EHSAS Scholarship

I’ve been lucky enough to have been awarded a scholarship for the coming year.  I’ve never applied for a scholarship, let alone won one so am still feeling a little in la-la land over it.  EHSAS stands for extending higher standards across schools and our cluster’s (7 schools in the central Auckland region) focus is on professional coaching and mentoring as a form of professional development.

So I wrote my proposal entitled “Professional Dialogue Using Web 2.0 Technologies”.  Why?  To be honest I feel that I have gained so much since entering the blogosphere and been reading, writing and conversing with other professionals.  My practise has evolved along with my reading and writing and I feel that I have gained so much that I want it to become something that my colleagues  also can share in.

At present whenever something like blogs, podcasts or aggregators are mentioned, eyes glaze over and I am left feeling like I am trying to teach some lost Amazonian Tribes Language to people who speak a different language to me.  I want people to realise that there is some really great stuff out there, but more importantly that they can be authors as well as consumers of the information.

I also want to bring the clusters together.  It’s about breaking down the boundaries - this time physical distant and time - between educators for a common goal.  The more people involved in a conversation the more rich, more diverse and more challenging it becomes.

I know for the most part, this exercise is something of a contrived situation.  It’s something I have done personally by my self in the last six months.  Something I truly wanted to be doing as opposed to my school telling me that this is what I should be doing.  So I am hoping that as the next year progresses I shall be able to share my own passion for conversations and professional dialogues with people who at this point in time haven’t even considered being an author of information.

I shall be creating a new blog to record my year on the scholarship.  Not just yet but soon….