Back to school

The best bit about a week off for me is the chance to do some reading. Have particularly enjoyed Carol Dweck’s book mindset the new psychology of success. Got it after being really impressed by her talk at SLFO9. Worth reading and reflecting on. Doug Belshaw has pulled together a variety of bits off you tube here very handily!

Also found a couple of hours at the LTS Optima offices listening to Greg Whitby very inspiring. Lots of other who attended are much more conscientious then me and have written about what he said, in particular Neil Winton.

Still almost squeaking with excitement after my phone upgrade was due and I got an iPhone. I said it’d opened up a whole new world for me, Ollie Bray says its a way of life… Anyway the best thing is I can now twitter whilst at work. I’ve only been playing with twitter for a wee while but have already found its providing me with huge amounts of CPD activies, for instance… trying to play about a bit with Google Wave, thanks to Dave Terron for invite and thanks also for his update on the e-assessment conference in Dundee which you’ll find on his blog. Have a look at his wiki  Bold Girls which is a great example of what you can do with wikis using a bit of imagination. I pledged at teachmeet at SLF09 to get some more twitter starters in the Rutherglen Cambuslang Area, so I’m going to push for this using my pester power over the next wee while

Got a good week ahead, particularly looking forward to visiting Loch Primary for a day to visit classes and observe writing lessons. PT/Faculty Head drop in session this week is on coaching and mentoring and Barbara Lyndsay HT at West Coats PS will lead this. Looking forward to pubmeet on Tuesday and hearing more great practice.

this and that

Been reading a great little book – Bothering the coffee drinkers by Doug Hoekstra. Just good writing -lovely short stories. They’re almost like songs without music, which makes sense since he’s a songwriter!

This week I’ve mostly been listening to Edwyn Collins new album Home Again. It’s good to hear him back and sounding great after being so ill such a short time ago.

We all got pretty excited today when a parcel came from RM from Karen Johnston and Douglas Chappelle – a dance mat and loads of easiteach content. We can’t wait to try it out – I’ll say more once we’ve all had a go! Don’t know when the children will get to try it as the teachers have bagsed first go…..

Apart from that I would love to hear of anyone’s experiences in a primary school with cashless dinner machines. Are these the work of the devil or am I just a grump who needs to look for the positives in these little metal boxes?