The Benefits of our School-Wide Blog

Last year I pitched the idea of having our Year 5 & 6 students contribute to a school blog.  We have a few class blogs but I felt that a school blog would be a great way to share with the community the learning going on in different parts of the school.  It would also provide a student voice about school events and give all classes a chance to share their learning, even if they don't have their own blog.  The homepage of the school website would also have access to fresh content on a weekly basis, something I have done since I started managing it.

The benefits for the students themselves are learning how to:

• decide which events are newsworthy
• approach teachers to ask them to be in a story
• come up with questions and interview students and teachers
• take notes and turn those into a news article
• take photos and choose the best ones
• use a video camera and help edit the footage.

When we started the 'Te Totara Times' last year we used it as an opportunity to extend our GATE students.  Three students from each class were selected by their teachers, and some were more interested than others.  Over the year, there were eighteen students involved in gathering stories.

When it came to interviewing students and teachers about their learning, I met up with our reporters after lunch and went with them to the selected class to help them.  Then they met with Renee, the teacher who worked with me on the Times, over one lunchtime and wrote up their article.  The articles are short and sweet - we decided that we wanted regular articles rather than longer pieces as we didn't want to overtax our students or remove them from their classes for too long.  The articles then came back to me to be typed up and put onto the blog and then the website.  Renee and I got together at the beginning of each term to talk about what events and areas of the school the students would write stories about.

Overall I felt the school-wide blog was successful and I was pleased when I was given the go-ahead to continue with the blog this year, although I had to find a new teacher, Jemma, to help me.  A new student leader initiative in our senior classes meant a change to the way we recruited our student reporters.  Instead of having them selected by their teachers, student leaders were offered the opportunity to volunteer to be on the Te Totara Times.  We ended up with six student leaders, who we put into two groups of three.  I have to say that we have more motivated students this way, as they have chosen to be reporters rather than had that decided for them.

This year we decided to allow the students more say in what they are reporting on, so they can bring more of their ideas to the blog.  We let them know what events are coming up and then they work out what to cover and what classes to approach about their learning.  So Jemma and I have input but I feel the students have more ownership than our reporters from last year.

This week the reporters did the first video interview for the Times.  This is something I had been interested in doing but it was the students who led the way.  We can improve both in front of and behind the camera but it was a great first effort.  I have only just received my first Macbook and had to get help from Renee again working out how to use the latest version of iMovie.  Nothing like having to post something in a couple of hours to move along the learning process!

Another thing I feel we can work on as a school is to have more classes and teachers comment on the blog.  That might encourage parents to comment as well.  In some cases I think this is an education issue so I will try to help teachers feel confident to comment.

I think that a school-wide blog is a great way to get some of the benefits of blogging without requiring all teachers to do it.  I am very pleased to be involved with it and am enjoying watching it evolve.

Switching to iPad Minis

View image | gettyimages.com

It has been almost three years since we leased 100 iPads for our school.  Confession time, back then I thought it would have made more sense financially for us to purchase the iPads.  But the thing about technology, you just can't predict where it's going to go, and our wise principal knew what he was doing.

Things have changed a lot since 2012.  We have moved from a very decentralised way of iPad management to using Configurator and Meraki and specifying which apps are on the iPads (here's my post about that).  We now have 152 devices, 42 of which are iPad minis.  When I investigated the cost of leasing iPad minis I found that leasing six of them was equivalent to leasing four iPads.  I was given permission to trial a set and the feedback I got was that the smaller size was not an issue for the students, but the big benefit was the teachers having enough devices for their groups.  Subsequently all of our new devices have been iPad minis and they have been well-received by the team leaders who have been lucky enough to get them.

