With CONASTA67 kicking off, I thought I'd have a look back at my CONASTA66 journey that took place in Hobart. I am looking forward to connecting and networking with the teachers I have met over the years at CONASTA as well as developing new networks and learning new things :)
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At the moment, we are hearing so much about the game 'Fortnite' and what parents and teachers should be doing to stop children from playing it. This is not the first game to create a craze and it definitely won't be the last. What teachers and parents need to do, however, is rather than simply banning children from playing these kinds of games is to help to use the games that children play to help enhance their 21st century skills without them even realising they are doing it! This great YouTube video explores how students can develop these skills while exploring how games can prepare our students for 'life'. At the moment, education is focused on the standardised test. How can we ensure that students get the highest mark possible at the end of the year? How can we increase the number of ‘Band 6s’ that our cohort receives for the HSC? While these things are important, they are not necessarily the be all and the end all of education, especially with the changing climate of our world.
21st century skills include those things such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity – all skills that students will be needing to move into the fast-paced work environment that will be vastly different from what we see now. It’s amazing to actually realise, when you look at it, that these skills can be learnt and practiced by playing a range of games. Online games such as 'Fortnite' and ‘World of Warcraft’ allow players to collaborate with others from around the world in order to complete their quest, a game like ‘Risk’ can build critical thinking skills and even the popular game, ‘Minecraft’ can help to spark creativity amongst the young and old. These skills are things that cannot be taught by reading a textbook or memorising a set of facts. They need to be modelled and then practiced in a range of situations. The video talks about ‘transference’ – where we transfer the skills we use in one situation into a variety of other situations within our lives. One of the biggest issues facing game based learning at the moment is the lack of understanding of this transference of skills. Some educators are struggling to understand that the skills that are learnt whilst playing these ‘games’ can be used in a wide range of educational settings across all subject areas. Through the use of games in the classroom, these 21st century skills can be honed while covering subject specific content at the same time. Games not only help to build these skills, but also help to boost student engagement. By incorporating subject specific content into games, teachers can get students excited and interested to learn about fundamental concepts that can often be difficult to grasp. Obviously there needs to be input from the teacher to go with the integration of games with the role of the teacher to help reinforce and structure the ideas and concepts being explored. By integrating games into classrooms, teachers can also spend time focusing on those students who need some more assistance as the other students are actively engaged in their learning through gaming. The ‘Digital Australia 2014’ report states that 83% of gamers surveyed find games educational. Parents surveyed identified learning about technology (94%) and maths (90%) as the leading benefits of their children playing games. As seen in the graph, 89% of parents believe their children are able to ‘learn about science’ through playing games (Brand, J.E, Lorentz, P. and Mathew, T., 2014). As this is my subject area, this statistic is quite important to me. Realising that parents see an opportunity for the use of games in their child’s education means that I need to make a conscious effort to bring game-based learning into my teaching. As a secondary Science teacher, I can see the use of games being overlooked by some of my colleagues. I have noticed that they are widely viewed as a ‘primary school initiative’ as many associate games with ‘playing’ and as Trundle states in the Digital Games 2014 report many still see games as ‘naughty things that naughty boys play in the dark… and breed anti-social behaviour’ (Jennings, 2014). There needs to be a culture amongst teachers and parents that changes their attitudes, understanding and beliefs about games (Rowan, 2014) and this starts with the ability of those ‘early adopters’ to share the impact on ‘how, when and why games are incorporated and the extent to which they have are able to live up to their potential’ (Rowan, 2014). References:
