Tuning in to My Channel

My theme this weekend is YouTube. Specifically how to make the best use of YouTube videos in the classroom. Did you see the announcement of YouTube Teachers? I spent an hour or two clicking through all the links on the Teachers’ page, joining up (to see what develops), following the advice on setting up my own Channel, reading other bits and pieces.

Things I learnt:

I have created a playlist of videos about Pete the Cat videos (see end of post), and plan to spend some more time learning how to value-add to playlists.

Why this sudden video-awareness? It was the combination of showing Pete the Cat on the IWB to my Prep class and reading about the new YouTube Teachers initiative, all on the same day. I feel that I haven’t made much effort up till now to explore the possibilities of linking hands-on reading experiences with online variations – partly due to lack of equipment, partly due to just not getting around to it. For children growing up with so much of their lives linked to television or computer screens, it is not hard to understand their desire to see the animation or video of a story. I would like to spend some time thinking about how to match videos and reading in order to bring a richer experience of story to my students. So many books have complementary videos, songs and websites now that I could find myself guilty of negligence if I do not find ways to weave different media together when exploring a theme, or books by a particular author or illustrator.

So far I am talking only about videos etc to support the reading of storybooks – partly because it was on my mind this week, partly because there is so much information already out there (and indeed in the 10 Tips section of YT Teachers) on using a variety of formats to enhance teaching and learning activities. For instance I took a brief look at Charlie and Lola online, but didn’t find much of value – I need to investigate and see what else is there before reading a story to my students.

So, I shall leave it at that with the intention of exploring further ways to mingle traditional print media with online resources to create a more varied and enticing world of story for my students.

To send you on your way with a smile on your face and a song on your lips, I give you Pete the Cat and his White Shoes!

 

Plus ça change…

Looking around me at work this week I am reminded of the French quote above, and little swift googling seems to indicate that it originated with Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

Why start a post about working in Hong Kong with a quote famous in French literature? 1) I don’t know any Chinese idioms yet and 2) it just captures the moment so well!

Neurons in the brain

Neurons in the brain; CC licence courtesy of Rebecca-Lee

With my classes at the moment it is the same routine of getting to know the students, establishing boundaries and guidelines, and talking about library topics as I would have when beginning at any school. Today I used the “I went shopping” game technique (Google Books excerpt from the book where I probably discovered it) of stringing names together one after another to start to memorise the names of all the students in my classes – so that would be approximately 150 students across 6 classes today. Honestly I could feel my brain physically throbbing with the effort of creating all those new neural connections!

As well as learning names I was book-talking – for Year 5 I am highlighting Colin Thompson this week, displaying some of his novels and picture books, and pointing out intriguing features that may encourage some of the audience to try out his work (hey! The Floods have their own website!).

After lessons with Prep, Year 2, 3 and 5, I would go back into my office, put a few things away, check what I was doing next, and go back out to get ready. Within the Library there are no real differences – the role of books in promoting reading for pleasure, the provision of a variety of resources for information gathering, the balance between providing a welcoming space and keeping that academic focus. Stepping outside I am reminded that I am in a very different place – 5th floor of a 9 story building, with a view (on clearer, less smog-filled days) across the suburbs of Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, the rumble of traffic and splashes of brightly coloured signs in a language I do not understand providing an exotic backdrop for a familiar role.

Coming up for my classes are activities looking at locating materials on the library shelves, series fiction, genre, wide reading passport, understanding CC, and some as-yet undecided units for the younger grades – could be author studies, could be Encyclopedia Britannica, still to be finalised.

This week has been Chinese Week at school, to coincide with the Mid-Autumn Festival, marked by a Lantern Festival on Monday night – please follow this link to see the Guinness World Record lantern sculpture! I went to the festival with my family on Monday night, and it really was spectacular!!

Naturally we have had a display of culturally relevant books in the Library, and with the younger grades I have been reading a picture book by Colin Czernecki entitled “Paper Lanterns” – and was very pleased to read the list of people he consulted to ensure that his book was a realistic and respectful representation of this aspect of Chinese culture.

"Paper Lanterns" cover, linked from author's website

The last page of the book is a picture of glorious scarlet lanterns emblazoned with a Chinese pictograph each, which together create the Chinese word for friendship 谊  (you-yi) – my key learning for today. What a lovely image to finish a story!

One Week In…

Vibrant

View of Hong Kong: "Vibrant" by Gabbian, CC licensed (click to view original)

We have now been in Hong Kong for 18 days, and Friday marked the end of my first week of teaching at AISHK. I have now met almost all of the classes from Prep to Year 6 (there were a few interruptions for various things), and truly and honestly it was lovely! The majority of the children are happy, friendly, reasonably polite, quite a few are precocious in their conversation, and seemed quite interested in ‘The New Library Teacher’! I have to give a huge vote of thanks to the outgoing Teacher Librarian (I haven’t asked her permission to name her, but believe me she deserves the recognition!). She has left behind a school of children who have been immersed in advanced research skills, exposed to referencing and inquiry skills at every year level, who see Library lessons as something to look forward to, and has left me with a very high standard to meet!

Walking around the school on the preceding Thursday and Friday I detected a certain level of anticipation and foreknowledge in  the cries of “Hello Mrs Reid!” and “Hello New Library Teacher” from students of various heights. This led me to implement a Plan for my first lesson with every class – I did not introduce myself.