When the time came to decide what to replace our old iPads with, my recommendation was to bring in iPad minis.  This was endorsed by our team leaders.  Our supplier offered us a choice of the mini Basic (the original iPad mini), the mini Retina (iPad mini 2) or the iPad mini 3.  Our policy has always been to purchase the latest models, however I had read a number of articles, including this one, that said there were no real benefits to upgrading to the mini 3.  It was decided to go with the iPad mini 2, and on Friday we confirmed our lease for 150 of them.  The cost of the lease is actually less than what we paid to lease the 100 iPads three years ago!

We now have the interesting prospect of setting up 150 iPad minis and replacing the old iPads in a very short space of time (I underestimated how long the negotiating and approval process would take).  We do have a couple of things in our favour.  Firstly, Apple's Device Enrollment Program (DEP) has just arrived in New Zealand and should make set up easier and do away with having to use Configurator (although even our I.T. guru has not actually used it before, because it is so new).  Secondly, we sold about 40 of the iPads to our staff so can leave those until after we have returned the other 60.

It is going to be a very busy time about 5-10 working days from now (the time it will take to get the minis from our supplier).  Once I recover I will post about the (hopefully smooth!) process of using DEP and Meraki to set things up.

I'm a Dial-Up Survivor

I am back from the wilderness that is dial-up.  My lovely husband, in an effort to save money, reduced our broadband package to 80GB.  This turned out to be a very bad idea.  We reached our limit within ten days and were forced to wait out the rest of the month on dial-up speeds.  Now I realise this is very much a first world problem.  But I wish to whine!  Oh my gosh, how did we ever survive on dial-up?  I could only have one tab open on my browser and certain sites, like Blogger, either refused to open or didn't work properly when they did.  I couldn't even open the Herald app on my iPad.  Forget about those webinars I wanted to view or the little video clips on Facebook.  Even clicking links on Twitter was slow and painful.  The printer didn't work.  My online life ground to a halt. 

When I asked our I.T. guru if it was really that bad when we used to be on dial-up he reminded me that back then you only tended to have one computer.  So you weren't having to compete with the rest of your family's devices for bandwidth.  

How's this for photographic evidence of how addicted our family is to technology?  Why play a game when you can play a game AND watch Youtube at the same time?!

It's a good thing we've got our broadband data back (unlimited now) as we have three or four teenagers coming for a bring-your-own-laptop birthday sleepover on Saturday and I'm not sure dial-up speeds would have been well received! (And why do they call them 'sleepovers' when that is not an accurate term at all?!).

Having 'survived' dial-up I am now marvelling at the speed and ease of broadband.  What a wonderful thing it is!  A beauty to behold!  I have six tabs open, Blogger is working, and the rest of my family is all online.  Peace has been restored.

Ninja Readers and Storyteller's Club

Earlier this year I posted about my plans to improve my Ninja Readers Book Club and to also start a storytelling club.  However, since then I've been thinking about how I got some of our quieter book club students to come along to the comic club last year and step out of their shells a bit in order to tell stories.  I was also thinking about how I missed the opportunity to promote reading to some of the comic club students, the ones who weren't confident readers.

So I decided to combine the two clubs and form the Ninja Readers and Storyteller's Club.  This hasn't come without its problems.  Last year's clubs took place at morning tea but to combine the two and get a little more time I wanted to run over lunchtime.  I encountered unexpected opposition, with our older students deemed too busy with other things.  I could only take them at morning tea.

I went away and thought about it, and then decided to see if I could take the Year 4's at lunchtime instead.  The book/storytelling combo needs the extra time and I think I can make it work with younger children.

I got the students to sign up - 40 of them!  Gulp!  Still, I was pleased that it showed the concept was a popular one and I'm sure there will be some drop off as we go along.  I decided to meet with them before the term ended so I could tell them a bit about how the club would run, and issue a couple of voluntary challenges for the holidays.

