David


 * Final Unit Plan here

Day 1**

Thanks to Anne and Trudie for a thought provoking first day.

I'm very familiar with the Essentials course and the TWT is very differerent, though the Essentials experience is very helpful as there are similarities too.

I enjoyed meeting new people and developing another network. It's great to learn about tools such as 'delicious' and 'wikispaces'. I found the creation of my own taxonomy a challenge and perhaps needed a little more time to explore the Marzano and Costa. The liked the way we've got to play with the tools already with an authentic task.

I'm trying to get my head around exactly what I'm going to ask the students to do, though that should start to fall into place today.

Food was good, room not great.


 * Day 2**

Food even better......

So much to take in and having run Intel Essentials a number of times I can see how the Intel TWT course is far more intense for the facilitator. I'm making progress with my unit, though I'm still unsure about what exactly I'm going to ask the kids to do!

I'm finding the format harder to deal with - I liked having the time with Intel Essentials to develop student samples and support materials. The TWT course is more theoretical with many rapid fire actvities. Not sure if that suits my learning style.

Congrats to Anne for making up time. Hope you had a safe trip make home.

Looking forward to days 3, 4 and 5.

Ok, Dancing with the Stars has finished now so I can get back to this.
 * Days 3 and 4**

I've really enjoyed the last two days and I think the weekend break was very welcome after a challenging first couple of days. My unit is now coming together and I can see how the thinking tools can enhance my unit.

Anne and Trudie are doing a great job managing the group, keeping our spirits up and pacing the course. I really appreciated the litle bit of extra time today to work on the unit plan- very welcome.

Food and company has been great, but still don't like the room!

What are the similarities and differences between the Teach Thinking with Technology and the Essentials course. What are the things you are wondering or still have questions about.//**
 * //If you have done the Essentials course,

I've actually mentioned this in some of my earlier musings but there some major differences that leap out:
 * The Essentials focus has a more practical focus, with participants given chunks of time to develop student samples, assessment items and teacher/student support material. The TWT course doesn't provide so much time for teachers to develop this support material. I still found that I needed to create graphic organisers, assessment material and additional support doucuments even though I didn't really get the time to do that. Saying that, I have a good understanding of curriculum framing questions and so found that I didn't need to spend so much time on that aspect of the course.
 * I actually found the number of activities quite frustrating and when energy levels were down in the afternoon, it was quite difficult to move from one 10-15 min activity to another- but this may be a reflection of my learning style.
 * I think PTs may feel that the program leaves them with a unit that has still much to be done to it, which could be problematic. The Essentials course left PTs with a complete unit which was a huge selling point for the program at school.
 * I really liked the thinking tools and I feel that they will be really useful back into the classroom, but I would have liked some more time to develop material that would support use of the tools.
 * As an ST/MT, I can see that running the TWT course is far more intensive with a pressure to change activities regularly to avoid getting behind.
 * It's probably hard for people who have not done the Essentials course to assess this properly but I really think that not having done Essentials will disadvantage those doing TWT, especially PTs who may have less 'big picture' understanding than most MTs.