Learning, Teaching and ICT

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 

Primary 7V always perform well in front of a live audience. Loads of examples such as this can be seen on our class blog.

Mrs H takes the class twice a week for French lessons …… Mrs H has also been my ’sceptical friend’ during this dissertation journey. 

 ……… Not to be confused with my ‘critical friend’, Mrs P

Mrs H and I share many views on teaching, but she’s never quite got the ‘blogging thing’ …. until now. After her lesson with the class, I returned to find her very excited about our use of blogging. Yesterday, I asked her to jot down her thoughts – and she’s allowed me to share them here.

‘The children, at this time in P7′ had been rather lethargic about French in general. Discussion of a ‘cafe’ afternoon wasn’t met with too much enthusiasm. However, when filming conversations between waiters and customers, and adding these to their class blog was mentioned, the interest levels rose considerably. Suddenly the children were volunteering to pair up with a partner and try out phrases. They were checking with vocabulary jotters and with me to ensure accuracy and pronunciation.

The follow-up lession (the rehearsal) was a delight – total co-operation and effort. The children were highly motivated by the ‘real life’ context, but also because their performance would be viewed by others – in a very wide context. I will definately intoduce filming to a lot more French lessons!’  

I think I need a new ’sceptical friend’ ……..

I made the decision to move from learnerblogs to edublogs. This decision was made because I want the children’s blogs to be safe, but I also want them to experience the freedom required to keep their ‘motivation to blog’ going ……. there are lots of discussions about this at the moment.

I copied the graphic below from the newly published Byron Report

Lots of mixed messages

We had some time in the computer room today (20 mins before P.E.). In that time, the children were able to activate the ‘Akismet Key’ to help prevent spam comments on their individual blogs.

This was very simple to do. I had already activated the Akismet Key in the class blog by setting up a Wordpress blog.

I’ve now learned that the same ‘key’ can be used over and over again to protect the children’s own blogs from spam comments …. a great discovery for a ‘non-techy’