Jul
2
Student Expectations
July 2, 2006 | | Comments Off
Students have recently been exploring the ways that language can be used to persuade others. They have completed a range of activities in class, which have culminated in the writing of a letter to the editor on a current issue or topic of interest.
Students are more aware of writing for an audience now, and one thing I have found interesting in doing this task has been the increase in students wanting to actually send off their letters to newspapers or magazines. Now that they have had a taste of a real audience through their blogs, returning to a task based on an artificial audience seems (and should seem) hollow and irrelevant. They have new expectations that their ideas and their writing will be seen and/or heard by real people. It’s fantastic! The challenge, of course, for me as their teacher, is to continue to provide authentic learning experiences for them.
May
28
Blogging Benefits
May 28, 2006 | | Comments Off
Well, it took me a while to get it up and running, with the usual barriers of computer access and time, but it is finally coming together. All of my students have posted something on their blog, and quite a few are even having a go at home, which is my main goal down the track.
Some of the benefits so far have been increased motivation and engagement, simply from working on the computer and publishing direct to the internet. I have also been able to get more written work out of students who are usually very reluctant to write anything, so this is a big step forward.
For those who are good writers in my class, it has made them a little more reflective in their approach to their writing. They are realising that their work can be seen by many people, mainly strangers, and this growing awareness makes them more careful about the construction of their writing.
To be honest, I have been pleasantly surprised by their enthusiasm. I expected more enthusiasm than if they had to use pen and paper, but I didn’t expect that using the computer to complete class work would still be considered such a novelty. It almost worries me that students still find simply using computers as a tool in class as an unfamiliar thing. Most still consider it a recreational item, for gaming or online chat.
Anyway, that’s where things are at. I have written my proposal for a mini computer lab connected to my classroom and hope to have this up and running soon (probably next term), which will allow me to try some podcasting. Yay!
May
24
web2learn Webcast #1
May 24, 2006 | | 2 Comments
The first of what will hopefully be a monthly webcast from us about ‘hands on’ technology use in the classroom, music from down under and featured guest educators went to air on Sunday the 21st of May.
Our first featured guest was Ms Christine Cunningham, Cochabamba Cooperative School (Bolivia) Director/CEO. An EFL teacher from Perth, Western Australia, Christine has worked in remote aboriginal schools in far north WA; with Australian Volunteers International in East Timor in 2000-2001; and for the last five years at her present school in Bolivia.
Christine provided a great depth of insight about her teaching career and the particular challenges of working in foreign countries. We had a few technical difficulties during the course of the webcast however the discussion was very interesting. I will be posting the podcast of the show in the next few days. Stay tuned for more shows from the Webcast Academy and more details about our next webcast here soon.
May
15
Webcasting weekend and beginning blogging success
May 15, 2006 | | 2 Comments
Over the weeekend I took the reigns in my first real attempt at webcasting. The event was Worldbridges first anniversary webcastathon. I had to solo my session, so I tried to keep the talking to brief periods interspersed with music from a former Bunbury SHS student. I feel pretty good about how it went, managing to do the switching between voice and music relatively well, it required some quick changing between applications to make it happen (I must find out if there is an easier/better way of doing that). I’m really looking forward to beginning my own monthly webcast soon and am looking forward to having Christine Cunningham as my first guest. More details on the webcast show soon!
The last week or two has also seen Kelly get further along with classroom blogging. I was fortunate to be able to take one of Kelly’s classes last week, unfortunately she was absent ill. Covering Kelly’s class for her gave me the chance to see first hand how the kids were responding to blogging. Given that it was the last lesson of the day, I was pleasantly surprised to see how engaged they were. The fact that they were being asked to put something up “live” to the internet really seemed to be a strong motivating factor. Students who had not completed the hard copy written work that was supposed to have been completed in previous classes were just as enthusiastic as their peers who had. All of the students who were ‘behind’ in their work managed to produce a blog entry that addressed Kelly’s requirements for the lesson. The students also had enough time to learn how to leave comments for their peers, and again their enthusiasm for the ability to be able to do this was great to see.
The early successes of this term bode well for the further development of using blogs with these students. One of the next steps along the way will be to develop the students’ commenting skills. It will be interesting to see how far we can take blogging as an essential element of the students’ learning portfolio over the course of the year.
May
2
Room 208 Vodcast
May 2, 2006 | | Comments Off
I picked up the link to this
Download to anyone wanting to see how podcasting can be a positive classroom experience.
