My Blog Debut...without the big frock!

Today is my first blog and the first thing I have noticed is how much I like this font. Good. Off to a good start. This was quite a foreign concept to me less than three days ago. It all came about at the VATE Early Career Teachers Conference that I spoke at with this particularly savvy lass named Caitlin Darcy and her equally savvy fellow blogger Scott Bulfin. Scott works for VATE and he and Caitalin have these blogs. It was just what I needed beacuse I was starting to feel really flat and disinterested at school and now with the boost from the VATE conference and Seamus' humanised classroom workshop I am feeling more motivated. But the best part was learning to blog which gives me a chance to keep writing, regularly, and track my career progress, which may prove helpful when I think I have come nowhere in 10 years time.

I am committing myself here and now to writing these for myself, regardless of the audience that I may encoutner if I go public (letting others peek at my blogs). I don't mind people reading these, but I certainly don't want to be writing them for others. I want to keep my blogs all about school and I will try to blog regularly, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays which is normally when I about due for a massive debrief. I will start with a little debrief of how I am feeling at school at the mo....

Started the year waiting for the kick start of back to school to hit and by week 6 I started to realise that it still hadn't hit. I was disinterested in planning, trying to do the bare minimum and felt a little bit like the Lunchtime Activities and Awards SPP's were taking their toll. I was dedicating too much time to them and not enough time to my planning and preparation. My plans to have everything electronic lasted about two days :( I felt that the data projector was more hassle than it was worth and some of my other planning was a bit adventurous and didn't work. Like the three weeks I spent on the Lockie Leonard questions and the kids either answer them really crappily or we probably will never finish them. I need to chunk! Seamus reminded me of the need to have short, sharp bursts of activity and teaching. I also need to take more control in my Year 9 Animation class. I am not teaching those boys enough and feel that i have expected them to just trial and error learn, experiemental learning but that is only because that's how I enjoy learning. I need to think what is going to get the best outcome for the end of semester assignments. I think I will start with sitting at a computer with all the boys around the desk and they can look on while I do things, especially using the cameras and setting those up.

That's enough blogging for now. I will leave some further discussion for next time. Maybe an update re: back to school after the long weekend and how I felt. Better/ Worse?

Feeling good at the moment. Happy to be back to my normal self again. A little bit excited at the idea of getting back into happy/positive/energetic/committed teaching mode. Will also try to see less negativity in experienced/older staff and try to approach some of them for teaching ideas- Bragge, Nat V, George etc. There's no harm in becoming an observer again.

Bye.
M x