The first challenge was an image scavenger hunt.  I got the idea from a book I had just read - 'Half a Chance' by Cynthia Lord. The main character is a girl who does a photography scavenger hunt.  I wanted to make sure all the students could join in if they wanted to, so I made it an image scavenger hunt, and gave them the option of drawing images if they didn't have a camera to use.  I read out the list of images and we discussed what we could draw or take photos of.  Here is what I gave them:

Only one of these words and phrases was taken from the book.  The rest I made up, keeping in mind that after we share the images I thought we might use them to inspire short stories.  Over the holidays I have been doing the scavenger hunt with my younger son and we have both been enjoying it, so hopefully some of the students have too.

The second challenge was to draw a Nina reader or storyteller so we could make a poster for the club.  As an example I showed them the one we made last year for the Moustache Potatoes Comic Club.

I have spent some of the holidays reading about writing, with my favourite book so far being 'Once Upon a Slime' by Andy Griffiths.  There are so many awesome ideas to inspire writing in there.  As usual I have spent too much time researching and now I need to pull it all together for next week.  I am aiming to use books/genres as the basis for the storytelling projects, while also showcasing the various storytelling apps on the school's iPads.  I will let you know how we get on.

Library Skills Session - Year 1's

My final library skills sessions for Term 1 were for our Year 1's.  My aim for the session was to introduce the students to some basic library rules and talk about how to look after books.  I wanted to make the session as interesting as possible for the students so this is what I came up with:

• I introduced myself and Esther, our library assistant.
• I asked the students if they were good at pretending, and then asked them to pretend that I was a student coming in to the library at lunchtime.  To help them pretend I then put on a school jumper that I borrowed from our uniform samples.
• I acted out a number of scenarios where I was doing things wrong:
• Running flat out into the library and hiding behind a set of shelves
• Bringing my books in and putting them straight onto the shelves without returning them first
• Taking books off the shelf, pretending to flick through them and them throwing them on the floor
• Taking a book off the shelf and heading straight out the door with it
• Asking if I can 'buy' a book
• Sitting down and talking really loudly about how great a book was
• Taking a giant pile of books to the counter
• I talked about what happens when books are overdue
• I explained that throwing out damaged books makes me sad and showed examples of the books:
• Pages with small rips in the bottom.  We talked about how to turn pages carefully from the top right-hand corner.
• Torn pages. We talked about being very gentle turning pages.
• Books where the pages had become separated from the binding.  I explained that sometimes books did come apart because they had been well-loved and we discussed what to do when that happened.
• Pages taped together with sellotape.  I was hoping to avoid the actions of well-intentioned parents with this one!
• Water-damaged books.  I asked for guesses as to what had happened to these books.  We talked about keeping books away from water and food, and protecting them from rain by using their book bag.
• Books that had been drawn in. After making sure that no-one in their class would ever do such a horrendous thing we discussed how to keep books away from younger siblings armed with crayons.
• Books that had bite marks out of them.  After guessing what had happened to these books we talked about keeping books safe from pets.
• My favourite - book vs washing machine (a strange clump in a plastic bag).  After guesses as to the fate of this book we discussed keeping books in safe places and not on floor where they could be scooped up with the washing!
• We finished by reading 'A perfectly messed-up story' by Patrick McDonnell.  The book has two messages - that life can be OK even with a few 'messes', and the one I used it for, which is to treat books with respect.  I cleared up the whole 'Americans call jam jelly' issue before I started reading.

Here's what I took from the Year 1 sessions:

• They were lots of fun!  I thought I might be embarrassed pretending to be a student but it was easy and a good way to go through library policies and rules without being too boring.
• The school jumpers are very fleecy and hot!
• I had been worried I might frighten some students when I was loud but fortunately they all coped well with that.
• We had some lovely suggestions about where the bite marks on the books came from, including people, tigers, sharks and bookworms!
• As soon as they knew it was dogs that had bitten the books I got lots of dog stories.  Children love to talk about their pets!

Library Skills Session - Year 5-6's

In my first library skills session with our Year 5-6's I started by talking about Sophisticated Picture Books.  This is a section of the library that doesn't get as much use as I'd like so I took the opportunity to promote it, pointing out the scary books, the funny ones and the ones with messages and themes aimed at older children.