 - Denis Waitley For as long as I can remember I have always felt that I was never quite good enough for particular roles or could never do things as good as others. This is why it took me so long to eventually apply for a leadership position at school, even though I had been asked numerous times to 'fill in' for roles that were well above my current position. I really can't think why or where this has come from, but in doing some reading it is so comforting to know that this is 'a thing'. A post I saw on Twitter today had the hashtag #impostersyndrome and it brought up these feelings again, especially now I am graduating with my Masters soon. So I decided to go to good ol' Google and have a look around at what exists. I found an 'Impostor Syndrome Test' - one of those psych tests that asks you a series of questions. It felt a bit like a 'Cosmo quiz', but the questions were much deeper than 'Do you like the colour pink?'. I tried to be as honest as possible, without being 'over dramatic' and my results from the test were as follows:  These results hit home... so hard! As mentioned, I have just finished my Masters and I am still questioning whether I can actually do anything meaningful with it. I worked for 4 years through 8 Masters level subjects and achieved a distinction for 3 and just missed a distinction with 2 others. So, obviously something is there... but what if it was just luck!? What if I do get a role in my chosen field and then don't meet my employers expectations?! The great thing about the Internet though, is that you can also find strategies to deal with these feelings! Following the #impostersyndrome hashtag has shed some light on the sheer number of people who are in the same situation, but there is also an amazing number of people who are sharing what they are doing to overcome the shitty, sinking feeling that it brings along! An article that was posted by Time just three days ago states that 'one of the first steps to overcoming imposter feelings is to acknowledge the thoughts and put them in perspective' and I guess that's exactly what I am hoping to achieve by putting my thoughts down in this blog! When I sit and think about it now, it really isn't that BIG of a deal. When I feel these thoughts creep in in a 'real world context' from now on, I need to make the conscious effort to really take the time to think harder about why I am feeling that way. There are definitely worse things in the world that could happen that not meeting expectations straight up. That doesn't mean that I won't learn from my experience and get better as time goes on! As long as no one dies, can it really be that bad?! Some other suggestions put forward in the blog include:
This TED Talk from Valerie Young does a great job of providing you with a few ways to 'reframe your thinking' when you suffer from imposter syndrome and again reaffirms that idea that it's OK to have 'imposter moments', but don't let it turn in to an 'imposter life'! The flipped classroom model has been identified as a pedagogical pathway for teachers to follow to move toward more powerful learning and teaching strategies by leveraging the technology that is emerging to deliver lessons (Bergmann & Sams, 2014). The flipped classroom is an active, student-centred approach that was formed to increase the quality of face to face time spent in classrooms (Ozdamli & Asiksoy, 2016).  Flipped learning allows teachers to provide their students with the following:
The implementation of a flipped classroom model also allows educators to shift the lower end of Bloom’s taxonomy out of the classroom (Sams & Bergmann, 2013), allowing them to be present with their students while they are facing more difficult activities. By completing a range of easily achievable activities at home, students interact with the ‘remember and understand’ levels of Bloom’s outside the classroom without their teacher, reserving time spent in class for the higher order levels of thinking including creating, evaluating, analysing and applying (See & Conry, 2014). These activities usually take a longer period of time to complete and often require the support and input of the classroom teacher. The ‘traditional’ classroom model sees students often take notes from the board or read information before completing project tasks at home. Flipping this process allows for those higher order activities to be explored where students feel safe and supported. Subjects that consist of educational content that falls within these lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy are those that may benefit the most from a shift towards the flipped classroom model of teaching (Sams & Bergmann, 2013).  With the advances in technology occurring all the time, educators are in possession of a paradigm-shifting toolbox that will help them to change the shape of education and enhance the student learning experience (Albert & Beatty, 2014). The wide range of technology available to educators today enable them to provide students with access to more advanced content, the tools for constructing and sharing created products as well as opportunity to develop critical and creative thinking skills (Siegle, 2013). For those who are looking to explore flipping their classroom, Education Perfect (www.educationperfect.com) is one tool that provides teachers with an online learning and assessment platform for Languages, English, Maths, Science and Humanities. The platform includes content to suit the Australian Curriculum, as well as the state specific syllabus from NSW and Victoria.  Education Perfect has been designed to focus on mastery and customized learning. It supports learner-centered approaches where each student is able to work at his or her appropriate level and pace based on their actual existing skills and knowledge.
