What Did I Get Out of the L@S Conference?

What did I get out of the L@S Conference for 2009?
Well ... apart from being very tired and only eager to play with my wikispace by 'dollying' it up (I was a 'getting tricky with wikis' participant) I came away excited about ...
*learning along with my children about ... learning
*thinking and empowerment for children
*reflection, feedback
*and how my children knew they were meeting my expectations and criteria I had set.
...the list goes on but these were the first few that have been strongly pounding in my head.

*I found after 3 days of talking, talking, talking to different people, discussing ideas freely was becoming almost 2nd nature and thinking I had no reasonably good ideas, really didn't come into the equation after a while - I actually had good ideas and so did everyone else I met. There were other people who also didn't know what was on page 3, section 2 of the NZ Curriculum! WOW! Who would've thought (I'm being sarcastic now!).

*One more thing ... I adored Karen Boyes as a speaker. She was a great pick-me-up when I was feeling tired at the end of a long day. Talk about 'motivational'. (I wish I had bought something from her company stall now!).

So what did I do on Monday?
We continued as per normal and then as the day progressed, I realised (while reflecting on the morning progression) I was questioning the children all the time with 'How did you know...?", "What can you do to...?" and even when children began to ask questions that I knew they knew the answer to ... my idea of reflection kicked in. *Getting children to think carefully of their question and to find their own answers based on information/instructions I've already given or just for them to think of their own answers (a trick that Whaea Jeanette would do to me actually!).

What do I see long term?
What I would like to see is for our school to eventually move down the track of kids/teachers sharing ideas, discussing ideas, sharing successes or pitfalls (and a way to improve/fix) from different classes/schools/countries via skype/video link or whatever is out there. For children to own the 'how' they got there/did that and to own where they're going. That's just the 'taster'! I want to one day be where other successful schools are now!

Well, guess we're just as ready as any other newbie school for a journey along a bumpy unfamilier road!

http://http//peak-ict.wikispaces.com/

PS I absolutely enjoyed the conference, meeting people, spending time with other cluster members (I wish there had of been more able to come) and I only wish more of our staff could have gone along! Can't wait for the next one.