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Just a Reminder for those of you whose clocks change in Spring/Autumn (Fall). The Session time for you will be different when your clocks change in September/October. Our time remains on 23:00 GMT Thursdays. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere the session time will be ONE HOUR EARLIER after the clock change. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be ONE HOUR LATER.

Introduction

This Fine Focus session was a “spin-off” from last week’s Serendipity where we shared our ideas about strategies we have used when working with SpEd students. We were joined by Jo Whalahan (Jo W) who is a SpEd teacher well known to  one of our regular participants Sandra Stewart (@marndon) from New South Wales. Jo W joined us to talk about how she works with her students.

The Session

The session was very much a conversation using mainly audio and so this overview can only give a taste – catch the recording for the full flavour!

We spent a few minutes discussing what would work best for Jo W as it was her first webinar and it is always really dificult at first to talk into a void. So we settled on an interview style with Sandra asking questions – a strategy that worked very well as Sandra is familar with Jo W’s work and also knows her in “real life” making the questioning a bit less stressful than if it came from someone unknown.

Because the session was mostly oral I tried to capture some of Jo W’s thoughts and ideas and some of the student characteristics on a whiteboard and have used this to create a Wordle.

Although the focus of the session was on the conversation between Sandra and Jo W there were also questions in the text chat which Sandra was able to bring into the conversation enabling us all to join in while maintaining the flow of  the session.

Conclusion

This was a new style for Fine Focus – it worked very well and is something that we will definitely do again! Hearing Jo W’s strategies and insights into her students was fascinating and she coped brilliantly with the new (to her) medium.

Next Webinar

Our next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday October 13^that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday October 14^th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic

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Just a Reminder for those of you whose clocks change in Spring/Autumn (Fall). The Session time for you will be different when your clocks change in September/October. Our time remains on 23:00 GMT Thursdays. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere the session time will be ONE HOUR EARLIER after the clock change. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be ONE HOUR LATER.

Introduction

In this lively session, recorded as always, we shared ideas on strategies for what is termed in this session as “Special Ed” within a classroom situation with students of widely varying level. We all seemed to interpret this (for the purpose of this session) to mean meeting the needs of students with specifically identified issues that impact on their learning

The Session

The topic chosen was proposed by one of the participants who was seeking ideas for working with large class of very diverse students – over 50% of the students having issues impacting on their learning – with no additional support (teacher’s aide) available.

We headed a whiteboard with the topic and then shared ideas and strategies using not only the whiteboard but text chat and audio – the Wordle is a composite of many of those.

We also had input from a colleague of a participant who was unable to join us but who contributed suggestions that were added to the whiteboard. As usual a variety of thoughts and links were also shared so catching the recording will give you more information.

Conclusion

This session was particularly interesting as we were focussing on a particular classroom situation, so our ideas were perhaps more specific than is the case when we are having a general discussion on a topic.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session, Topic not yet finalised. Join us on Thursday October 6^th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning October 7^th in Australia – in the usual virtual room