I’m slightly late blogging about 2010 as it’s now 2011. So, a very Happy New Year to you all. As I look back on 2010 and look to 2011, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on some of things that have happened in 2010 and then look to the future for 2011.

Some of the highlights of 2010 were:

• Managing to juggle being a classroom teacher with studying for an MA in New Literacy Studies
• Becoming a published writer and getting excellent feedback about my first article
• Sharing my findings at so many different places – the ESRC Seminar Series and Northern Grid conference to name two
• Attending the Google Teacher Academy in London
• Planning and working with my class on lots of exciting projects including a collaborative project with The Wren’s Nest Museum in Atlanta (USA) and the ‘Seven Seas Project’ where we found a buried treasure chest in the school grounds
• Becoming Creative Learning Coordinator and developing new and innovative practices across the school
• Pretty much single-handily organising the Growing Greener Futures Conference (and getting great feedback)
• Meeting so many of the marvellous people I  know via Twitter
• A very nice letter from two parents to my headteacher and governors about my teaching and classroom ethos
• Continuing to develop the use of Twitter in the Primary Classroom as a means of developing confidence, motivation and independence with writing via @ClassroomTweets
• Being mentioned in The Times by Caitlin Moran for our work on Twitter
• Being awarded a prize from Sky and Global Action Plan for our work based around Growing Greener
• Beginning to taking a more relaxed approach to productivity
• Starting the process of buying my first house
• I actually started to attempt to understand photography and contributing to my Flickr stream

It’s not until you make a list like this that you feel you have actually achieved something. At times I have found 2010 challenging and intense, particularly when writing assignments and trying to plan projects (while trying to maintain a work/life balance).  I am going to try and make 2011 the best yet, while still remaining relatively relaxed. These are some of the things I plan on achieving in 2011:

• Renovating my new house, when the sale actually completes (!)
• Taking a more holistic view of life, productivity, organisation and general happiness – this includes learning more about nature and leading a more frugal and thrifty lifestyle [a personal interest of mine]
• I plan on creating some really exciting projects for my class to be involved in – what this space!
• I have committed to writing chapters in two books: ‘The Student Voice Handbook: Bridging the Academic/Practitioner Divide” and “Virtual literacies: interactive spaces for children and young people”
• I plan on significantly extending the creative learning provisions across my school through work with a range of external parters through Creative Partnerships. These include publishing projects, mobile blogging with iPads, gardening and enterprise
• This year I will be writing my second dissertation – I have a really interesting idea which I’m going to talk with Julia (my amazing tutor) soon. I will blog about it when the idea has fully formed!
• I have already committed to speaking at the UKLA and Northern Grid Conferences in the summer. I have really enjoyed both these conferences in the past and will be speaking at a couple of, as yet unconfirmed, conferences
• I will be lecturing at Birmingham City University in January about digital and new literacies
• I plan to enjoy 2011 and make it the best year yet

I hope that all of these things are achievement and I  hope you all have a fantastic 2011!

Oh and I have to include my visit to Disneyland as one of my highlights of 2010. Here are a couple of the photos I took with my new Mini-SLR camera:

And thinking ahead… my plan for 2012 is to visit Disneyland in California!