Education Perfect allows teachers to easily assign students work to complete before they arrive to class. This introduces concepts to the students outside of the classroom space, a concept that aligns with the flipped classroom model. The Smart Lessons produced by the Education Perfect Content Team introduce the concepts to students in a variety of ways, including simple text with keywords highlighted, short videos or a combination of both. After students have been introduced to the content, the platform assesses their understanding of this through a range of question types. A cycle of content learning and assessment continues until the lesson is finished, however, students are only able to move forward once they have mastered each section. The mastery-approach to education has been linked to higher intrinsic motivation and enjoyment, positive affect, engagement, deep learning, and persistence in students (Simon, et. al., 2015). It has been found that when students realise that it is the process that helps them to build their understanding and expertise in a particular field that they are studying, they are more willing to put the extra effort into their learning (Cushman, 2015). The Education Perfect platform helps to enhance this process by adding an element of gamification by awarding the students points for completing activities, which place them onto a school wide and global scoreboard. By introducing the idea of games and point scoring into these kinds of activities, students may be more willing to share their expertise as it is an area that they are passionate and motivated about. This is evident as when the students become passionate, they will be inspired to play and then go discuss, modify, research and explicate everything about the game that they are playing with others (Gee, 2012). Before arriving to class, teachers are able to analyse the detailed data provided by the platform to understand how the students have interacted with this material. This will help to guide the teacher on how to start the lesson where the students will be further exploring this content. Through the mastery model, most students should have been able to develop a grasp of the content by completing the Smart Lesson and therefore the class should be able to participate in activities that allow much deeper understanding of the concepts being covered. After introducing the flipped classroom model, class time is now able to involve more problem solving, creation and investigation - whether it be in practical work or research activities - with the students working with their teacher as a mentor rather than provider. Collaboration and group work become with norm with the whole class working together towards the common goal of improving the outcomes of all students in the class. All teachers are able to sign up for a free teacher login by visiting www.educationperfect.com.
In 2016 our principal informed the Science, TAS and Maths coordinators that he wanted an integrated STEM project to run for Year 8 in 2017. This began an 8 month long journey through brainstorming, planning and then implementing our project. Our first step was to determine what kind of project we wanted to run. The coordinators and assistants from the three departments sat together with our scope and sequence documents to brainstorm when and where we could incorporate an integrated project. A number of ideas were slated, however, we decided to go with the Ecosystems topic from Science that could be combined with a selection of Maths outcomes. TAS already has 3 projects that they complete in a year, so they decided to make the project work, time would be taken from each one to allow students to complete a shorter, fourth project. Next came planning and creating resources for the project. Myself, the assistant Maths coordinator and the TAS coordinator took on this role and it was great working with two other passionate educators who were willing to give anything a go. We didn't get much release time from school, so a lot of work was completed outside of school hours. We started with the end point in mind - what did we want the students to achieve from doing this project? The students were going to design a new and improved zoo enclosure for an endangered animal that met it's needs in regards to adaptations, feeding relationships and its natural habitat. When we took last year's Year 8 cohort to the zoo, a few of us spent time brainstorming and talking to staff about how we could work towards our project. The day was very productive and helped us to really cement where we wanted the project to go. The project kicked off on day one of Term 2 with all of Year 8 assembling in the hall. I spoke to the whole cohort about the project and what they would be doing over the term. We spoke about the excursion to the zoo being an opportunity for the students to see what the animals already have and how their work in each of their three subjects would help them towards creating their final zoo enclosures. In Science, students completed a series of self-paced modules using a range of GSuite tools to learn about ecosystems and how animals interact with these ecosystems. These lessons helped the students to create a Google Site about the particular endangered animal that their group was assigned. The students had to research the animal's habitat and identify abiotic and biotic factors from these habitats that impact on the animals, find out about the feeding relationships the animals are involved in and create a public service campaign to help to convince the public to protect the animals. The quality of the websites the students produced was amazing. The use of Google Sites meant that the students could easily incorporate their creations in Google Drive into the site. During weeks 5-7, students were given time in all three subjects to physically create their 3D enclosure model. Students were provided with a range of materials and were able to bring their own to help them to make their enclosures as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Students used the 3D printer to print a range of elements for their enclosures from seats for visitors to bird baths and feeding troughs. Students could also use the laser cutter to create other elements. Students used this to make trees or interestingly shaped 'glass' for the surrounding of their enclosures. On Wednesday of Week 7 we held a STEM Showcase where parents were able to come and see what their students had been creating in these three subjects. Despite the shocking weather, we had approximately 150 parents come through and find out about our project from almost 200 excited Year 8 students. A range of staff members also spent time talking to students and the buzz across the 9 classrooms was palpable. Feedback from parents and staff was that the students were able to articulate what they had produced and the process they had taken to complete their task. The students were able to take ownership and discuss their enclosures in detail as they had been the facilitators of their learning across all facets of the project. The students were passionate about what they had achieved and the general consensus from the night was that they would love to complete the same kind of project again in the future. Our next step in our project is to gather feedback from staff and students and to work out where we want to take STEM in the future. Today I am presenting a workshop titled 'Super Simple STEM' at the NSW Science Teachers Association Annual Conference (ACSTA2017). During this session we will be exploring a range of simple activities that you can do in your classroom with resources that are very cheap and apps that have free versions.
