Miss Law was in our class for almost 10 weeks. In that time, she set up a blog so that she could be part of our set up (community?).
In one of her posts she wrote:
‘I’ve just looked back at my first ever blog post and I remembered how unsure I felt when I was writing it! It’s really strange because I had never thought of having a blog before and now I have one I enjoy writing on it.
It’s strange to think that only a couple of months ago I was really nervous about knowing what to write and now I just write about anything I fancy.
Does anyone else feel this way? That you used to be really unsure of what to write and now you’re not?’
In a more recent post she wrote:
‘………Before joining 7V I would never have dreamed of having a blog but it’s been great. I know I haven’t written many posts, as I have not had the time, but I’ve loved reading everyone elses. It has allowed me to get to know the class really well………’
Yesterday, I asked the class If they thought that having their own blogs had helped them to get to know their own classmates better.
They gave permission for me to jot down some of their responses and add them on this blog.
They said:
- Yes, because in our own blogs we’re allowed to write about what we want to write, so we’ve got to know each other better
- Some people in class don’t talk to me very much, but I can read their blog and find out more about them
- I feel that I know my close friends even more now because of what they write on their blog
The informal discussion touched on some other related issues.
For example, we’ve been using a variety of wikis this session. How?
- We’ve used wikispaces to work collaboratevely with our Australian friends (this project was started last session).
- I’ve also used wikispaces in the past when I was involved in the Photo-a-day project. It was when I was involved in this project that I was introduced to Wetpaint. I read recently that wetpaint is now ad-free for education and P7V have been experimenting with wetpaint
- During this session, we’ve also been using Pbwiki to ’showcase’ our writing and to host our podcasts.
Here’s the children’s views on our wiki use:
- I like the PB wikis because I like when we read the stories that the people in our class have written on there, and how good they are
- You get to know what people’s thoughts and dreams are through their stories
- I prefer our new wetpint wikis because there’s more opportunity for discussion there. It’s a whole class thing
- Wetpaint is better, but it’s harder than pbwiki
- Pbwiki is for writing and wetpaint is for discussion
- In wetpaint I don’t get stuck on what to write about because I get to work with a partner
- Pbwiki is good for fonts and smilies, but wetpaint is better for teaming up and for adding videos
Please respond by commenting …..maybe the P7V’s will take this opportunity to use their voice too 
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