I love quotes. I have a huge collection of quote images stored in my google photos and a database in Notion of quotes from books I have read, videos I have or podcasts I have listened to.Throughout the school year, I post a daily quote on our staffroom TV display along with our daily staffing absences & replacements along with staff duties (yard duty, first aid, staffroom) for that day. Sometimes these spark interesting conversations amongst staff over recess and lunch breaks.

Backstreet's back!.... And so is my blog.It’s hard to believe that this blog has been around for 10 years. During that time, it has had a few attempted reboots.

So, why try again?

Since starting this blog, I have certainly grown and shifted locations and roles; moving from classroom teacher, teaching ICT (Digital Technologies), leading teaching and now into my current role as an assistant principal. I noticed that there is an abundance of resources online for teachers, but resources for school leaders and principal class were quite limited and often US or UK focused.

Ask anyone working in education what they never have enough of and the answer generally is always time. It frustrates me to see people working ‘harder’ but not ‘smarter’ when there are so many better and quicker ways of doing things.Text Expander is just one tool that can save you countless hours by reducing the need to type long strings of text over and over again.

The recent school holidays saw the end of the first quarter of 2018. At the end of last year, I spent some time reflecting on the past year and what I wanted to get out of 2018. After reading Michael Hyatt's book, Your Best Year Ever and from using his Full Focus Planner, below are some reflections on my quarterly review and what I've got planned moving into the next part of the year.

I remember once having this idea that I wanted to start the year with a totally empty classroom.

No furniture. No chairs. No desks. No displays.

Nothing.

I brainstormed all of the items I would like in my ideal learning space.

So, in no particular order...

From the age of about six, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. I would 'play school' at any opportunity. I would mark my pretend roll, write up 'work' on my little chalkboard with my toys or any friends being my students. I would mark their work with red ticks and crosses and write encouraging words of feedback on their sheets.

Initially, I thought this would be easy; just think of this as a dictionary definition. Something along the lines of "the acquisition of new knowledge and skills". That seemed too easy. A little too easy.

How could something that seems so complex be summed up in just a few words?

Luke* hated writing.

He would be the first to give up and would then behave in a way that distracted other students from their learning and required intervention from the teacher.

Working with Luke to develop his skill as a writer was slow and painstaking work. In the beginning, he would tell me his ideas and I would madly try and keep up with him and get them down onto the page. After writing a paragraph, we would read back over his work. It took some convincing for him to believe it was his work; after all, I was the one that had done all of the 'writing'.

With school set to go back in a few days in Australia, I've been busy preparing my classroom for the start of the school year.

It's also been interesting to read a few posts from others who have focused on how classroom design and layout impact on pedagogy.

My process for setting up my learning space at the start of the year begins by moving all of the furniture out or into the centre of the room and starts with cleaning: wiping away the dust that has settled over the holiday break, removing pieces of old blue tack, taking staples out from pin boards... so that I have a 'blank canvas' to begin with.

Close friends and long-time readers of this blog will know that Student Voice and Student Leadership is a passion of mine.

Most schools have some form of student body; be it a student representative council, student leadership council, a junior school council, a student congress, or student voice – the names for these organizations are varied, but ultimately, there is a group that represents students within the school.

But… Why is such a having a student council important? And what sort of things should we be working on? I mean, they raise money and stuff, but how can we move to that next level?

The word that will inspire me in 2015 is…

I had noticed a few posts recently in my Twitter feed from respected and valued people in my PLN (@ccoffa,@medg56 and @hbailie) who in an attempt to revitalise their blogging had signed up for the #youredustory challenge.

It was interesting to read the reasons why each of them had signed up for the challenge. In considering whether or not to sign up I thought I should first reflect on why I had neglected my own blog for so long.

So, why don't I blog?

In a recent blog post, Steve Brophy was challenged to respond to a series of questions and then set the following challenge to me and other members of my PLN. Here are my responses.

2014 sees me change schools again. I will once again be taking on the role of ICT Co-ordinator as a Leading Teacher. This, combined with the recent podcast from The Ed Tech Crew podcast that focused on tips for new ICT Co-ordinators has made me reflect on my own experience as ICT Co-ordinator at my current school and look at what worked well and what I would do differently next time.

I moved into an ICT Co-ordinator role after a few years of teaching and managed to change this role into a Leading Teacher role. The podcast did make me think about the fact the teacher in question is a graduate teacher and ask the question "Can a graduate teacher be an effective ICT co-ordinator?".  

I think back to my first year of teaching and there sure was a lot to cope with and get my head around in my own classroom. (Lois touched on this in some of her comments throughout the podcast). I did wonder then what kind of "ICT co-ordinator" this school may be they after? If they want someone who can "fix problems" and has technical knowledge then yes, I am sure that a graduate teacher would be capable of this. But without experience in the classroom, is the pedagogy going to be there? (I can see this being a separate post altogether!)

So, as I reflect on my experience as ICT Co-ordinator and consider my actions as I move into my role, here is my advice to new ICT Co-ordinators.

Thanks to a tweet from Andrew Williamson and Mel Cashen, who are currently working as coaches for the Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century course being run by DEECD, I was posed a series of reflective questions about how my thoughts around having a Personal Learning Network [PLN].

This lead to me creating and uploading my first YouTube video that I filmed using my iPad and edited with iMovie and Keynote.

School holidays has been a great time to clean out and catch up on all of the blogs I have in my Google Reader.I stumbled across this TED Talk by Drew Dudley the other day through a post on Lifehack: Top 20 TED Talks that can improve your life.

With the madness that is a school at the end-of-year, Christmas, and celebrating a birthday, this post is a little later than I had hoped, however, it has given me the time to really reflect on the year that has past and what lies ahead.

2102 has been a hectic year both personally and professionally and it would be easy to forget what has been achieved. As I look forward to 2013 and think about the possibilities, I thought it wise to reflect on what has been achieved from the year just past.