Please find the resources that I will be referring to in my presentation below:
I have just submitted my final assessment for subject 6 of my Masters - Classroom Technologies. This has been one of the craziest subjects to date, especially doing it over the Christmas break. We had 10 modules that consisted of numerous blog posts, each that required references beyond the reading to support out writing. We also had to comment on other student's blogs, again with resources. Lastly, we had to create a website that is a portfolio of 20 digital resources that would help teach students skills around the ICT Capabilities outlined by the Australian Curriculum.
I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't as 'regular' with my blogging as I should be. Christmas and New Year got in the way, as did my enjoyment of my holidays! I got all written, but a huge chunk of them were written in the span of a week. My regularity of commenting on other people's blogs was even less regular. I have only done 10. This probably is no where near what the lecturer is hoping for - but we weren't given a benchmark. The portfolio I spent quite a bit of time on - researching, evaluating and then creating my website. I am quite happy with the quality of my blog and portfolio, so hopefully the two of those will outweigh the fact I sucked at 'contributing to the learning of my peers'. I used the new Google Sites to create my website and WOW!!! Sooooo much easier than the old version. I have decided that our research task in term 2 as part of our Year 8 STEM program is going to involve the students creating a website using Sites to share their findings about the animal they are creating their zoo enclosure for! If anyone is interested in looking at my blog, you can find the posts that relate to this subject here: http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/theindependentvariable/category/esc515/ And if you would like to check out my website, you can find that here: Kelly Hollis ESC515 - Classroom Technologies Feel free to share either resource with anyone who you think would benefit from them :) Introduction Social networking sites allow individuals to use technology to connect, collaborate and share over a variety of platforms. Although social networking is not a new form of communication, a rise in the use of these platforms by educators in recent times has been observed. Social networking sites are used to find people with similar interests and build relationships with them through discussions around these interests (King, 2015a). The justification behind the use of social networks as a tool for communication and professional learning includes the idea that many educators will use popular media such as Facebook (Pilgrim & Bledsloe, 2011). Upon determining that there was a lack of social networking support for New South Wales Biology teachers, a Facebook group was developed with the aim to provide these educators with a place to communicate, collaborate and learn from one another. A Facebook group was chosen as this allows the development of relationships between users (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2011) which will help to open the lines of communication between newly appointed Biology teachers and those with more experience Over time, the group will be monitored to determine how it is being used and by who. This will be done through the use of a survey created with Google Forms and the use of online analytics software that monitors the Facebook Group’s usage. The Nature of the Project - NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group The New South Wales Biology syllabus is about to be overhauled with a number of changes to be made. Although content is not going to be overly different to the current syllabus, the way that it is packaged and expected to be taught may be very different for some. This social networking group was created to help Biology teachers across New South Wales connect with each other to share ideas as well as collaborate on teaching and learning programmes and resources. The introduction of a depth study to the Stage 6 Biology syllabus will require students to complete projects that are of interest to them and possibly different to those undertaken by other students in their class. The creation of this Facebook group will also help to connect classes so that students who are conducting similar depth studies can communicate and collaborate with each other, as well as providing students with an authentic audience beyond the students within their own classroom. This social network would also be helpful for beginning teachers to connect with more experienced teachers to find a mentor to help them through those first few months/years of teaching Biology in New South Wales. The social networking group will also provide information for all teachers in regards to opportunities for professional learning/development that are advertised by local providers for teachers of Biology. A Facebook group was chosen over the use of any other social media outlet as Facebook allows for teachers across all of New South Wales to develop relationships, which is one of the things that technology makes possible (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2011). Twitter simply allows for microblogging, where individuals can post a short message of up to 140 characters that allows users to be in constant contact, however, does not allow these messages to remain static as they continue through the Twitter ‘feed’ (Tang & Hew, 2016). The justification behind the use of