The Plan: Step One

The students obviously all knew who I was, and the class teacher (they stay with their class for Library) would often tell the students to greet me, so self-introductions seemed a bit superfluous. Instead, I asked the classes to tell me what they already knew about me – this was usually an entertaining 5 minutes 🙂 Generally we covered:

  • where I had come from
  • the major climate differences between Hobart and Hong Kong
  • my previous school
  • the fact that I’ve been reading boys books for 3 1/2 years due to previous school
  • my 3 children
  • my 2 dogs

with occasional diversions into my previous life as a Japanese & French teacher, or my award last year (kind of embarrassing hearing about that multiple times during the week!).

The Plan: Step Two

Next I told the children that as I was so new to Hong Kong there are lots of things I need to know, which they could teach me. I asked the children to Think-Pair-Share to come up with things they thought were important, and gave them about 20-30 seconds. I’m really pleased with this activity – the children got to share with me their local knowledge, it was a very inclusive way to start our teacher/class relationships, and I learned a great deal in a very short time! Also it didn’t get boring because as the week went on I warned each class that I had had X number of classes giving me information before their turn, so they had to be creative! Things I learned:

  • the name of just about every major shopping mall in the Hong Kong metropolitan area.
  • the ice rinks and cinemas therein
  • that we have to try Dim Sum (which Australians refer to as Yum Cha) – they were saddened to discover that we already had, somewhat by accident, when looking for lunch that was not too expensive and not in a Food Court
  • go to Shenzen, but don’t shop on the main tourist drag
  • all the local markets – we are only a few blocks from Temple Street, which has already yielded good results!
  • where to go at Stanley markets to find the Aussie lolly shop (Whizz Fizz!)
  • Megabox
  • the nightly light show
  • the Peak, and the walks, trams, restaurants, and vantage point it provides
  • which are the good beaches
  • that I need access to a boat to get to the good beaches
  • that barring a close friendship with someone wealthier than your average teacher, I should sign up to the staff junk trip – which is equivalent to a harbour cruise, I gather – in order to visit or even see any of these beaches
  • Groupon – email discount coupons for everything under the sun
  • the second-hand book market
  • that frozen yoghurt is fabulous
  • that Milk Tea is kind of like ice coffee – very milky, very sweet, and something I will approach with caution
  • that I should try the dai pai dong eateries for great food
  • and lots of other snippets, such as if you are being pushed by other people in the crowd – on the MTR (subway), street or anywhere else, you have to just shove back

    Atlas, it's time for your bath

    Grabbing the world! Image by woodleywonderworks (click to view original)

As I said above, I’m really glad I took this approach – it let me start by showing respect for the experience and knowledge that children bring with them to my classroom, and it gave me a fabulous list of things to do and see around Hong Kong!

This coming week will see me diving into a lot of reading promotion activities, while I get a handle on the students, on how the Library program can complement classroom work, and how things work generally at this new school. I’m having fun designing a Reading Passport for Year 3 – looking at a Blooms X Multiple Intelligences framework to inspire different and creative ways to respond to books in a format that will fit within a folded A4 page.

Starting off with a bang!

We arrived in Hong Kong last week, and went to visit my new school, AISHK. I met a few people, few of whom I could name again – the whirl of people and transport and stairs and heat and buildings and humidity was a little befuddling…

On Saturday there was a workshop at school with Kevin Hennah – which of course is something not to be missed – so I spent most of the day at school watching a dazzling procession of images of signs and chairs and displays and layouts and some seriously worrying mistakes. As you would expect it was a really stimulating day, with lots of strong orange and green highlights (if you’ve seen one of his presentations you will now be having flashbacks to amazing chairs and accessories). I met quite a few teacher librarians and other library staff from various international schools around Hong Kong – and even from one in Vietnam! I knew Dianne McKenzie from the online TL world, so it was a pleasure to meet her in person. Unfortunately I do not have a wonderful memory for names, so it will take a few meetings before I am able to keep everyone else straight and match face to name to school without ums or ahs.

I have much to say about the workshop, but now is not the time as it is after 11pm and I really need to get some sleep! Till next time I fire up the blog…

Moving Out, On And Over

Big Yellow Wheelie BinYesterday was my last day at Hutchins – for a while at least! I spent most of the day sorting out my desk, putting piles of worksheets in plastic pockets for filing, and tossing old  papers into the Big Yellow Wheelie Bin. I have two usb memory sticks loaded up with my library programs, units of work, previous years’ work (for reference if needed), activity sheets – anything I could think of to make life easier for the two TLs who will be sharing my position for the rest of the year. I have passed on all the debating club materials to the colleague who will take that over. I even remembered to bring home my work mug.

In between clearing out my office, supervising the library and taking my last class (yr 3, traditional folk tale then flags of the world – Book Week themed) I was also saying goodbye to colleagues. I was deeply touched to realise how many friends I have made at Hutchins – there were so many people wishing me well, telling me how much fun I will have and how the time will fly, and asking me to be sure to keep in touch. I have really loved working here, and will be glad to return in 2013, refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to rug up warmly with our return to the cooler climate!

The rest of this weekend will be spent packing up the house – something we have been working on for a couple of months – in preparation for flying to Hong Kong next week. I have been too busy, too preoccupied, too tired to be excited before now, but this morning I woke up with a definite feeling of anticipation! I am really looking forward to the adventure and challenge of tackling life in a whole new country and culture. I have already received a lot of great advice and support from staff at my new school, which has given me confidence that it won’t be a case of jumping in the deep end and fending for myself upon arrival. Also I discovered an interesting side-effect of clearing out my office and reviewing my work of the past 3 1/2 years: I have a new belief in my own ability to create a variety of teaching and learning activities suited to the needs of my students and the knowledge and skills I wish them to acquire.

What I Do

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