Last week we had a teachers Techie Brekkie. We arrived at school a little bit earlier than normal (for some it was earlier for others not so much) and worked on some of our online tools. While some were creating buttons for their wikis, others had started a discussion about blogging and how they should be managed.
I'm not going to discuss just blogging this time though. I think it is really important to remember how our children respond to each other's work.
This is a skill that needs to be specifically taught to our students. We need to take the time to teach them about how they communicate on the internet and the foot prints they leave behind. We give feedback verbally during class sessions to practice giving constructive feedback in a positive manner. This gives me a chance to instantly respond to what the children say. I generally teach my students the "tick and a wish" strategy that I learned from a Neil MacKay workshop I attended. Generally the children give their buddy some positive feedback followed by something to work on (I think you have used some great adjectives in your story but I wish you had used more fullstops.) We talk about the wish needing to link to our Learning Intention or to our Success Criteria. This isn'e something that comes easily to everyone and does need constant practice. I was recently really impressed by how my children have been responding to each other during our speech practices. They were great at looking at the criteria of a good speech and relating everything they said to these criteria.
It's great when you can see your students using the skills you taught them :)
Monday 30 July 2012
Tuesday 24 July 2012
Screen free week
I decided to have a screen free week in my class to start off the term. I was finding that my children didn't really appreciate the technology that the school provided for them. So I decided to see how they would cope with out our iPads and laptops. The results were pretty impressive.
The initial reaction from the children was not surprising. How will we look up meanings of words? How will we find information? What will we do before school? It was as if the world was crumbling around them. I explained that we were not doing such a great job of looking after all these amazing tools that we have in our room. We left them on the floor where people could step on them. I have had kids drop a laptop (I know you cringed when you read that). The behaviours were getting quite reckless, even though they got regular reminders about how to hold the computers when they carried them and how to pack them away. So this prompted me to take the technology out of my room to show the children what life would be like with out them.
After a few days with out screens my first realisation was that our kids don't use some of the skills that are second nature to us. They live in the computer age. Technology is as natural is breathing to them. This got me thinking. How often do I use a dictionary to look up a word? When do I go to a book to find information about something? Well it's not very often. I go to dictionary.com to look up meanings and use google to look for information. So even though the kids life line (technology) was taken away from them for a week, it was still a very valuable experience. The children learned or remembered some new skills that were being forgotten. I also saw them become more aware of the people around them. A lot of the bickering over technology stopped. The changes in my students were huge. Of course not all children took this on board but I had enough kids take on a more mature attitude that they now remind the others of the right thing to do.
I had the children reflect on the week and leave a comment for me on our class blog (http://kidblog.org/Room265/room26pvs/screen-free-week/#comments). Over all I think they found it a positive experience although they were VERY happy to see them back. It made us think about how we treated out technology and what we used it for. Now we can learn from this and re-write some new guidelines about the use of technology to promote a more responsible attitude towards these amazing tools we have in our room.
The initial reaction from the children was not surprising. How will we look up meanings of words? How will we find information? What will we do before school? It was as if the world was crumbling around them. I explained that we were not doing such a great job of looking after all these amazing tools that we have in our room. We left them on the floor where people could step on them. I have had kids drop a laptop (I know you cringed when you read that). The behaviours were getting quite reckless, even though they got regular reminders about how to hold the computers when they carried them and how to pack them away. So this prompted me to take the technology out of my room to show the children what life would be like with out them.
After a few days with out screens my first realisation was that our kids don't use some of the skills that are second nature to us. They live in the computer age. Technology is as natural is breathing to them. This got me thinking. How often do I use a dictionary to look up a word? When do I go to a book to find information about something? Well it's not very often. I go to dictionary.com to look up meanings and use google to look for information. So even though the kids life line (technology) was taken away from them for a week, it was still a very valuable experience. The children learned or remembered some new skills that were being forgotten. I also saw them become more aware of the people around them. A lot of the bickering over technology stopped. The changes in my students were huge. Of course not all children took this on board but I had enough kids take on a more mature attitude that they now remind the others of the right thing to do.