social networks as a tool for professional learning includes the idea that many educators will use popular social media outlets such as Facebook for the purpose of communication and collaboration. Facebook provides one tool where educators can access multiple organisations at the one time. Educators can follow the Facebook group’s feed to find information regarding their profession and group members may respond and interact with other members, just as they can interact socially with their friends on Facebook. As educators, one goal is to develop a love of learning in students that is lifelong. The use of Facebook helps educators to continue their own learning, at their own convenience, by joining groups that they are interested in through their own personal Facebook page (Pilgrim & Bledsloe, 2011). The familiarity of the Facebook platform for many people is another factor that helped to finalise the choice to go with this platform as opposed to any other social networking site. The self-contained community that has been created will allow for asynchronous and eventually synchronous interactions between educators while also allowing users to share information, documents, pictures and links to outside websites with other members. The open nature of a Facebook group also provides a convenient platform for collaborative and/or cooperative learning (Miron & Ravid, 2015). Asynchronous interactions involve those where educators are able to access the Facebook group at any time from anywhere (Aggarwal, Turoff, Legon, Hackbarth & Fowler, 2008). This mode of delivery helps to supplement the discussions and learning that the educators take part in within their everyday lives, with colleagues at school. The Process Involved in the Creation of NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group Before deciding upon the social networking group to create, an search of both Twitter and Facebook was carried out to ensure that a similar group had not already been created. It was found that a number of generic science teacher social networking groups already exist, however, none exist that specifically cater for teachers of stage 6 Biology in New South Wales. After establishing that the need was evident, the Facebook group was created and the name 'NSW Biology Teachers' was assigned (Appendix 1). This name was chosen as it was short and to the point, ensuring that there was no confusion about who the group was intended to be for. The group was created in Facebook, rather than Twitter, as one of the main objectives of the group is to allow educators to share resources as the new syllabus approaches. Facebook groups engage users and allow for files to be uploaded and links to be shared in a location that remain static (Wankel, 2011), unlike Twitter, where users would need to be searching for hashtags or other users to be able to find what they are looking for. Facebook also allows for the creation of polls and an easier means of developing relationships between members. The cover photo for the group was created using Canva, a free online graphic design program that is easy to use to create eye catching designs for a range of applications (Appendix 2). Canva has templates available that allow users to create a range of images for a number social networking sites including cover images for Facebook profiles and group images. A simple and clean design was created that was visually appealing and added as the group’s cover image. Once the group was created it was advertised firstly on Twitter using the hashtag #aussieED. This hashtag was used as it is associated with one of the largest Australian professional learning communities on Twitter. The tweet that was created on December 10 has been retweeted a number of times with almost 1000 impressions. This has allowed the information regarding the Facebook group to reach a wide range of educators throughout not only NSW but the whole of Australia. Other hashtags were also used including #HSCBiology and #NSWBiology in an attempt to target those specific educators who use Twitter (Appendix 3). The group was also advertised in another Facebook group titled 'Awesome Science Teachers', which caters for 1277 science teachers in Australia and around the world (Appendix 4) along with 'The Australian Flipped Learning Network' Facebook group. This group has 106 of members from a range of key learning areas and was created during September of 2016 (Appendix 5). The use of these two platforms to advertise the group led to the membership growing to 189 educators within twelve days of its conception (Appendix 6). The number of participants rose very quickly within the first few days, reaching ninety-six members in the first twenty-four hours. Requests to add members then began to plateau as the end of the New South Wales school term approached. When school returns in 2017, the group will be advertised again with the hope of continuing its growth as teachers return to school. Before the end of the term, a number of polls were created to begin to get members to interact with one another. These polls helped to create some discussion around class sizes, the use of textbooks and patterns of study. Each of the polls have had a fairly good rate of response, however, the number of people adding further discussion has decreased as the date has moved closer to Christmas (Appendix 7). On December 19th, a survey was created to gauge how users were finding the Facebook group and what it had to offer them (Appendix 8). This survey was created using Google Forms and consisted of eight general