For the rest of the session I chose to focus on book selection.  I wanted to make sure everyone had a range of techniques to help them find good books to read.  I began by showing the students three books that I confessed I had hated reading.  I explained that if all I ever read was those books then I would think reading sucked - that is why choosing books that interest them is really important.

I used the library lessons that came with this book (as a separate supplement):

The lessons talk about book selection by using the acronym "A just right book".  Working through each of the letters gave us plenty of opportunity to discuss different ways to find a good book to read.  I made the mistake with the first class in working through all the letters by myself and telling the class what they meant.  Although we discussed some of the letters together, at the end of the session I felt like I had done most of the talking and wasn't completely happy with how it went.  For the rest of the classes I had them guess what most of the letters meant, and that got them talking more.  

Here are some of the things we discussed:

• Favourite authors.  I mentioned Roald Dahl, who they are all familiar with, and then they shared some of their favourites.  Some weren't sure of the authors' names so I got a lot of responses like 'the guy who writes the Captain Underpants books', which I then translated into the actual author.
• That authors of chapter books aren't usually the people who illustrate the covers of their books.  Therefore it is not their fault if the cover of their book is boring, and we shouldn't 'judge a book by its cover'.  I used the example of our library's copy of 'Gregor the Overlander' by Suzanne Collins.  I love this book, with it's underground world of giant rats, spiders and cockroaches.  Inexplicably the edition we have has a picture of a building on the cover.  A building!  The students were impressed that the author had written 'The Hunger Games', even though we don't have a copy in our library due to its violence.
• The five finger rule for working out if a book is too hard.
• Barrington Stoke, the publisher who prints books on off-white paper and with a font that is easier to read.  I deliberately didn't mention dyslexia, although these books are particularly good for children who have it.  Instead I talked about some students finding it harder to read books with white paper, and that for some the words might seem to jump around a bit.  In one class in particular I had a lot of students nodding in agreement with this.
• I read the blurb from the back of 'Artemis Fowl' by Eoin Colfer and then talked about whether they would be interested in reading about a fairy with weapons.  I also read the first few paragraphs of 'The Golden Door' by Emily Rodda and asked if they would like to read about winged creatures with pointy teeth who like to eat humans.

After we had gone through all the acronyms I announced that I was setting them a genre challenge.  I explained that sometimes we can get stuck reading one particular genre and that it can be a good idea to explore them all.  I said that some people who like reading adventure might also find that the fantasy section has good adventures in it, and that the historical fiction section has some good war adventures in it.  So my challenge, which I had cleared with the team leaders beforehand, was for the students to read one book from each of our genres (ten) plus a graphic novel and a sophisticated picture book.  This would carry on through to the end of Term 2, or later if they were still going and wanted to finish it off.  

I have a special sign that will go up with the names of the students who complete the challenge, and I will also have that online.  There are some little prizes of posters and stickers and they can get their name in the draw each time they finish one of the books.  That way I thought even those students that wouldn't be able to complete the challenge still have the opportunity to win a prize.  I had one student ask 'what is the monetary value of the prize box?'.  I was not expecting that question!  But I freely told him that it was worth nothing, (the prizes weren't supposed to be the main motivation, I was hoping they would be intrinsicly motivated).  One of the teachers offered her students an ice cream sundae if they completed the challenge (I'm not sure what will happen when the students from the other seven classes hear about that!).

I'm happy with how the sessions went.  The students were keen to discuss the book selection techniques and talk about different books and authors, and the genre challenge has already been completed by a couple of our prolific readers.

