So .... a huge amount of learning has gone on over the last month !
After some sandpit time in 2013 I decided to go with GAFE (Google Apps For Education) over Office 365. I still think 365 is worth trialling throughout the year as it offers many benefits over google but for now and with having dabbled a bit Google Apps it is. The great people at
Hapara and
Cyclone computers have been a huge help when it came to setting everything up. As have our IT crew at
Smartcom. From creating google accounts, installing dashboard to make managing my 32 students easy and creating personal logins to the school wireless, I would not be where I am without the help of these people.
I am today looking at setting up blogs for each student. Once again someone who has been there, done that has come to my rescue. Thanks
Effective Blogging from Pt England School, I am sure your instructions and tips will help greatly this afternoon. My intention is for these blogs to become a positive and motivational outlet for students to share their work. We will see......
One initial concern from parents was device security so as I type the tote tray cabinets from my classroom are off getting a face lift to make them lockable. I like this solution more than locking the class at break time as it only restricts the use of devices and not other resources, spaces etc.
Another big task has been ensuring learning is provided in a digital way. To start I have spent many hours updating my Ultranet classSpace to ensure it could be the first point of call for students and their parents alike. Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done & simply "digitally" listing the "non digital" activities is not what i have in mind but one need to start somewhere and this was a clear and easy step to make classroom time more hands.
Check it out here.
Next week I am off for a final break away for some much needed relaxation before the actual work starts. For now though its off to create blogs.
