Holidays? Not really! Earlier this week I attended the NZRA (now the NZLA) reading conference in Auckland. It was an interesting few days with some good speakers and workshops.
The highlight for me was listening to Dr Steven Layne. http://www.stevelayne.com He is an incredibly charismatic and entertaining speaker with a clear passion for literature and teaching. His keynote speech was entitled: 'Confessions of a Reading Arsonist' and focussed on how to engage reluctant readers. I was also lucky enough to attend one of his workshops, where he shared practical tips for 'igniting the fire'. One I particularly liked was to have every staff member in the school, that's EVERY STAFF MEMBER have a small book stand which displays "Mrs Smith's Hot Reads,' that person's current favourite kids' book.
I'm looking forward to purchasing his book for our school. Check it out here: http://www.stevelayne.com/go.jsp?t=author&g=professional
Another highlight for me was attending the Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey writing workshop. I really enjoyed Louise's quiet, friendly manner, she must be great with kids, and I appreciated the fact that these two professionals have a wealth of experience as hands on teachers in NZ schools. Together they have written this helpful book:
It's full of templates, exemplars, ideas and even comes with a CD Rom. And incredibly, I managed to win one (YAY ME! ) in the lucky spot prize draw. I know this is going to be useful in my teaching programme, and I believe that there's something in there for all levels. I found that this workshop really reinforced how literacy can't be separated into 'doing reading' and 'doing writing'.
A couple of things struck me as interesting and slightly odd at this conference. Firstly; where were all the men? Now of course I know they are a minority in the teaching profession, but honestly there were so very few male teachers in attendance compared to some of the other conferences I've been to. (Ulearn springs to mind) Why is that? Is literacy not the one thing that underpins the entire curriculum? Are our male teachers less interested in reading than they are in whizz-bang technology? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
The second interesting point is the lack of obvious technology among the delegates. (Again in contrast to Ulearn) I saw a few ipads being used but there was very little tweeting going on (in fact I think there was only two of us!) The wifi was problematic, the password not readily available. No googledocs were created, or notes / links shared via the internet. Most remarkably of all (in my view) was that a 1B4 exercise book and a pen was included in our conference pack!
The closing speaker for the conference was Fifi Colston, illustrator, author, TV presenter ( among other things) and she was delightful. A woman of enormous talent and great drive, and she spins a good yarn!
So all in all it was a good conference, and now I find my 'holiday' half over and I have barely started planning for next term. Oh well, that's next week's job!
Loving the start to your blog and was pleased to read more about the reading conference. You make an interesting point about male teachers attending various types of PD, it sounds like I would have really liked this one and it would have given you someone else to bounce tweets off.
ReplyDeleteI have been considering placing my Read-Alouds on my blog for a while, now that I've seen yours I'll definitely do this.
Thanks for your support.
DeleteGreat post - I wish I could have afforded a conference these holidays - sounds like there have been some great ones. I'm looking forward to receiving my copy of the Writing book - it looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think that being so connected in the blogging / Twitter world makes us forget that there are still a lot of teachers out there that don't use technology to connect like we do.
Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in your comment about the lack of tweeters/ wifi/ googledocs. I too went to some PD recently where this was lacking. When I asked about it I was told; "this isn't IT focused'. I was so surprised to think that there are still teachers who see IT something to opt into rather than more useful as their pen and 1B5.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this is a surprising attitude. Also somewhat disturbing. Surely teachers must embrace change, what kind of role models can we be if we don't continue to learn ourselves? How can we teach if we are not prepared to learn? Personally I think that teachers who don't attempt to develop their skills in IT are in the wrong job and this IS NOT about age.... some very tech savvy teachers started their careers using banda machines and blackboards!
ReplyDeleteOops, you may have started something here... I feel a new blog post coming on...