A reflection on 2011

Having recovered from the end-of-school madness, Christmas and the New Year, I have enjoyed the opportunity to sit and rest for a few days and catch up on some blogs in my Google Reader. I've really enjoyed reading posts (and posts and posts) from both friends and members of my Personal Learning Network (PLN) about their reflections from the past year and how it has helped them set goals and directions for the coming year. I've always been one to set goals and targets for the year, but have never really reflected on my achievements from the year before. So, thanks to some help from my Outlook calendar, the following jumped out at me as achievements throughout 2011:

New School - New Role:

Part of moving to a new school saw me take a new role; that of the ICT Specialist Teacher. This was a big change for me, having been a class teacher since the beginning of my teaching career.  This experience has taught me a lot; particularly about the value of time. As a classroom teacher, I had the freedom and flexibility to move and manage time throughout the day depending on the activity and the outcomes I wanted to achieve. As a specialist teacher, I only get to see each class for 1 hour a week, so this simply is not possible. It has taught me to "cut the waffle" when explaining tasks and be much more succinct in communicating information so students can have more "time on task". It has also required me to develop the student's skills in becoming self directed learners and to create resources and provide access to materials that allow for this to occur.

I have also loved the learning curve I had been on. Having never taught ICT has required me to research alot, draw upon my own experience and the knowledge of my PLN to develop my program. Highlights would include the cybersafety movie making exercise I attempted in Term 1, seeing students develop their own Scratch projects and finally getting my Prep classes to log on.

Establishing a new student council:

Regular readers of my blog will know that student leadership and student councils are areas of passion for me so it has been really exciting to establish the a student council at a brand new school.

Given we were a new school, it took us until mid Term 2 before things were well and truly up and running.

Highlights of the year included students developing campaign posters in the lead-up to the election and using the Victorian Electoral Commission to help run elections. I had used the Electoral Commission at my previous schools and was excited to be able introduce the students and staff to the experience with many commenting on the professional nature of the election.

2011 was also the first year I worked with students outside of Grade 5 & 6 on a student council. I really enjoyed having younger students on board and providing an alternative perspective and to offer their support. The majority of them were keen to take on jobs and roles and with a little bit of coaching and support demonstrated they are capable of achieving great results.

Towards the end of the 2011, we also held our 2012 elections, enabling our student council to be operating from day 1 of 2012.

Online Assemblies:

Through my work as a Web Conference Leader in 2010, I trained students in my class in the use of the web conferencing software, Blackboard Collaborate (previously known as Elluminate) so we could run an online school assembly.

I have been able to continue this at my new school in 2011 and have again trained some students to help in the running of the assembly. This has now become embedded in the culture of our school, with an online assembly operating each fortnight. It's been great to see teachers and students exposed to this technology and to also have members of our school community who would otherwise be unable to attend school events log in from home, work or wherever they might be.

Ultranet:

Having led the introduction the Ultranet at my previous school, it was great to be able to apply my learning from previous mistakes made when we went about setting things up and going about student registrations.  By the end of 2011 we successfully registered all of our Grade 1-6 students (being aprox. 300 students).

Another great advantage of starting at a new school has been the ability to use the Ultranet in establishing processes and procedures. Rather than make the transition from one process to another, it has been far easier in using the Ultranet from the beginning. Through the community space I developed, staff have been able to add school events as well as book rooms and resources using the calendars and post meeting minutes using a blog. I consider this to be a great achievement in our first year.

One of the greatest challenges we faced being a new school was the flow of our data from CASES21. I was hoping to do a great deal more with students and the Ultranet earlier in the year, however, numerous technical difficulties set us back and meant that we truly didn't get to it until mid-Term 3. Having said that, I have been really excited about the use of Learning Tasks and hope that I will be able to build upon this next year.

Acting Assistant Principal:

OK, so maybe it was just for two days, but it was an experience I really enjoyed and one I hope to get the opportunity to do again. The experience gave me insight into the bigger picture of our school and understand why sometimes they just don't get to your issues when they do. It was amazing the number of issues and tasks I was required to do in two days.

Presenting at the Innovations Showcase:

After a gentle nudge from a few people in my PLN, I submitted an application to present at the 2011 Innovation Showcase run by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. My presentation focused on the work I had done with student councils at my previous school and sharing some of the valuable resources out there to support SRC Teacher Advisers.

Increasing Network:

Moving school has also seen me become involved the ICT Network that exists within our local cluster of schools. Again this has been a great source of knowledge from those in the know. I have taken on board many ideas and suggestions from this group in regards to my teaching and have also loved to opportunity to share my own experiences and knowledge.

Twitter once again has proved to be invaluable in providing professional knowledge. I was pleased to learn about the experiences of those who attended to Google Teacher Academy in Sydney at their Meet Up session and finally put some faces to twitter names. The Melbourne #TeachMeet session towards the start of Term 3 was another great opportunity to meet members of my PLN and share and learn from others.

Ultranet Share N Tell:

I feel really privileged and proud to work alongside Anne Mirtschin and Mel Cashen in delivering these online sessions. It's great to always see and hear what others are doing with Ultranet to spark your own ideas. Wendy Macpherson and Graeme Henchel from the Ultranet team at the Central office have been invaluable in offering their insight into updates and developments taking place and have always been willing to hear suggestions and ideas from those using the Ultranet within their schools and classrooms. With the loss of our Ultranet Coaches in 2012, I can only expect that the demand for these sessions will increase (and see the UltraTweeps Teacher's Games team increase and take out the gold medal in Laser Tag!)

VISTA:

The Victorian Institute of SRC Teacher Advisors has continued to move along and has been involved in some interesting projects throughout the year. A major highlight was initiating a discussion around the establishment of a state based Junior School Council for primary school students. Whilst this had been something many of us in the field had been thinking about, it was great to get some of the key stakeholders together and get some ideas down on paper. Other highlights include working with Joel Arrons to develop the VISTA Podcast, the presentation of the inaugural VISTA Award for outstanding SRC Teacher Advisor at the VicSRC annual Congress and being involved in providing teacher professional development sessions at the Junior School Council congress sessions across the state.

Personally, I also achieved many things throughout 2011. Having worked in the education system for over 7 years now, I was able to access my Long Service Leave pro-rata and used this across the Melbourne Cup Weekend to attend a close friends wedding in Sydney. Melbourne Cup weekend in previous years has involved me being chained to my computer for 3 days writing end-of-year reports. Taking leave made me realise that through some strategic organisation (and a last-minute marathon effort!) it was possible to take some time off and still get my reports done.

Another major development has been selling my house. Having lived in my local area for just under thirty years of my life and with most of my friends and family now living on the western side of the state or closer to the city, I felt it was time to move on. We're hoping to find a nice townhouse or apartment closer to Melbourne and enjoy the benefits associated with inner-city living. With settlement taking place in just a few more days, we've been fortunate in finding a place to stay in the meantime whilst we continue what seems like a never-ending search for the right place to live.

So, with 2011 well and truly completed, it's time to focus on 2012 and the year ahead. I have numerous thoughts and ideas swimming around in my head about what I hope to achieve both professionally and personally throughout the year and hope to post some of them with you soon.

What were your achievements throughout 2011?

What goals do you have for 2012? What are you looking forward to?