Library Skills Session - Year 3-4's

This week I taught library skills to some of our Year 3-4 classes.  I had many things I wanted to cover but when I tried to fit them all in it was very rushed.  Here is what I ended up doing:

• Introduced myself and talked about Esther, our library assistant
• Pointed out our request book and explained that I want to buy books for our library that students like, and if they have a book they like that isn't in the library they can request it
• Cleared up the misconception that our books are on loan for one week.  Our classes come every week so most of the students thought that that's how long they could have a book for.  Given some are moving on to longer books I wanted them to know that they could have them for two weeks.  We also talked about being able to renew books if they are still reading them after two weeks.
• Asked 'How do we decide what letters to put on the spine of fiction books?"
• Discussed the difference between fiction and non-fiction
• Explained that we would be having a quiz and the winning team would be able to get one extra book out on their next class library visit.  I was about to share the information they needed for the quiz so they needed to pay attention.
• Talked about our Fiction section and how students would be moving from our Quick Picks (early chapter books) to that section when they were ready.  Explained that our fiction section is arranged by genre, and used books from our Quick Picks section to describe what each genre was.
• Got the teacher to put their students into five groups and then ran my quiz.  I picked a book from each of the different genres, summarised the key details and asked them to guess what genre it came from (while keeping my hand covering the genre sticker!).  They had time for a quick chat to reach a consensus and then I counted "3,2,1" and they had to hold up the correct answer from a set of laminated answer cards I had given them.
• A couple of classes needed tie breakers - I asked them to guess how many books were in the library.

The quiz created a real buzz amongst the students.  They were all really engaged with it and got excited when they got questions right.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out an interesting way to teach the concepts.  I have a book which has a lot of library skills worksheets in it, but personally I don't find that at all appealing.  I remember seeing something once, along the lines of "would you like to be attending a class you teach?".  I try to keep that in mind because if I've only got 30 minutes with a class I think the way I teach is as important as what I teach.  I want students to have positive feelings about the library after having spent some time with me.

I think that as an introduction to the genres the quiz worked really well.  I covered a lot of information and the students didn't suddenly become experts, but it got them, and their teachers, thinking more about genre and that is something I'm happy with.  I wonder if I introduced this too early though.  The Year 4's were ready but perhaps next year I will do this later in the year when more of the Year 3's would be more likely to be considering moving from our Quick Picks to our Fiction section.

Other things I noted:

• Our students at this age were still unsure about the fiction spine labels being the first three letters of the author's surname and many still got fiction and non-fiction mixed up.
• Most classes got excited about getting an extra book out as a prize.  Yay for books! 
• Showing the students Quick Pick books and talking about what genre they were in was a good way to show students what Fiction section they might like to try based on what Quick Pick books they were reading.  For example, I explained that the "Boy vs Beast" series is from the Fantasy genre and that when they were ready to read from the Fiction area they could try that genre.
• It was really important to pick books from each genre that weren't ambiguous.  Initially I choose a book about the America's Cup from the historical fiction section and some choose sport as the genre (I gave them points for that and we talked about how some books could fit in more than one genre).
• I had to emphasise that it was one answer per group and they needed to decide together what their answer would be.  In a few cases I would get a couple of answers being held up for the same group.
• Some of the teachers were really interested in watching the group dynamics.  A strong personality could sometimes override the rest of the group's thoughts.
• I found it interesting to see the differences in feel of the classes, some were definitely quieter, others particularly boisterous.  I wonder how much the teacher influences this, or whether it is just the personalities of the kids in that class?

Twitter PD in Action

I am a huge Twitter fan.  I have blogged about it before but when I am put on the spot I always struggle to show just how often it helps me with my work.  So I thought I would look back through my tweets this month and choose the information I found that inspired conversations with teachers at my school or with other librarians.  I have had a busy month, so I haven't been on Twitter that much, but I still found the following gems:

MT @TeacherTuttle: project proposal plan for students to complete #geniushour. pic.twitter.com/rA8WG74PRV @abcchays @JhMarkotsis @RachelHarvey6
— Annemarie Hyde (@mrs_hyde) February 7, 2015

This retweet from Annemarie, a DP in Rotorua, was very timely as only the day before I had been discussing how the library could support one of our Year 6 teachers trying out genius hour.  She was pleased when I flicked this plan through for her to have a look at.

