There once was an office that grew into a school

I started working at Gungahlin College in late August of 2010. At that time there was a Principal (Gai Beecher, who was appointed in July), a Executive Teacher, a business manager and myself (Associate or Deputy Principal). In those days the College was a construction site and we all worked from a small office upstairs in the Gungahlin Market place. With the College opening for the school year in 2011, we got very busy appointing the rest of our staff and establishing a school.

Gungahlin College Office\Shop front July to December 2010

I recall a very busy first week where we had to: visit both of our feeder schools and talk about the college; visit the Australian Science and Mathematics School (ASMS) in Adelaide; and finalise 22 classroom teaching positions. This little office was a hive of activity where Gai's catch phrase "Every day is a big day at Gungahlin College"  rang true. From this brightly coloured office we organised and appointed another 7 executive teachers and our admin staff, enrolled students, took student ID photos, had our initial planning meetings with executive, created all of our start up procedures and processes, and had our initial  staff get together.

Office partition complete with College Plans and student uniform

 This little office was a place of robust conversation and many new ideas. With no sink and no toilet the shopping centre facilities and accompanying music also helped the creative juices flow. In the time leading up to the College opening the staff were only able to visit the college site on two occasions. I felt at times that we where buying a school from the 'plans' not knowing exactly how the building would finish up, and how it would function as an effective learning environment.

Front counter of shop front - complete with funky lights

My 10 week challenge

Do you want to?:

• stay in touch with the latest educational discussions
• learn about learning technology quickly and easily
• build your Professional Learning Network (PLN) in your school and beyond

Then you might want to follow me on my '10 Week Challenge'. My challenge may not deliver a dream job or  a hot body for the beach this summer, like the infomercials on TV. It may however, help you develop a fantastic PLN of like minded educators. Well that is what I am hoping for.

I am relatively new to Social Media. I joined Twitter and Facebook in 2012 and I guess I was a 'lurker' (watching the conversations but not participating), accessing content occasionally and wondering what all the fuss was about. Recently I have started to engage with Social Media more and the advantages are becoming more apparent. So that I continue to explore the advantages of this communication platform I have set a few goals for myself in term 4:

1. Tweet at least once a day about our school
2. Participate in a Twitter chat(s)
3. Create a blog and post at least ten times during the term
4. Connect with people outside of my school, build a PLN, and learn new things
5. Share what I learn with our staff and post it on my blog in week 10 of term

You can follow me on twitter @CraigMEdwards_ . I will report back about my personal challenge week 10.

 For those that are new like me and want to get started, the following two guides are useful for understanding Twitter (obtained via Edudemic.com)

What is in a name?

You know the line "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ". So why was finding a name for this blog so hard? Well it really wasn't all that hard, finding a name that was available was the hard bit. I wanted to create a blog about education focused on innovation and trying new things, in order to advance learning. I want to be able discuss attempts to 'change up' learning and celebrate the attempt and learning outcome whether it is good or bad.

At my house I have  a favourite children's book which I have read to my children. The title of it is "It's Okay to Be Different" by Todd Parr. I love this book at its message: It's Okay to wear glasses; It's Okay to need some help; and It's Okay to make a wish etc. I have actually read this book to the staff at my school - I reckon they thought I was nuts but I made my point which is it's Okay to take a chance, take a risk and learn.

So in this blog I hope to document the things that our school, I, and others have tried, what worked, what didn't. It might be good, it may not - but that will be Okay. I will take a chance. And there it was, the title, and it was available!