Simon Cossey Professional Blog

  Te Tiriti o te Waitangi  This topic stirs fire in my belly... and stirs a lot of connections to what I have previously heard and read.  It's one thing to be stirred by injustice, to have my mind opened to the facts - this is important and powerful. Brenda opened up this important conversation about the Treaty and injustice.  For me a next step is to be inspired by those who have stood up to racism, who have taken on the system, who have made a difference.  So...  What schools are really succeeding in this - how can I learn from them? Brenda mentioned Rotorua Boys School. Invercargill Middle School is another one who I have been inspired by.  What stories do I want to be sharing with my students? How can I change the script that they are hearing?  Do they know about:  -Willie Apiata -Dame Whina Cooper - Stan Walker  - Sir Āpirana Ngata - Billy T James - Hinewehi Mohi And the hundreds of other successful Māori. I love the book "Maori Her...

  In my toolkit, I learned how to create media using the websites auto draw and remove.bg and then add them to Google Slides.  This helps students to create their own original media instead of taking something from an image search.  Auto Draw has a database of images and as you draw, it guesses what you are trying to draw. Then you can select the image you want, recolour, download and remove the background. You can make lots of great icons to add to websites / slides etc.  I think this would be a really fun way for kids to add visuals to their blogs, slides, writing pieces docs etc.  I also think some kids would try to be rude with it, so like most things, expectations and monitoring would be important.  A conversation around using the right tool for the job would also be helpful.  It would be sad if kids always used Auto Draw instead of challenging themselves to draw something on paper. It could take away from creativity - but also be a great enhancer...