collaborate, communicate, create
Web 2.0
Teachers gravitate to social networks tailored for educators
Jan 11th
Within the wide expanse of social networking, educators appear to be gravitating to more protected and exclusive spaces.
While teachers often use such popular mainstream social networks as Facebook, they are more likely to seek out and return to less-established networks that offer the privacy, peer-to-peer connections, and resource sharing that meets their specific professional needs, according to a recent survey and interviews with educators. Read the article by Jason Tomassini
A Reflection on the Benefits of Classroom Blogging
Jan 17th
Cross posted from Kathleen Morris’ blog – Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom.
Most of you will know how passionate I am about blogging in the classroom. Since I started blogging with my students in 2008, I have come to realise how enormous the benefits are.
The diagram below summarises the most powerful benefits I’ve found from blogging:
- Improved Literacy Skills: I wrote about the improvement in my students’ literacy skills in this post. Not only were skills improved, but engagement levels increased. Reluctant writers wanted to write for a purpose and students were using blogs to purposefully communicate and converse with others.
- Authentic Audience: In the traditional classroom, the only audience of student work was the teacher and sometimes classmates and parents. Blogs provide a much larger audience for student work and an avenue for feedback and self-improvement through commenting.
- Sense of Classroom Community: Creating a class blog requires teamwork and collaboration. Students and teachers learn and share their learning together. A real sense of classroom community can be developed through blogging and establishing a class identity.
- Global Connections: I have found this to be one of the most exciting benefits of blogging. Blogging can help flatten the classroom walls and we have got to know many classes across five continents who we call our “blogging buddies”. The benefits of these connections are priceless. A sense of understanding and tolerance develops and students can learn a lot about the world in which they live. We’ve used blogs to undertake global collaborative projects such as Collaboration Corner and the Uganadan Global Project.
- ICT Skills: Blogging assists students to become more ICT literate which is an important 21st century skill. Through blogging, we’re able to incidentally discuss many ICT skills such as keyboard shortcuts, researching online and troubleshooting.
- Home- School Partnerships: I have received many comments from parents and families who love using the class blog as a “window into our classroom”. Through commenting, families can be a part of what is happening in our classroom and have real time access to their child’s education.
- Appropriate Online Behaviours: Everyone will agree that teaching students to be safe online is an important issue. You can’t just do one off lessons on cyber safety. Cyber safety is not a separate subject. Through being heavily involved in blogging, my Grade Two class has opportunities almost every day to discuss cyber safety issues and appropriate online behaviours in an authentic setting.
- Confidence: I have found that students really take pride in their work that goes on the blog and want to do their best for their impending audience. Students can gain self-confidence from being part of a class blog and demonstrating their achievements.
Overall, blogging is a platform for everything. It is a fantastic place to start for teachers and students who want to learn about technology. Additionally, there are so many wonderful Web 2.0 tools out there which have so much more value when you can embed them in a blog.
Have you witnessed any of these benefits in your classroom?
What other benefits can students and teachers get out of blogging?
Word Clouds – get the most out of them
Nov 28th
This is a lesson I have used on the way to creating a Wordle or any word cloud for that matter. Usually at the beginning of the year when students are getting to know their new classmates. I have mentioned Wordle in other posts but this blog is about the journey not the final product. Like most ICT lessons the process is where the learning takes place and the end product is the motivation and reward. This is why web 2.0 tools such as Wordle are so great. They create a brilliant end-product that engages and motivates the student to learn along the way.
THE LESSON – Aimed at Grades 3-6
The Task: Create a Wordle that describes who you are. “What are the key words that describe you?”
Show students what a Wordle will look like once it is finished and explain that the frequency of a word determines its size.
Step 1 – Word Processing App
Open a word processing document – for example Word. This is where we make our list of adjectives to describe who we are and what we are like. The reason we start in a word processing document is so that:
- students can save their words to use again,
- students can spell check,
- if there is an error while making the Wordle it is easy to retrieve the list and start again. (No tears method)
- this is an ideal opportunity to review or teach fast and efficient ways to copy and paste using the keyboard shortcuts as well as and the “non printing characters” that look like ” ¶”.
Step 2- List of single words
Aim to create a list of between 15 – 20 words (more words are acceptable for fast workers equally at times we have to accept less words.