questions to gather information regarding the demographics of the Facebook group members as well as nine questions that ask about their general social networking site use, both professionally and personally. The survey then concluded with six questions that were specifically about the ‘NSW Biology Teachers’ Facebook group including whether or not members were finding the group to be beneficial and whether they would be interested in continuing their interaction with the group in 2017. One question was also included to determine whether members had any specific feedback for the group and how it may further benefit them as Biology teachers in the future. On December 24th, group analytics were investigated using sociograph.io and gyrtics.com. Sociograph provides basic data with no cost on a range of features that the Facebook group provides including the number of members who have joined each day, the type and range of posts that have been made and the types of interactions that have been carried out by members. Gyrtics provides much more detailed analytics on the group’s usage, however, there is a minimum cost of $12/month to use this services. Thankfully, a free-trial is provided for users to explore what the website has to offer before committing to this cost. The information extracted from both of these services will provide data on how the group has been used since its development on December 10th. Critical Evaluation of NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group The use of group analytics has helped to gather an understanding of the peak times of when the group was used by educators. In particular, engagement metrics provide the developers of social networking sites with valuable information about what group members are actually doing with the site to ensure that the user’s needs are being met (King, 2015.b). From the analytics provided by grytics.com it was noted that out of 189 members, only 50 of these have been active (Appendix 9) with majority of the interactions (85% of posts) on the site being the creation of status-like posts (Appendix 10). This data is understandable considering the group has only been in existence for two weeks and members are still simply introducing themselves to others and getting a feel for the group. This low level of engagement could also be attributed to the fact that the New South Wales school term was wrapping up and educators were less likely to be engaging in school-related activities on social networking sites as noted by the decline in activity in the group shown by analytics provided by Sociograph (Appendix 11). In order to gather feedback from educators who have signed up to the group a survey was created using Google Forms (Appendix 8). The survey questions asked users about their usual social media use to connect with educators as well as their feelings about how the group is travelling. Other questions also asked users for suggestions for how the group may better suit their needs in the future and whether or not they would be interested in attending a face to face meet up with other members of the group. On surveying the members of the Facebook group, it was interesting to note that out of the 32 respondents, 24.2% of them stated that they usually do not use Facebook as a means to communicate with other educators (Appendix 12). They stated that they would prefer to use Twitter or LinkedIn for this and save Facebook for more personal use (Appendix 13). This difference in percentage may be due to the fact that more educators believe that Facebook is better suited for students rather than teachers and that Facebook is quite an informal social networking tool (Wankel, 2011). Twitter is ranked within the top two social networking tools that teachers would be willing to use in their classrooms, ranking higher than Facebook (Tang & Hew, 2016). A number of educators find it much easier to create a professional learning community using Twitter than they do Facebook as it does not require as much investment of time as Facebook to create the short posts of only 140 characters (Tang & Hew, 2016). Although almost 50% of the respondents feel that they have not found the group to be overly helpful as yet (Appendix 14), 100% of educators who took the survey plan to continue to interact with the group in 2017 (Appendix 15). When asking for specific feedback in regards to what the users would like to see from the group in the future the three most consistent responses included:
This feedback will allow for the continual growth of the group moving forward. In response to the request for a place to share resources, a Google Drive folder will be created to allow group members to upload their resources as well as allowing others to search these resources for anything they may require. Once the 2017 school year has started, there will be posts that are created that specifically relate to the new syllabus so that group members can discuss their queries and concerns prior to the implementation of the syllabus. This will also allow those teachers who are designing programs and learning resources for the new syllabus to collaborate as well as to share ideas and resources. Lastly, information on professional learning/development can be advertised through the use of the events feature in Facebook. This will allow members to keep up to date with upcoming events that will allow educators to access these professional learning/development experiences. Conclusion Overall, the creation of the ‘NSW Biology Teachers’ group has provided Biology educators with a means to communicate and collaborate effectively through the use of the social networking site, Facebook. The group will continue to grow in size and engagement once the 2017 school year commences with members being able to share ideas and resources to help others with their understanding and teaching of the Stage 6 Biology syllabus. References Aggarwal, A., Turoff, M., Legon, R., Hackbarth, G., & Fowler, D. (2008). Asynchronous Learning: Emerging Issues for the 21st Century. In L. Esnault (Ed.), Web-Based Education and Pedagogical Technologies: Solutions for Learning Applications (pp. 206-225). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-59904-525-2.ch011 King, D. (2015)a. Why Use Social Media. Managing Your Library’S Social Media Channels, 51(1), 6-9. http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/ltr.51n1 King, D. (2015) b. Analytics, Goals and Strategy for Social Media. Managing Your Library’S Social Media Channels, 51(1), 26-32. http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/ltr.51n1 Miron, E., & Ravid, G. (2015). Facebook groups as an academic teaching aid: Case study and recommendations for educators. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 18(4), 371-384. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1736895969?accountid=10344 Nussbaum-Beach, S. & Hall, L. (2011). The Connected Educator (1st ed.). Bloomington: Solution Tree Press. Pilgrim, J., & Bledsoe, C. (2011). Learning through facebook: A potential tool for educators. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 78(1), 38-42. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/905840093?accountid=10344 Tang, Y. & Hew, K. (2016). Using Twitter for education: Beneficial or simply a waste of time?. Computers & Education, 106, 97-118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.004 Wankel, C. (2011). Educating Educators with Social Media. : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au Appendix: Appendix 1 – Image – Creation of NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group  Appendix 2 – Image – NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group Cover Photo   Appendix 4 – Image – ‘Awesome Science Teachers’ Facebook Group  Appendix 5 – Image – ‘Australian Flipped Learning Network’ Facebook Group  Appendix 6 – Image – NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group   Appendix 8 – URL – Link to Google Forms Survey https://goo.gl/forms/cUWsyBzOFeHxI5712 Appendix 9 – Image – Analytics summary provided by grytics.com including total known and active members   Appendix 11 – Image – Graph showing activity in NSW Biology Teachers Facebook Group by date provided by sociograph.io  Appendix 12 – Image – Survey Responses to question ‘Do you normally use Facebook to connect with other educators?’  Appendix 13 – Survey Responses to question ‘If you don’t usually use Facebook to connect with educators, please name which networking site you use for this.’  Appendix 14 – Survey Responses to question ‘Have you found the ‘NSW Biology Teachers’ Facebook group to be helpful?’  Appendix 15 – Survey Responses to question ‘Do you plan on continuing to interact with the other educators on the ‘NSW Biology Teachers’ Facebook group in 2017?  I was recently contacted by Martyn from the UK to see whether I would be interested in creating a vlog to talk about something I have been doing to improve my wellbeing. I was the first person from the southern hemisphere to be approached by Martyn & the team so I was very chuffed. Because of this I wanted to make sure my video had a true Aussie flavour, so waited until I was in the city to film it so I could include shots of the Harbour Bridge & the Opera House. I filmed my video last Wednesday and have uploaded it to Youtube, but here is it in all it's glory!  I'm not usually a fan of having my face in my videos (if you follow my YouTube channel you will see that I appear in NONE of the videos I have created apart from my voice!), but this was a bit of fun and quite liberating! I do plan on trying to make some more in the future - but need to wait until I have something exciting to share.
Now some of you are probably wondering what #teacher5aday is. It was started by a number of teachers in the UK - Martyn being one of them. The idea behind it is that teachers focus on 5 different areas to help them improve their wellbeing, with ideally the goal of doing each of those five things every day. Obviously, this can sometimes be a challenge, so teachers are inspired to spend at least some time each month to invest more time into the five areas. The five areas are:
So here is my pledge for each of the five areas: 1. Connect :
2. Notice:
3. Learn:
4. Volunteer:
5. Exercise:
So as you can see, it's pretty easy to make a pledge... like any resolution, the hardest thing is maintaining it! I think that my pledges are quite realistic this year. I have looked back on my resolutions for 2016 and think I went a bit too big too fast. There's not point in setting unrealistic goals and then being disappointed when you don't reach them. So, set realisitc goals, smash them & then set more! Today we celebrated our last day of the academic year. In order to look back on my year as an educator, I created a Flipagram of the things that happened both in my class and my life as an educator at conferences and other PD! Enjoy :) |
Kelly HollisA high school science and Biology teacher in Sydney, Australia. #aussieED co-founder. Interested in the integration of ICT into the Science curriculum. 
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