Reflecting on my First Year as a Beginning Teacher in the MDTA

It is crazy to think that I have almost completed my first year as a beginning teacher in the MDTA.  I have learnt heaps and grown a lot.  Here is my doco where I talk about my beliefs, the MDTA programme and how I use Manaiakalani's 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy. Thanks to Dorothy Burt, Anne Sinclair, Fiona Grant, the MDTA BTs and the team at Glen Innes Primary who have helped me on my journey!  I am looking forward putting my learning into practice into my own class next year.

Manaiakalani Film Festival

Today was the 9th annual Manaiakalani Film Festival.  Instead of our usual digital immersion days, the MDTA spent the day at Hoyts helping out and enjoying the awesome films our learners have created. 

It was a pretty awesome feeling to see my  film on the big screen!  I am so proud of my learners and the effort they put into the making of our film.  All the actors did an excellent job and helped come up with some awesome shots. I was also lucky to have an awesome director (Lauren) who took charge of the filming.  

Here is my first Manaiakalani Film Festival film, enjoy!

Let us know what you think! Feel free to leave a comment on our class blog.  You can also check out the films from all schools in the cluster by clicking here.

Class OnAir Episode: How-to-Haiku's

Here is my first Class OnAir episode!  Last week we learnt about Haiku poems.  On Tuesday, we learnt about the structure and features used in Haiku's.  Following this, the students found their own examples of a summer, autumn, winter and spring haiku.  Next, the students annotated the features they liked about the Haiku poems they had selected. 


On Wednesday the class worked collaboratively to use what they had learnt about the structure and features of a Haiku, to create a class Haiku.  This is what I chose to film.  Something to note is that we had an ERO visitor in the classroom during filming.  This is why they were much more quiet than what they usually are.  There is also a lot more teacher talk than what would usually happen during our lessons, as I needed to give the learners extra support and prompts to encourage them to share.  I think my learners did a great job under the unusual circumstances.


Overall I was pleased with how the lesson went.  The learners were engaged and it was a great oportunity to use a new digital tool - padlet.  I like to use clips from YouTube during my writing lesson as the learners can draw on what they see and hear to create descriptive pieces of writing. This is particularly beneficial for our struggling writers.


Click on the screenshot to have a look at my Class OnAir site. It is quite daunting putting myself out there and it feels a little odd to watch myself teach, but I can use this to figure out what I can do to improve my teaching. 

Updating my PRT site

Last Friday the MDTA were very fortunate to have a whole day to update our PRT sites.  We spent the day sharing how we could illustrate the Practicing Teaching Criteria. In order to gain full registration, all beginning teachers are required to maintain a documentation which demonstrates that they are capable and knowledgeable quality teachers.  Registered teachers also need to maintain documentation in order to renew their certification.

Creating an online PRT folder an easy way to keep a record of all the documentation needed. As we are a digital school who uses Google Apps for Education, it made sense to create a Google Site.

I had created mine when I had first learnt how to create a Google site, so it was looking a little sad.  I decided to give my site a re-vamp to make it better reflect my personality.  It was much easier this time as I have had plenty of experience with using HTML to create a Google Site.

Here is a little screencast of how my PRT site is looking at the moment.  An easy way to put content on your site is to embed folders from your Google Drive.  Instead of having to edit your site, all you need to do is to put your documents onto the embedded folder, and it will automatically update.

Chelsea OnAir: Creating my First Class OnAir Episode

Last week we prepared ourselves for our first Class OnAir episode.  Class OnAir has been created in response to the question - how do we teach in a digital 1:1 learning environment?  This year Class OnAir follows five talented teachers from the Manaiakalani cluster of schools.  They film episodes which provides insight into how Manaiakalani teachers use technology in their every-day teaching.  Click on the link to learn more and watch the Class OnAir teacher's in action.

What's in a Class OnAir episode

• Videos of the lesson
• Overview of lesson
• Link to detailed plan
• Relfections and next steps
• Links to learners activities and blog posts

A while ago we explored the Class OnAir site and provided feedback to the teachers involved. Now it is the MDTA BTs turn to have a go!  We had Matt Goodwin come in and give us some helpful tips for creating a class OnAir episode.

My first episode

I chose to create my OnAir episode about Haiku poetry.  Over the past four weeks my classroom has thoroughly enjoyed our unit on figurative language, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to see if they could use their learning in a new context - Haiku poetry.

I filmed my lesson this week.  The filming is the easy part.  To start with it is a little unusual to be filming myself as a teacher.  However myself and my learners did relax as time went on.  Editing is very time consuming - it is hard to decide which parts are valuable and which can be culled.  I have almost finished editing and my Class OnAir site is pretty much completed.  Stay tuned to see my very first Class OnAir episode!