Microsoft Innovators

Danielle and I are now back from Cairns where we worked our little fingers to the bone getting the message out to anybody who would listen that to be great teachers you need great role models - like us!! Only kidding. It was a great 4 days and we were both really happy to receive recognition for our work on using digital storytelling to develop boys' literacy.

We now are busy developing the unit this term with the Year 7 boys and getting ready for round 2 of the award travelling to Singapore and Cambodia in Feb/March 2007 to represent Australia at the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Asia Pacific Conference.

For more information on the Microsoft Innovators class of 2006 click here.

ACEC Presentation

One of the hot sessions at ACEC 2006!! Seriously it was most enjoyable presenting a paper to colleagues that took 6 months of my time researching and writing last year. The paper can be downloaded from http://www.acec2006.info

ACEC 2006 Cairns

ACEC 2006 Cairns
Originally uploaded by LearningForward.

Just back from a lovely few days at ACEC 2006 held this year in Cairns. I was lucky to go courtesy of Microsoft Australia who sponsored a group of "Innovative Teachers" from all round Australia. The conference is a biannual event and this was my first. Over 1300 delegates from all over Asia Pacific, USA and some from Europe. It was really well organised and a heap of really interesting sessions. Some of the papers can be accessed from ACEC 2006 site www.acec2006.info

Samantha with Parents and God Parents

Samantha with Parents and God Parents

Samantha's Baptism on 24 September at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Kensington. Godparents Peter and Rebecca O'Farrell and Catriona O'Sullivan. Celebrant Fr Peter Hearn. Attended by family and friends and afterwards for a lovely party at 80 Suttor St Alexandria on Septembers 4th hottest day on record 33 degrees.

A great day! A great little girl!! Well done to Mum and Dad's great organising ability.

Father's Day

Sam went to see Grandad Jim on Father's Day and gave him a coffee cup with a picture of herself so Jim always remembers what she looks like!! Jim liked the cup and the book too

Many thankyou cards to write

Fiona and I are still working through the many thankyou cards we have to send out to family and friends. We have been absolutely overwhelmed with flowers, cards, gifts, and calls from many many people. It is hard work but we are slowly getting through them all and have sent off the first batch of cards today.

We have incuded our first family shot here. We set up a digital camera on a tripod and then took about 30 shots trying to get both our heads in the shot with little Samantha smiling..........talk about difficult........Sam cried and wriggled the whole time.........anyway here it is and we hope you like it enought to put on the fridge or mantle piece somewhere!

Samantha Clare is 5 weeks old today!

Unbelievable.........little Samantha is 5 weeks old today!!....we are all doing well.

Mother and daughter are currently having their afternoon nap which allows Dad some time to catch up on house chores, do some cleaning, washing, grocery shop online etc etc.

I will continue to post photos to our FlickR account online which shows little Sammy week by week and lets any family members print these shots off directly.

I will use this blog to record other details about Samantha Clare to keep all across the globe informed of her progress. I am reliably informed this interest in endless photos will not last but am enjoying it for the moment.

Sam is in good health. We had out first visit to the Doctor last week. She is currently about 3.7kg and a whopping 55cm in length.......huge feet too!!

Fiona and I are currently in the process of writing thankyou cards to everybody who has sent us cards and best wishes.........it is a very long list. Here are some other shots taken last week...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

student visual literacy survey - Google Search

student visual literacy survey - Google Search