Learning, Teaching and ICT

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’ ……..

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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’