Why digital natives prefer reading in print. The Washington Post http://t.co/wvdC0JVXAB #tlchat #edchat #RU575
— Joyce Valenza (@joycevalenza) February 24, 2015

Earlier this week Joyce Valenza, an American teacher-librarian, tweeted a link to the above article.  Given the National Library in New Zealand is making cuts to its curriculum loan service, seeking to replace it with online resources, I shared this link with the NZ librarians' listserv.  It provoked a lot of discussion about what librarians were noticing about their students' preferences for print.  Some decided to send the article on to their English departments and others decided to create their own surveys of their students.

A1- Our Y8 Leadership Academy means our learners are actively involved in making a difference in our wider community #edchatnz
— Bridget Compton-Moen (@BridgetLCM) February 26, 2015

@MSimmsNZ Absolutely! http://t.co/pJQKUtP8oz Here's a wee bit of what the girls have blogged abt over past 2 yrs. We wrote our own handbk
— Bridget Compton-Moen (@BridgetLCM) February 26, 2015

This conversation illustrates the friendliness and helpfulness of the Twitter community.  I was having a flick through Twitter last night and there was an #edchatnz conversation going on about "developing students as actively involved members of our communities".  I noticed Bridget's tweet and because our Year 5/6 team leaders are starting their own leadership programme thought it would be worth asking if she had information she could share with me.  I was delighted with the information that has been shared on her class blog and I'm sure our team leaders will be too.  

I've followed Bridget on Twitter for a while but she is a teacher in Christchurch and I live in Hamilton.  The beauty of Twitter is that I can learn from the experiences of people like Bridget and Joyce and Annemarie, who aren't geographically close and who aren't doing exactly the same job as me.  It broadens my knowledge and exposes me to ideas that excite me.

Library Skills Sessions - Year 2's

One of my new projects for 2015 is running library skills sessions for our classes.  I started with five of the Year 2 classes this week.  I was a bit nervous about this foray into teaching but then my youngest son reminded me that "they're only Year 2's Mum", complete with eye roll.

The sessions were the first of two I will have with this age group.  I'd love to have more but we are such a big school I can't fit it into our library timetable.  My biggest concerns were how much material I could cover in 30 minutes and whether I would get the level right.

Here's what I did:

• Introduced myself and talked about Esther, our library assistant
• Mentioned the public library and how it is another great place to find good books to read
• Asked the students to point out where certain books are, and then took them round to show them other parts of the library e.g. puzzle books, reading room
• Talked  about what happens when you have an overdue book, and how to get an iPad at lunchtime
• Went through some basic book terminology - cover, title, author and illustrator, spine, spine label
• Asked students "If you wrote a book, what letter would be on the spine label?".
• Showed the students how to put a book back on the shelf properly (right way up etc)
• Had the students act as librarians and put a picture book away in the proper place
• Described the difference between fiction and non-fiction
• Gave the students laminated cards with "fiction" written on an orange background on one side and "non-fiction" in blue on the other*
• Used some statements about their teacher as examples - Mrs ___ decided not to take her car to school and jumped on her pet dragon, Sparky instead.  Mrs ___ works at Te Totara Primary School.  Student held up their cards to show me whether they thought the statements were fiction or non-fiction.
• Had students show me whether certain library books were fiction or non-fiction
• Talked about what sort of things can damage books
• Talked about what bookmarks are used for and gave one, with book care statements on it, to each of the students*

The sessions were well-received with several teachers telling me how much they appreciated me doing them.  It's hard  for them to find time for library skills when their normal class library times are only 30 minutes long.  

