With just a few days of the year left, it’s time for me to look back over my 2019 content and choose my favourite five blog posts. My choices below are not based on anyone else’s opinions or any engagement statistics. Like every year, they are just the ones that I am most proud of. If you missed them, I hope that you’ll follow the links and check them out. I have also added a few honourable mentions that I’m similarly proud of. As always, your comments and shares are appreciated!
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Honourable mentions:
Blowing minds with Makey Makey
TCRWP: a pedagogical overview of writing
Confession: I said “the most dangerous phrase” this week
Top 5:
5. Trialling a new approach to bilingual education
At my school, we’re trialling a new approach to bilingual teaching and learning. This blog post was written after our small trial showed positive results, and just before it was extended to include all of the Year Four classes. I wrote about why we are considering the change, how the trial will work and my role in leading the team through the difficult change. The trial has continued to show positive results so look out for an update in early 2020!
“I believe that we have an exciting opportunity to transform bilingual education at our school. We just need to take our time, continue to be critical and address challenges as they emerge.”
4. My site visit with Room to Read India
My Year Four grade has supported the work of Room to Read for many years and funded many projects in underprivileged areas of the world. In February, I jumped at the opportunity to see the impact with my own eyes. I travelled to a rural part of Telangana, India to visit a new school that we funded in 2017. I was thrilled to see the school, work with the enthusiastic students and confirm that our money is making a difference through Room to Read. This blog post shares my experience and reflections.
On a side note, my blog supports Room to Read Tanzania. Please click here and consider making a donation, however small. Thank you.
“Room to Read is doing amazing work around the world to provide the precious gift of education to millions of children. It was a pleasure to see it for myself…”
3. Highlights from our digital media unit
This blog post was all about our How We Express Ourselves unit on digital media. Obviously, expressing ourselves positively using digital media is something that I am passionate about! It was wonderful to see my colleagues and students creating content and developing enthusiasm as well. This new Year Four unit quickly become one of our favourites. Read this blog post for some exciting learning engagements on this topic and a discussion on its relevance.
“…more importantly, [the unit] demonstrated a huge mind shift in our school community. Digital media is something to embrace and leverage, not something to block, ban or fear.”
2. Tinkering for design sensitivity and maker empowerment
This term, I have been working on the Teaching and Learning in the Maker-Centered Classroom course by Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. This blog post was written during the early stages of the course to share some of the learning engagements that the course inspired. As I started writing, it became clear to me that some of the theory and terminology was unclear in my mind. As I always say, blogging is excellent for consolidating my own learning and this post was a great example of that. After I explained the ‘why’, I shared some exciting learning from my classroom.
“When someone is maker empowered, they see their world as a collection of designed objects and systems and realise that those designs can be tinkered with, fixed, redesigned, hacked or reimagined.”
1. Sydney 2019 Google Certified Innovator Academy #SYD19
My number one blog post from 2019 had to be my reflection on the Sydney Google Certified Innovator Academy. I’m filled with pride and happy memories as I read this. I think I captured the main events from the Academy and my excitement. The post shares the design process and introduced my Innovator project, Media By Example. The Academy was a wonderful event and the start of an exciting journey. I would love for you to read about my experience and consider applying yourself.
“I’m struggling with this blog post because, genuinely, I don’t know where to start. I could choose any hour of this week at random and it would be worthy of a blog post in itself.”
As I said last week in my Christmas post, thank you very much for supporting my blog this year. It means an awful lot to me. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above posts. Look out for more great content in 2020! Again, thank you.
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