to visualise the action of folding with knowledge of properties. Also the importance of students creating their own nets. Then I joined the Tāhūrangi workshop with Kylie Begg from the ministry. This was great to be given a run through all the options and filters for the new one place shop for resources. But also the run down on the why behind creating it. We had 70 different places for NZ educators to go to with different layouts and formats. Putting them all in one place seems a sensible thing to do. I really liked the filter options; they were easy to use and had a great variety. If you use your ESL login you can make folders on your profile and add your resources there and there is also the ability to share with others. It was great to have the opportunity to have a play and a search with the expert there to ask questions. Currently there are over 2566 resources on the Mathematics and statistics part of Tāhūrangi.With many more to be transferred across.

Term 2 Toolkit-Microsoft designer

 

For a change I decided not to do a maths workshop and try something new. Ditch that text book Matt Millar shared a great idea of Microsoft designer a great text to image AI tool. He also shared the prompts that you could edit to suit you. I wasted so much time in the holidays playing with the prompts and creating fun images I decided to do a toolkit around it. I only had 5 register and 4 turn up. But it is very popular and they had fun creating and could see the value of using it in the classroom. Maybe if I had added that it was an AI tool into the discription I may have had more register for the workshop. I must admit having low numbers was much more personal and fun. A lot less stress than with big numbers. Giving them lots of time to play and explore was important. My creations 

18 Sleeps to Go. ISTE 2024 Denver.

 

The countdown is on, suitcases are out and packing is started. As we are heading into summer it is easy to start packing. 

I am trying to stick an itinerary together for the 5 days and with 100s to choose from for each session and with such a wide array of subjects, year levels, labs, lectures, it is very overwhelming. These are the types to choose from. Some are ones you need to book into and some of the trips you have an extra cost. Do I choose by topic, subject or presenter? Do I have a mixture and try to cover a wide range?

Lots of educators and tech providers are sharing on social media about their presentations at the up and coming ISTE.

The checklist is written and the request list from the family is also getting long. Part of me is so excited and can not wait to learn and experience with some of the best in the world. To get some motivation and inspiration. Also to see and learn some of the latest and innovative education tech I can bring back and share with NZ teachers, students and work colleagues. A small part of me is also nervous and scared I travel from Kerikeri to Auckland and have a night in Auckland. ( just in case the Kerikeri flight is cancelled, it is winter) then Auckland to Houston and Houston to Denver about 20 hours of travel. Also very long days at ISTE with starts at 8:30 am to evening events to 11pm. I will have to pace myself I am not in my twenties anymore.  Look out ISTE here I come!