Energise Conference 2018

I was lucky enough to go to this conference in Rolleston and had the privilege of listening and actively learning some new things.

I learnt more about robots and how to include these into the  classroom programme. I liked how West Rolleston has sorted a progression for the computer science area. It states which robots they would use at which level. Although the children can use robots at lower levels if appropriate. I talked to Megan afterwards and she explained that the juniors tended to integrate where possible the robot work and the year 5-8 did computer science once a week for an hour. This was good to hear as I would love to do work with robots but just need to think how can it practically put in the classroom programme. I really enjoyed having a go with the robots and look forward to doing more of this in the future. 

Sketchnoting- Sylvia Duckworth-a name I knew and was pleased to meet this lady.  Sketchnoting is an interesting approach to taking notes. I am definitely a person who tries to take notes in a creative way and if you look at my notes you will often see me trying to be creative. I enjoyed learning about this and was lucky enough to hear from a few other teachers how they incorporate this into their programme. In my current class I have a couple children who would probably benefit from learning how to do this and would like to teach it to all the children as it is interesting way to take notes. I would love to get her book to get more ideas on how to do this and you definitely need practise this skill. Sylvia's final speech she talked about Why creativity Matters.  The three truths she talked about with creativity is,  it is good for mental health, has cooperative benefits and can be learnt. Creativity allows people to express themselves in different ways and can allow us to go further with our ideas. Being creative is a skill that we need and so what I need to ensure is I allow plenty of opportunities for children to be creative.