Step 3
COPY KEYBOARD SHORTCUT – CTRL+C (just replace CTRL with “command” for Mac computers:) The next step involves showing students how to use the keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste. They are to copy the words in the list according to how important they are. They copy their name the most times so that it stands out on the finished Wordle. This is an opportune teaching moment to show how useful the “non-printing characters” 
button can be. It is difficult to copy a single word on a line without copying the paragraph break as well so students soon find that their words always copy to a new line making the document unwieldy. By clicking on the “show non-printing characters” icon students can begin to see what’s happening. By simply adding a space after the word and before the paragraph break the students can then copy the word ready to paste on the same line as the original word.
PASTE KEYBOARD SHORTCUT – CTRL+V: This is the fastest way to paste a word more than once so it makes sense to use this method rather than the right click on the mouse or the “Paste” from the menu. I explain that I think this shortcut is a “V” because the V is shaped like a wedge to push the words into the line (and of course the P is already used for the shortcut to print). The students get plenty of practice copying and pasting their words to complete the list. Finally they copy the entire document using CTRL+A and paste it into the Wordle page.
One more trick of the trade is to have students link straight to the Create page in Wordle. This avoids the gallery and any Wordles that contain unpleasant words.
The final Wordle can be saved using a screen capture tool. Students often find their Persoanlity Wordle is useful throughout the year and the first place they like to post it is on their blog.
Teaching With Passion
Aug 11th
Do you consider yourself a passionate person? What are the things about which you are passionate? Are you passionate about kids and helping kids learn? Are you passionate about opening up new vistas of experiences and understanding for others which – absent your intervention – they might never experience? Are you passionate about creating moments of unforgettable learning? Learning that is SO engaging, so motivating, so interesting, and so fun – that those fortunate enough to experience it will NEVER forget it? Nevada elementary teacher Brian Crosby is this kind of person, and this kind of educational leader. Brian gave the world a seventeen minute glimpse into his 4th grade classroom a few weeks ago in Denver at the TEDx event. I strongly encourage you to set aside seventeen minutes of your day and listen to what Brian had to say.
Terms of Use
Aug 10th
Last week, I hunted around the web, searching for a site where someone had gathered the terms of service for all the web’s most popular sites. Sadly (and surprisingly for the internet) I could not find what I sought. I decided to do it myself and created the Terms of Service blog: http://termsofservice.posterous.com/
The purpose of this blog is to inform users of social networks and web services about the terms of use of such services. The blog assumes no legal authority in this area and merely attempts to collect extracts regarding terms of use as a precursor to users exploring such terms in greater depth e.g. considering their implications. It’s not meant to scare teachers, but rather to empower them. I have selected extracts relating to user age and to content, as these seem to be the two areas that cause the most confusion, as well as provide the greatest risk to privacy and intellectual property.
It’s not the answer but it’s a start, and if it leads to a school or two pausing to discuss how they can use such sites, maybe it will be time well spent.
What do you think? Is there a need for something like this?
A Genie Visits Malmsbury Primary School
Jul 29th
Grade 4/5/6 students in the Big Room at Malmsbury Primary School were very excited when they learned that a Magic Genie was headed their way, willing to grant all their food wishes.
Apart from using Hero Factory to depict the cool Genie they are using Wordle to put together a blissful food order. How much can they get onto the screen in ten short minutes?
Meanwhile news teams are headed out to the school and you will find some of their reports when they make Voki’s.
Open Access
Jul 26th
The discussion about keeping blogs open and teaching students to use the internet safely is a vital one. This post about Why I Think Blogs Should Be Open will provide some discussion about why it is better to have an open door policy when it comes to blogging in schools.
This school blog is an example of the work that can be done when you fearlessly apply technology in the classroom.
Be Alert – Not Alarmed
Jul 24th
Rather than fail our students by not realizing the full potential of social networking we need to remember the old line of being alert and not alarmed.
Knowledge is power. If we don’t teach students how to travel safely in the cyber world who is going too?
If we live in fear we miss life and opportunity. Students need to be taught to think, to be alert so they don’t get hurt.
Brave New World
Jul 22nd
A very thoughtful blog about the whys and wherefores about using a range of technologies for learning and teaching. Tania raises issues and shares her thoughts and discoveries about how to work with teachers to deliver some of the best opportunities to students
Open Door Policy
Jul 17th
In the past school doors seemed almost impenetrable. New Age Technology has changed all of this and today you can wander into classrooms all over the state. I visited Malmsbury Primary School recently and found that all the grades there are using blogs to showcase their work, share ideas and communicate important information.
Malmsbury Primary is welcoming visitors and asking visitors to leave comments. You can begin by visiting the Little Room and then wander into other rooms and see just how students are using their netbooks and applying Web 2.0 tools.
