By glancing at some of my previous blog posts I think it is hard to glean the fact that I am actually an Early Years/KS1 educator who has been teaching Year 2 for nearly five years. A lot of my blog posts have reflected theory and practice in terms of ‘education’ and not ‘classroom.’ My last blog post suggested I was going to change this and aim to have a mix of theory, practice and classroom ideas. This blog post is primarily about classroom ideas and integrating popular culture into the overarching theme of a classroom. This is primarily drawn from work by Elaine Millard and Anne Haas Dyson who have written extensively about popular culture (and the lack of it) in many education systems. More recently I have been drawing ideas from the work of the amazing Jackie Marsh who I saw speak about playful pedagogies and popular culture at the UKLA Conference in Chester.

(Image Copyright Disney 2009)

Popular Culture is something I have always wanted to integrate into my classroom. I have approached this in various ways during my time in the classroom. Primarily I focused on deep integration of popular culture through themes and digital technologies in projects. I have also tied together units of work under the banner of topics. I will write about these over the coming months but I want to write today about another way I spread themes of popular culture across the whole year. This approach is probably more relevant to Early Years and Key Stage 1 classrooms but can be adapted to Key Stage 2 classrooms too.

Thematic Contexts

During my visit to a Disney theme park in 2010 I realised that every time I had visited a Disney Park there was some sort of year-long ‘celebration’ happening. I realised that in the current state of education we don’t celebrate a great deal (well I always had within my classroom) so thought about developing this idea. Last year I developed a ‘Dream’s context where the children celebrated their dreams for the future, this linked primarily with a project we were involved in linked to Enterprise and living healthy and productive lifestyles. We transformed our messy cloakroom into a ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and linked other areas of curricula subjects to dreams:

• Dreams of the Future – Linked to enterprise and how to realise your dreams for the future
• Dreams of Imagination – Linked to story writing and using our imaginations
• Dreams of Christmas – Seasonal obviously but linked to the creation of our school production
• Dreams of Power – Linked specifically to exploring characterisation of villains in literature
• Dreams Together – Exploring PSHCE and working together

These are just a few of the areas we tied together. Of course if areas didn’t fit we didn’t link them and taught them separately but I did feel the overall theme made the children more excited about their learning. We were also able to learn a class tune for the theme. In this case Just Like We Dreamed It.

What will you celebrate?

This year I am developing a new thematic context linked to the events of 2012. As a school we are choosing to acknowledge the Golden Jubilee and London 2012 Olympic Games which are huge causes for celebration. Of course there are so many other things we celebrate in Early Years Classrooms – getting new pets, new siblings being born, losing a tooth, birthdays and many other things that really matter to young children. After seeing the clip below (again Disney Parks) I thought that the theme of ‘What will you celebrate?’ would be a good one to explore within my classroom.

I do like this idea as I think it really has mileage and will also inspire the children in my class. There is so much to celebrate, and I think we sometimes forget this at times. I will post more as I develop this theme!

I seem to be neglecting this space again. I’m not sure if it is because I have so many online spaces which I need to curate in different sections of my life – work, research and personal. It could be that I have too many spaces, it could be that I simply needed some time away from writing after finishing my MA or it could be that I simply felt I couldn’t cope with the pressure of making this primarily a research blog. It could have been all of these factors and more of course.

I seem to have led this blog down a very defined route of focusing on literacy theory, research and sometimes practice. I feel that the practice element took a bit of a back seat over the two years, primarily due to the fact that I was focused so much on MA assignment writing and my dissertation. As such I feel a refocus is needed.

I have had a bizarre start to the new year with various things happening and a series of projects lingering on and eventually coming to an end this month. I feel that my ‘new year’ is actually going to start in February and March.

After focusing on research over the past year I have decided that 2012 is going to be the year of practice and pedagogy. I am finally going to get around to writing up some of the projects that I share at conferences and in writing. This is long overdue as some of the projects happened over two years ago but still remain relevant. I’m also going to share instances of practice from my classroom and hopefully add to the dialogue about both the relevance and purpose of education. The emphasis will not be on shiny new tools but instigating deep changes in the way we approach learning with a strong focus on creative learning (and of course creative teaching).

As many of you will know, over the past two years I have been completing an MA in New Literacy Studies at the University of Sheffield. As I reflected earlier in the year this has been both challenging and enjoyable. I have Julia Davies, the most spectacular tutor, to thank for her support and encouragement over the past two years, without her words of wisdom the course would have been so much harder. I also need to thank my family for their support during the hectic times.

