Saturday, July 30, 2011

Opportunities over the holidays

It was wonderful to be invited to speak at two events during the holidays.  The first was the First Time Principals conference in Auckland.  This three day event for beginning principals from around the country is exceptionally well run, and I always get something out of it whether I was attending or speaking.  As this was the second time I have been able to speak I took the school's vision and concentrated on how we have utilised technology (particularly in the way of the School's LMS and M Learning) to enhance learning opportunties for our staff and students. 

Then on Friday Geoff Booth (DP), two of our senior students and I flew down to Wellington to speak to the Ministry of Education about how the School has utilised Ultranet, our school's LMS.  This was an amazing opportunity to share how our Stanley Avenue Learner has been enhanced by creatively using the School's web-site.  It was great to be recognised by the Ministry for the vision and hard work over the last three years. 


How to be successful

What does it take to be successful?  Another insight from the wonderful TED Talks.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Project Energise

It is wonderful to see that Project Energise's latest review on the programme’s effectiveness has produced such wonderful results.  As one of the small group of School’s to begin the trial 5 years ago Stanley Avenue School has noticed the positive effects of regular physical activity and healthy nutritional choices for many years.  Three years ago our whole school community agreed by adding hauora as one of our Stanley Avenue Learner Dimensions. 
Our feeling is that it is when a child has a sound base of physical and emotional well-being they are in a far better position to have fun and learn at School.  A big congratulations to the project energise team and a special thanks to Janine Gilmore who was our School’s facilitator throughout this time. 
 

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

M Learning Conference

 Today I was privileged to be invited to attend a 'Mobiles in Schools' conference held at the Vodafone headquarters at the Viaduct Basin.  This conference, led by an independent facilitator had a wide range of experts speaking including representatives from Netsafe, the Human Rights Foundation, Vodafone, Two Degrees and some amazing educators. 

It was exciting to have such in depth conversations about the future of M Learning in education focussing on potential benefits and risks to manage.  I hope I have the opportunity to continue learning from this group that we can translate to Stanley Avenue School's vision.  Some of the wonderful speakers that contributed to the day included:

Kursten Shalfoon, Vodafone GM Consumer Marketing, to discuss the future of mobiles
Martin Cocker, Executive Director of NetSafe, cybersafety responses across NZ schools
 Toni Twiss to give overview of her mLearning research and experiences
 Mark Osborne, Deputy Principal, Albany Senior High School, school-wide eLearning approach
Stuart Armistead, Stanley Avenue School, mLearning at Stanley Ave School







Sunday, July 10, 2011

Construction begins!

Stanley Avenue School is entering a very exciting phase.  After the neogiations, planning and fundraising two major constructions now have the green light.

The MPR is now being completely refurbished to allow it to be used for a wide range of purposes.  The access road is now been put in to ensure large machinery is going to be able to gain access to the back field to construct the gymnasium.