I had the children reflect on the week and leave a comment for me on our class blog (http://kidblog.org/Room265/room26pvs/screen-free-week/#comments). Over all I think they found it a positive experience although they were VERY happy to see them back. It made us think about how we treated out technology and what we used it for. Now we can learn from this and re-write some new guidelines about the use of technology to promote a more responsible attitude towards these amazing tools we have in our room.
Thursday 12 July 2012
Demands of blogging
We had a great Professional Development session today. We talked about the current trends in e-learning and what is happening in schools today. I really enjoyed some of the thought provoking discussion that took place because it let me evaluate what I am doing in my classroom. My current challenge is this whole blogging thing.
At the moment I find it difficult to find enough time in a day (as well as energy) to do all the things that I want to do. Blogging for my self is something I need to get into the habit of doing. For me that will come with time. What I have been thinking more and more about lately is blogging for kids.
I use kidblog with my class (http://kidblog.org/Room265/). Please come and visit us by the way, the kids love to see your comments.
I have some children in my class who have a number of dyslexic type needs (I don't want to label them as dyslexic because it is such a huge range of difficulties that fit under this very large umbrella we call dyslexia). These students often dislike writing and reading. Blogging is a great tool for them as they don't have the negative connotations with computers as they do with pen and paper, which is usually a struggle. I realise that not all children will jump up and down about blogging, but I have realised that some of my children have started to write about their day quite regularly. The comments they write to each other are becoming increasingly more constructive, rather than just "cool" or "nice story." Some still have some growing to do in that sense but we are getting there. This has also been great for my really bright kids because they feel like they are educating the people around them by writing interesting facts. Some of my boy's write a fact each week. They have to find a new piece of information, learn about it and blog about it their own words (NO COPYING!) So over all this has been a very valuable tool to increase children's confidence and enjoyment for expressing their ideas in the written form.
This brings me to my dilemma. I use kidblog to keep an eye on what the children are writing and help out some of the children who struggle with spelling by checking some of what they write. I don't correct all mistakes, I think it is important for them to make these and discuss what they have written with their peers. What I'm finding now though is that I can't always keep up. During the term with all the other things we have to do (MARKING, updating wikis, collaborating with children on their google doc creating flipcharts...) I am finding it harder and harder to make sure that I check each blog and approve comments.
So here is my question to my fellow educators... How do you keep up with the increasing demand to keep blogs, wikis, sites, etc up to date? What do you do to manage these? Am I being a little too ambitious by checking all these blogs?
What are your thoughts on the matter?
At the moment I find it difficult to find enough time in a day (as well as energy) to do all the things that I want to do. Blogging for my self is something I need to get into the habit of doing. For me that will come with time. What I have been thinking more and more about lately is blogging for kids.
I use kidblog with my class (http://kidblog.org/Room265/). Please come and visit us by the way, the kids love to see your comments.
I have some children in my class who have a number of dyslexic type needs (I don't want to label them as dyslexic because it is such a huge range of difficulties that fit under this very large umbrella we call dyslexia). These students often dislike writing and reading. Blogging is a great tool for them as they don't have the negative connotations with computers as they do with pen and paper, which is usually a struggle. I realise that not all children will jump up and down about blogging, but I have realised that some of my children have started to write about their day quite regularly. The comments they write to each other are becoming increasingly more constructive, rather than just "cool" or "nice story." Some still have some growing to do in that sense but we are getting there. This has also been great for my really bright kids because they feel like they are educating the people around them by writing interesting facts. Some of my boy's write a fact each week. They have to find a new piece of information, learn about it and blog about it their own words (NO COPYING!) So over all this has been a very valuable tool to increase children's confidence and enjoyment for expressing their ideas in the written form.
This brings me to my dilemma. I use kidblog to keep an eye on what the children are writing and help out some of the children who struggle with spelling by checking some of what they write. I don't correct all mistakes, I think it is important for them to make these and discuss what they have written with their peers. What I'm finding now though is that I can't always keep up. During the term with all the other things we have to do (MARKING, updating wikis, collaborating with children on their google doc creating flipcharts...) I am finding it harder and harder to make sure that I check each blog and approve comments.
So here is my question to my fellow educators... How do you keep up with the increasing demand to keep blogs, wikis, sites, etc up to date? What do you do to manage these? Am I being a little too ambitious by checking all these blogs?
What are your thoughts on the matter?
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