Here is my presentation on the poetry of W.H. Auden for HSC Advanced English Module C, Elective 1 People and Politics, delivered at the English Teachers’ Association of NSW Annual State Conference, November 2015. Don’t forget to try out the Flipboard app to create your own digital magazine of relevant articles and websites. I…
So, how are you using Google Apps in your classroom? Now that we all have access to the Google suite at NSW DEC, I’m having a lot of fun discovering the potential of the technology. I know that the Google Apps have been around for a while, but the difference now is that access is so easy for teachers and…
I had such fun talking to a great bunch of English teachers today at the ETA NSW annual conference about class blogging, but I ran out of time and didn’t get to the show the last and best clip. Here, in the students’ words, they tell you what they think about the value of blogging. It’s…
This post is a summary of the resources and references from my English Teachers’ Association of NSW 2014 presentation, entitled “Explore, Excite, Engage: Class blogging in English”. View my full Prezi presentation by clicking on the image below. Don’t forget to check out the sample blogs that I have created, which include how to set up…
This is a super quick post to share my Year 7 English program “Our World Our Future”. The key concept is contextualisation, and the unit has a cross curriculum focus on sustainability. Blogging is embedded throughout the program. Resources/handouts are also in the document. View with Slideshare below (you can expand it onscreen), or download…
I am presenting at the English Teachers’ Association of NSW Annual Conference 2014 next weekend on class blogging. For the participants (and those of you who can’t make it) I have set up a quick reference “How to” about setting up a class blog on edublogs.org. This is also on the sample blog site that…
In planning the implementation of the new NSW English Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum last year, our faculty program writing team decided that we needed a unit for Year 9 with a focus on the concept of “perspective”, particularly to develop our students’ sense of empathy. We wanted the unit to explore the cross…
I created this presentation to share at “The Green Room” – a video conference organised through the Gibberanong Environmental Education Centre. It outlines how I have explored the cross-curricular priority of sustainability by class blogging and project-based learning, with a literacy focus.
Last year I posted about blogging with my Year 7 class for our core unit, Our World Our Future. Students studied a range of texts exploring environmental issues, and responded to them through blog posts, commenting on each others’ ideas and reflections. You can check out the insightful thoughts of these amazing Year 7 students…
Originally posted on Year 9 English @ Bossley Park High:
During my time as a student in 7 Aqua at Bossley Park High School, I have reflected on the teachings, lessons and topics learnt, and what is most apparent, the ‘blogging’ unit our teacher Mrs Edwards implemented in term 4 has taught us fundamental life lessons and skills.…
There are a lot of things I love about teaching. I’m not going to list them all in this post, because it’s after 10pm, and I don’t want to be up all night, but I am going to write briefly about a couple of reasons why I love my job. ONE: I love the unexpected…
The ‘B’ word One of the most common questions school leaders are asked by parents is, “What are you doing about bullying?” In my role leading student welfare, it’s something I hear all the time. Of course, schools must have anti-bullying policies and procedures, but are parents focused on the most important message? I would…
For the past couple of years, I’ve been following with interest the growing excitement about TeachMeets. I’m pretty sure that if you’re an educator, you’ve heard of TeachMeet – a style of professional learning organised by teachers, for teachers, to do what we often don’t get time to do – share great ideas and resources with each other. Generally,…
This term I have begun a class blog for my Year 7 English class. You can find it at http://7aqua.wordpress.com. As you can also see, I’ve also begun my own teacher blog (right here, right now) to reflect on this, and the many (hopefully exciting) things to come in my classroom. If you want to know…
Always Learning 