What I learnt this week……

how valuable I find blogging/note taking in terms of reflection time. Thinking out loud (or on the keyboard) is SO crucial! And its even better than my previous place for reflection (the bath) as I have the notes to refer back to!
how stressful trying to write an assignment is when the rest of the family is on holiday too – my office in the kitchen is not as quiet as it is usually in the evenings or at weekends
how much I can get done when I read/write on a journey!
that the title I was considering for my current assignment has been used by someone much more clever than me! (John West-Burnham wrote a paper with the same title so I’m just re-thinking! though I suspect even this blog post title is also used by someone else – sorry, @dajbelshaw!!!)
that I’d read more in preparation for the assignment than I’d thought and had built up quite a bank of notes on onenote (love the way I can copy in sections of pdf downloads and then annotate, scribble all over – and that onenote can even turn my bad handwriting from the touchscreen into PROPER words that say what I wanted!)
that schools that want to keep improving need to keep innovating and need their staff to keep learning from each other (well, I knew that but have read lots of things that support that point of view)
that professional learning networks – online and offline, cross-age-phase, cross-curricular- are crucial for moving the education of our young people forward – sharing good practice is the professional generosity that John West-Burnham says will raise the bar for the whole education system (well, I knew that, too, but have read lots of things that support that point of view, too!)
that a lot of educational leadership theory books send me to sleep (though there are some that are well worth the read – John West-Burnham and Michael Fullan spring to mind)
how easy it is to edit stuff when I set up an extra external monitor on my laptop (at the kitchen table which is my office!) and use extended display (right click on teletubby land and click on display options) – oh, and how easy it is to use powerpoint presenter mode in this extended display mode (Office 2007+) so I can read my notes while everyone else looks at the pretty slides! (unless I’m using the plex add-in )