Apr
20
Webcast Academy
April 20, 2006 | | 2 Comments
I went online yesterday with the guys from EdTech Talk, Jeff Lebow and Dave Cormier, to try my hand at live webcasting. With the clear instructions and patient help of Dave and Jeff I was able to do my first live webcast. I worked from our iMac and used the Nicecast software to get things up and running. It was all relatively easy and I will be looking forward to trying it again. This initiative is an offshoot of the Worldbridges site and is called the Webcast Academy, the aim of which is to get other people, like myself, contributing to online discussion and broadcasting. I will probably try my hand at delivering a regular show in the near future, I just need to think about the format and subject matter that I would like to try. I would like to thank Dave and Jeff for their help with my first attempt. Stay tuned for details of a regular show…
This also has me thinking about trying this type of thing further down the track with some of Kelly’s students. I think a student produced webcast would be a great thing to try.
Apr
13
Underway with a few hiccups
April 13, 2006 | | 2 Comments
Well, the students have started writing their first posts and most seem excited about it. Once they have become comfortable with this initial process, I hope to introduce the idea of interacting more with each other’s blogs, and writing comments to each other.
Some have started to write short comments, but they are not particularly meaningful. My aim is to get them to think and respond more critically to each other and to make perceptive and insightful comments. I will have to guide them carefully through this process. I will obviously model this by writing my own comments on their blogs. Unfortunately, I have tried to get on to do so recently and have been unable to leave comments as the site was down…I shall persist 
Now that I am on holidays, I plan to learn how to use my iriver more. I haven’t started podcasting with the students yet. I decided it was too much, too soon. I also need to organise my classroom to support these new technologies. I will be writing up a proposal and hopefully this will lead to me being able to do more integration of this technology next term.
Kelly.
Apr
1
Making a Start
April 1, 2006 | | Comments Off
Although my natural tendency is to leap into something new, I have tried to slow myself down and approach the idea of blogging with my classes in a systematic way. I have set up a blog for all my classes called Expressions in English and then made links to a blog for each class. Within the class blogs I plan to have links for each student to their own learner blog.
I haven’t showed any of it to the students yet. I am going to give them an explanatory letter to take home to their parents. I have typed up a step by step guide to get them writing their first blog entry, which I will give them once everything is ready to go. I have also typed up an information sheet to answer their questions about blogging.
I plan to show them some examples and get them to respond to those as part of their first post. Then I will give them an assignment which will ensure that they write a new post each week. As part of their English program they are required to write a Reading and Viewing Journal. They must respond to texts they have read or viewed, with the main aim being to develop their critical literacy skills. I have developed a rubric for this too.
Admittedly, despite my caution at setting things up properly, I am already experiencing some frustration with the lack of technological support within my own classroom. I plan to put a proposal to my line managers to transform some aspects of my room to allow for easier blogging within my classroom, rather than having to send kids off to separate labs to do it.
As I near closer to actually doing this with my students I am still very excited about the possiblilities, but also nervous about their reaction to it. Hopefully, they will also be enthusiastic. I hope to engage all students, but particularly those who are often reluctant to write at length.
The next time I put up a post, hopefully they will have started their blogs!
Mar
25
Wow the possiblilities
March 25, 2006 | | Comments Off
Hi, this is Kelly Anderson. I spent last night and this morning setting up blogs for my classes and my work as Year 8 Coordinator. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, though of course I had assistance from Brad, who patiently guided me through the process. My head has been spinning ever since with the possibilities of what I can do with my students.
I am so excited about the opportunities for students to communicate in this way. Yes, some of them may already be blogging and I know many of them are using the web for personal communication, but I think quite a few will still be amazed at the idea of these technologies being used in a classroom context.
I know that there are only a small handful of teachers at our school just starting out where I am, so I am hoping to work with them and share ideas and support each other as we explore the ways in which we can use blogs, podcasts, wikis and whatever else takes our fancy.
I made my first podcast last night using my new iriver - it was AWESOME! After the initial embarassment at hearing my own voice, I was really blown away by the quality of the sound it produced and can’t wait to use it with my students in the next few days. I will start out by downloading at home until I get comfortable with it all and know what I am doing - having Brad around as a semi-expert is really beneficial. And he says that he is learning more as I make requests to do things that he hasn’t thought about.
I’ll try to keep the rest of my posts a little shorter, but right now, I am just so super keen to get started blogging…
Mar
23
Classroom blogging - an update
March 23, 2006 | | 2 Comments
My colleague tells me that the students that we set up a few weeks ago seem to be taking to completing their journals in a blog format. They now come to class ready to add to their blogs and will very quickly let him know if there are problems with accessing their sites. While this type of blogging is not necessarily the best application of the technology, at least it is a beginning step. Some other teething issues for the teacher with setting up feeds and a student’s comments on one post but nothing that can’t be overcome. Part of it is just us getting familiar with WordPress and learning how to put some checks and balances in place. I’m slowly beginning to feel a little momentum building…