Things I noted:

• It was good to have the teacher present because:
• some said they learned things themselves (about what books we had)
• they were able to identify which students would need help with the activities
• they could see what I was teaching and follow it up in their classes.
• There were students in each class who didn't know who I was, so it was a good chance to introduce myself.  On a later trip through the school at lunchtime I had several Year 2 students say hello.
• I saw almost 100 children and not one knew that the letter on the spine label of a picture book is the first letter of the author's surname.  A lot knew that the letter helped you know where to shelve the book, but not why that particular letter was on the spine.
• The students jumped at the chance to put books away.  Future librarians in the making!
• Having the coloured cards to show fiction or non-fiction made it very quick for me to see what students thought
• There is already a problem with some students thinking non-fiction means not true.  Perhaps a legacy from parents who have got it wrong?
• Having the care of books part at the end of the session worked out well because it meant that when we were pushed for time I was the only one who talked about how books can get damaged; when I had a bit more time I asked the students for their suggestions (a lot of throwing and stepping on books, but one scenario involved a shark!).

* Based on activities taken from "Stretchy Library Lessons: Library Skills" by Pat Miller.  A great book if you can find it.

Ten Library/ICT Projects for 2015

I have some really exciting projects lined up for this year; the key will be finding time for all of them!  Around about this time last year I posted about what was on the agenda for 2014.  Each of the four things I discussed then will need more work this year, so let's start with those:

1. Genre-fication.  This went really well but I still have lots of posters I want to make as a result of it: lists of what genres our Quick Picks readers could move on to, based on what Quick Picks series they are reading; lists of what new genres would be good to try based on what students already like; top 10 lists for each of the genres to help with selection; signs linking genres to non-fiction...that sort of thing.  But I have also been inspired to reinvent our non-fiction area and make the signage there much more bold and attractive.  
2. Ninja Readers Book Club.  While a big improvement over 2013 I still think I can make this better.  So I'll be trying new ideas, some based on a fantastic session on Book Clubs by Carrie Bouffard at the SLANZA Otago Weekend School last year.
3. e-Books.  I just squeaked in getting this up and running at the end of last year so I will need to work on promoting this with teachers, parents and students.
4. Library Expansion.  Well, this is a bit of an ongoing saga.  First we had issues with the courtyard area we were going to expand into.  Apparently the concrete there is pavement concrete and cannot be built on without the great expense of digging it up and starting again.  Now the funding is up-in-the-air because of unexpected changes to other parts of the school budget.  So I have to be patient, although I am still getting our builder in to quote for expanding into our resource room :)

As it happens I had three more big projects that came along last year that I'll also be working on in 2015:

1. Te Totara Times.  I started this blog last year in order to have student-created content for our school website.  I worked in conjunction with one of our teachers and it went well, but this year I need to find a new teacher to help me and I also have more ideas about what we can do.
2. Storytelling Club.  Building on from my Moustache Potatoes Comic Club and our foray into stop motion animation, I'm keen to combine the two, plus some other forms of digital storytelling, and make a storytelling club.  But with a cooler name.
3. BYOD.  We decided to centrally manage our school iPads (for reasons I set out here).  Wiping 140 iPads and adding them to Meraki was a big job for me at the end of last year.  Now we're hoping to have BYOD iPads in place by the end of Term 1, with each child being able to purchase a discounted set of apps from the school.  This is uncharted territory so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.

And now, because I just don't know when to stop, here are my new projects for 2015:

1. Library Skills Sessions.  We finally have enough hours allocated to our library staff that I can run some library skills sessions for our classes.  I'm sure this will be an item on my list for 2016 as I have much to learn about what I should cover and how quickly.
2. Pinterest Boards.  I do already have a few Pinterest boards but I am keen to build these up, especially around picture books that have themes that would be useful for teachers, like confidence, sharing, bullying, being creative etc.
3. Book Fridge.  At the end of last year I noticed that the school was throwing out a fridge that no longer worked.  So I snapped it up and a teacher aide did some wonderful artwork on it (with permission from Scholastic).  Now I need to launch the idea and explain how a Book Fridge works (basically it's a place for students to swap their own books among themselves).

So, a busy, exciting year ahead for me.  I'm also looking forward to attending the SLANZA conference in Christchurch in September.