I have known the provisional mark for my dissertation for a couple of weeks but as usual I decided to keep it to myself until it was confirmed. Today I recieved the final marks for all of my modules and the news that I have passed:

Module 1: Introduction to New Literacies – Grade 80%
Module 2: Practice-Based Enquiry – Grade 80%
Module 3: Media, Culture and Digital Texts – Grade 75%
Module 4: Research Methods in Education – Grade 70%
Modules 5/6: Dissertation – Grade 80%

I’m obviously thrilled with the results but I do not think it will sink in for a few months. I have been taking exams/writing assignments every year since I was in Year 9 so it’s a very surreal experience to not be in formal education anymore and to lose my student status. I do however have a couple of writing projects simmering at the moment, including writing up the data from my dissertation for a book chapter so I will keep you posted.

Finally, a huge thanks to every single person who has offered me words of encouragement and support during such hectic and stressful times - particularly members of my Twitter PLN and also Facebook.

Thank you!

In June I received an unexpected email from Angela Thomas, who I have met in 2009 at the UKLA Conference in Greenwich, inviting me to be a keynote speaker at a the New Literacies, Digital Media and Classroom Teaching conference (#UTASNewLits) at the University of Tasmania on 3rd September. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity and was able to travel to Australia a week early, having completed my MA thesis two weeks before the deadline. This meant that I could spend some time in Melbourne before travelling to speak at the conference in Tasmania.

The event was organised by Angela through the University of Tasmania as well as HITLab Australia and had a host of inspiring keynotes and workshops. The legendary Len Unsworth (who I respect immensely) opened the conference talking about interpretive reading and viewing pedagogy through the lens of picture books and film. The wonderful Lalitha Vasudevan of Columbia University inspired us all with her work with adolescent and multimodal pedagogies. I also had the pleasure of enjoying fellow Brit Bill Boyd’s keynote about new narratives and new times as he closed the conference. My own keynote (below) focused on the fact that literacy is constantly subject to change and that social media are constantly challenging and redefining notions of literacy in society.

I also got to know Paul Chandler and Annemaree O’Brien and was sad to miss their workshops as their work into multimodal narratives is excellent. It was also great to meet and become friends with Damon Thomas and James Riggall who made me feel so welcome during my visit to Tasmania. The conference really made me realise how much I enjoy academia and pushing the boundaries with educational thinking in relation to new media technologies. There was a great buzz throughout the whole conference with excellent discussions during break-out sessions and the Q&A panel at the end of the conference. Also equally exciting was the fact that Angela, Len and I were featured on a TV News report which reported the use of social media in education and footage from my keynote.

A huge thanks to Angela for inviting me to speak at such an inspiring event. I believe that the actual keynotes were recorded and will be placed online soon but until then you can view the slides from my keynote above. The whole trip was a huge inspiration and you can view some of my pictures on my Flickr photostream.

I recently returned from a trip to Australia to speak at the New Literacies, Digital Media and Classroom Teaching Conference. As part of the trip I was able to spend a week in Melbourne, one of the most inspirational places I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. After a very hectic couple of months I decided to travel over to Australia early and set aside some serious downtime where I could reflect on the work I had done, take in some of the sights around me and look to the future.

I also decided to set up Mister Waller’s Travel Blog so that my class could follow my adventures (since I was missing the first week of term). Armed with my trusty HTC Desire HD, the WordPress and Retro Camera+ apps, as well as a Vodafone Australia SIM, I was able to upload pictures as I travelled. I also set up a less informal Posterous blog.

I visited various sights around Melbourne but perhaps the post inspirational for me, was a visit to Bushrangers Bay on the Mornington Peninsula. This secluded bay was the filming location of  ’Where the Wild Things Are’. To get to the bay I needed to climb a cliff and when I saw the view I was stunned.

Photos do really not do this place justice and I found myself stood for over 30 minutes just looking in complete awe. I also recorded various messages to my family, friends and class. It also made me realise the importance of downtime so made a pledge to myself to address my ailing work/life balance.

These are just a couple of the shots I took using my Desire HD and mini-SLR camera. They’re all available on Flickr under the set Where the Wild Things Were should you wish to view more. Also available are photographs of the Wildlife of Tasmania and Melbourne, St Kilda and Tasmania. Melbourne is indeed a beautiful city with a certain charm, which I have not experienced in any other city before. I also had the chance to see treasure from Ancient Egypt at the Melbourne Museum as well walking to St Kilda.

