Brad

Hi all, I am a 6/7 Teacher and ICT Coordinator and am looking forward to the Intel Course as a means of giving me some strategies and a structured approach to sharing ICT skills with staff. Having a group of 10 teachers participating in the course will hopefully have lots of benefits in terms of whole-school change / collegiate support etc.

Planning to base my unit on the River Murray - should be able to begin planning once I get my head around Essential Vs Unit questions. Can see the Visual Ranking tool being useful as an intro activity but am worried about teachers being put off by setting it up for themselves. Like the suggestion of JPs doing it with paper flash cards if need be. The idea is sound, but not entirely sure if there is a lot of benefit from doing it online?

Like the idea that the course can be delivered in a more flexible way than just using the book A-Z.

Lyndsey has prepared lots of handy resources, especially the Wiki.

Have a better idea of Essential Questions today and have pretty much finalised the guts of my River Murray unit (The Mighty Murray - Does the End Justify the Means).

Need to be more positive, or at least not so negative about the tools. I do find all of them contain useful elements but feel frustrated by some of their limitations. Good to get a list of alternative programs to explore concurrently to support the unit as well as the Intel tools.

Kurwong site looks pretty handy form HOTS ideas.

Looking forward to coffee tomorrow ;)

Thanks for your patience Lyndsey :)

Got lots done today, unit coming along nicely. Got my head around Thinkers' Keys and Blooms. Found that Inspiration was a pick help in getting those creative juices flowing.

Was good to see what others are doing with ICT. Interested in Ning, will look at it more. Wish I could get into Moodle but find it really uninspiring. It's a shame DECS have poured their $ into this un-user friendly program and expect us to use it IMO.

Will try to do some work this weekend. Looking forward to the Double Blues thrashing the Eagles on Sunday - if only! :)

Well, it wasn't a thrashing but at least they got through. Hopefully now they can dispense with Dave's Tigers and tame the Dogs at the Grannie.

Good speaking with participants of previous course and hearing their experiences. Graham was able to help me with ideas for my River murray unit.

Finally finished Unit - uploading now!

Lots of useful resources shared, refreshing to be invigorated by some professional chat outside the classroom / staffroom. Appreciated the exploration time though and loved getting out of the classroom but it probably could have been done in 2-3 days rather than 5 IMO. It would be interesting to hear what others thought.

Feel fairly confident about running the course next year, maybe not so about selling it to my 10 participants. To be honest the course content seems a bit thin to run over 24 or more hours but the ability to be a bit flexible and modify the course to suit the group will be beneficial.

Thanks Lyndsey, you are a very knowledgeable and passionate presenter - you did a great job :)