Quick Catch Up

Well I'm back, I'm here, it's late and I should be in bed as I have work tomorrow. Both of my blogs have been a bit neglected as I have been trapped in the marvellous world of report writing!! Tonight I finished them all - yay me! Tomorrow I'll give them one final read through/proof read and then on Thursday I'll hand them over to my AP to read.

I am presenting 2 breakouts at our cluster conference in January - this is something that has come about since I last blogged. Very exciting and kind of scary - here I am hoping to sound really intelligent and supposedly inspire other teachers (or at the very least send them away with one useful idea and without having bored them to sleep!!). One is about Quest Atlantis and the other is about using digital technologies to provide children with a world wide audience. Any tips, ideas, links or suggestions for that second one will be gratefully received.

Used the COWs (computers on wheels)with my class today. We had a lovely time working with the Digital Learning Objects from TKI Digistore and working on our Quest Atlantis tasks. Then at close to lunchtime the computers decided they'd run out of go juice - fair enough, no worries there, just plug them back in to charge over lunch. Just one problem... old 1970s classroom blocks, with old 1970s wiring, plug in a unit containing lots of computers to charge up all at once and ...opps! There goes the fuse. So I couldn't charge the computers over lunch and had to rethink my plans for the afternoon. I guess a side issue of using modern technology in our classes is that some of the not so modern technology can't keep up with it, and who is going to foot the bill for upgrading everything? An interesting point to ponder. I had several disappointed kids this afternoon as the deal had been if their partner was logged in to QA before lunch then they could switch and be the one logged in after lunch. Apparently this has happened to others, so at least I know it wasn't just my room.

Other than that, not alot to add at the moment - of course it's late and I'm brain dead. So I guess I'll sign off for now. With reports done I'll have my brain back and will make sure I post with greater regularity. Actually I could do an entire post on the work my kids have done in preparation for QA - I have been amazed at the level of motivation.
Anyway, bed calls. Nite all.
Ciao