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The way of life is certainly more relaxed in Melbourne. It’s strange to be in a city with a mindset that is not rushed, as with other cities I spent time in like London. The same can be said with Launceston in Tasmania, where I spent five days during the conference. After spending some time in schools in Australia I also learned some important facts about the schools system. In Australia:

• There are no league tables in primary schools and no equivalent to KS2 SATs
• State authorities monitor the effectiveness of schools through small scale reviews (There is no Australian equivalent to Ofsted)
• Although there is a National Curriculum in development, there are no prescriptive schemes of work set by the government
• Schools are able to design and implement their own curricula

There are many things that the Australian school system is doing right! The trip really inspired me and I’m looking forward to the next time I can visit Australia. I plan on writing a blog post about the conference I attended but felt that I needed to share some of my thoughts about the trip separately.

I’m currently running a workshop about the Beginner’s Guide to Negotiating the Blogosphere at the University of Tasmania New Literacies, Digital Multimedia and Classroom Teaching Conference. You can find the Slideshare below. All of the screenshots of the blogs are hyperlinks.

Nearly two years ago I wrote a blog post about a project I planned and taught which promoted a critical view of literacy through storytelling based on the Brer Rabbit stories. I subsequently adapted to project to embed work with The Wren’s Nest Museum in Atlanta, the birthplace museum of Joel Chandler Harris who collected the stories. This included using Skype to link up with a story rambler as well as meeting the relatives of Joel Chandler Harris. Find out more about the project in the presentation below:

On September 3rd I will be running a workshop about blogging in education at the New Literacies, Digital Media and Classroom Teaching Conference in Tasmania. At the start of the session I would like to showcase a range of blogs to show the attendees the different affordances and features of blogging systems. If you can think of an effective blog or if you run and blog and would like me to feature it in the presentation then please could you post it as a comment below? The blog does not have to be education related but should be suitable for all audiences. Alternatively if you would like to recommend your favourite blog that would be huge help too.

Thank you in advance!

Five months ago I took the decision to go on semi-digital leave and suspend some of my online activities such as blogging. This also meant that my use of social networking systems such as Twitter was more sporadic and incoherent. This was a difficult decision but it was necessary as my workload had reached epic proportions and something literally ‘had to give.’

I started the year being enthusiastically optimistic about the challenges of the coming year. However, over the past eight months I have become more aware and more sympathetic for the need for a work/life balance. The need for me to take digital leave rises out of many projects that I have been, either completely immersed in, or that were ‘simmering’ in the background. Over the past eight months I have been:

Teaching full-time

I have my amazing teaching assistants Sylvia and Elaine to thank for helping me in this area.

Working on my MA thesis

This explored the ways that classroom blogs link to New Literacy Studies and Multiliteracies. I have found writing my thesis and teaching full-time an exceptionally challenging process. The demands of the job mean that sitting down to write after a very tiresome day is not a welcoming prospect. This means that the majority of my school holidays and weekends have been devoted to writing. I have my tutors Julia Davies and Becky Parry to thank for all of their support during this process.

Coordinating Creative Learning

I have been coordinating Creative Learning in my school from Nursery to Year 6. This has included setting up work with a graphic designer to publish a whole-school book, video editor to create a video reflection, environmental educator to work across the school, web designers to set up our whole school blog as well as organising a celebration event at the end of term. I’m really grateful to people like e-gran and Mike Mcgrother who have been so professional and helpful in making this process so much easier and enjoyable.

More Writing…

I have written two book chapters  - one for a Student Voice Handbook (published in September) and the other for a Virtual Worlds publication.

Academic Work

I was a guest lecturer at Birmingham City University in January. I also spoke at two conferences this year – the Northern Grid Conference and the UKLA International Conference in Chester (where I spoke twice)!

New House

I have also been dealing with the stress of renovating a house. Thankfully my parents have been a huge help with this.

Yesterday I submitted my MA dissertation, which to me represented the end of my digital leave and a return to a more relaxed way of life. I’m really looking forward to getting back into blogging, Twitter and exploring new things such as Google+. It might take me a few weeks to get back into it but I will return!

I’m really excited to be travelling to the University of Tasmania to speak at the New Literacies, Digital Media and Classroom Teaching Conference convened by Angela Thomas at the end of the month. I’m going to be flying to Australia a week earlier  and will be spending a relaxing week in Melbourne.

Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who has offered help and support over the past months!

I’m currently at the University of Chester taking part in the UKLA International Conference. Today I ran a session about social media and in particular the ways in which Twitter can be used as a professional development network but also as a way on engaging children in real writing. The workshop draws on work I have already published in English 4-11 and also an upcoming book chapter which will be published in September.