Learning, Teaching and ICT

In a previous post a comment by Ray Tolley got me thinking about what happened to the various online spaces I had set up for Primary 7 stage children in the past.

Ray commented:

“Perhaps one important point missed so far is about longevity. Having taken the trouble to help pupils build up an e-Portfolio, what happens if there is no ‘portability’ to the Secondary school or beyond? I doubt that promises of ‘interoperability’ will really materialise in the next 10-15 years! I think that it is very important to invest in a system that is future-proofed. I feel that children will get very frustrated if they have to start from scratch all over again when they move on to another school.”

I’ve been revisiting some of the spaces I set up and contemplating primary/secondary ‘portability‘ and ‘longevity‘ issues mentioned in Ray’s comment. Stories of some missed opportunities are outlined below:

• Portability Issue 1 – Jamie’s Story

Jamie was typical of most of the boys in the class that year. They seemed less motivated than the girls when it came to imaginative writing tasks. When they were given their own space in a wiki, however, and allowed some freedom as to the subject matter, Jamie demonstrated that he was actually very capable of writing a great imaginative story. I’ve copied some of his story here:

His face shone dark in the moonlight, while his coat lay torn slowly floating in between the reeds. His shirt was dirty and wet. The dark waters that lay behind him gave him the appearance of a demon or a dark shadowy creature moving in the night. His sheath was well padded and worn away because of constant usage, it had three diamonds encrusted in it. It had a gold rim and a thin copper lining wrapped around it. This lay on his back but it never wieghed him down as it was as light as a feather. He had black boots on and they were half-covered by his camouflage trousers.
He walked on at a normal pace when he heard a purring noise, after a while he ignored it and carried on his stroll. He heard it again. He was watching a certain bush knowing that there was a creature behind it because of all the wierd purring noises. the world stayed as still as a stick insect as they lay eyes on eachother there was more rustling then the beast came out, a tiger that was as orange as sunset heading speedily at Kai. In reaction Kai drew his sword from his sheath and took a deep slash at the tiger’s leftpaw then stabbed it twice roundabout the same place the tiger had gave in to the pain and there it lay dead……

Everyone in the class was full of praise for his effort. It turned out that he liked a particular type of story and had read lots of them. He also enjoyed writing them in a notebook that he carried around. His Laughing in the Face of Death story started a craze and soon the boys in the class began carrying their own notebooks where they wrote similar styles of stories. I remember hearing them comparing stories, as well as seeking and giving advice.

Soon after Jamie’s story appeared on his wiki, we had a visit from two High School teachers from the English Dept. I’m not sure of the original purpose of  their visit but at some point our HT had asked some of the pupils to share the class wikispace with them. They were impressed with Jamie’s attempt at story writing and had also heard about our primary stage ‘two stars and a wish’ assessment strategy and had left a comment for Jamie on his wiki space:

… but that was the end of the High School teachers’ involvement. They had no idea of the ‘behind the scenes’  information I was privy to. On reflection, it would have been great if more had been made of that opportunity to bridge the gap between Primary 7 and S1.

• Portability Issue 2 – High School Induction Days

In June each year, the Primary 7 pupils from our cluster spend three days getting to know their new High School. This is great for helping the transition to s1, and the children’s blog posts about their experience gave further insight into how they coped with adjusting to their new environment.

Lisa appeared to have no reservations at all! She wrote:

“I loved Larbert High, it has been one of my  best experiences. I made a lot of cool new friends……”

Tessie, however, wrote about her confusion over the lunchtime arrangements:

“….after that it was lunchtime. a confusing nightmare. we had to line up and put money on our card which was easy. but then we went to the hub *dinner hall* and we got told to get a drink. easy. but then if you went and said can i have a burger please she would say something about do you have a meal deal drink. and i was like what??? it was weird.”

Maryam was anxious from the outset:

“I was shaking in the back seat. My Mum gave me £2.50 for my dinner money. Then when we eventually got there I stepped out the car not knowing which way too go then I saw some other people walking by that were in my class so I just followed them.”

Last year on the three day visit, I gave the primary 7 pupils some of our mp3 players with built in microphones (they had been used to using these in class) and they interviewed some of the teachers and ‘buddies’. We shared these interviews once the children had came back from their visit. I’ve included one of them here – I have permission from all involved to share this online:

I wonder what potential blogging has for smoothing out the primary/secondary transition journey?
 

• Longevity Issue 1 – Marc’s Blog

David commented:

“Hi Marc, i’m the drama teacher at Knox Academy, just wanted to wow and well done for doing your own theatre company, it’s very hard work but liking your name and what you are doing! keep me posted in your future projects! break a leg!”

… and:

Hi Marc – can you give me the details of the Flannan Isle play that you are doing. I will be doing a project with my class based on the mystery of the Flannan Isle and would be interested to know where I could get a copy of the play. Thanks

and …

I’m glad you like Wicked! one of my favourite musicals! if you haven’t seen it yet you must! i seen Idina and Kerry and now booking to see the new Elphaba. We just took S2 and S3 students to see it in London

These comments were from Drama teachers – not from Marc’s own school, but from schools in another Local Authority. Despite the popularity of Marc’s blog, no-one in his own school ever commented (and the chances are that no teachers there were even aware that he had his own blog). It’s been a wee while now since Marc last updated his blog, but it is worth mentioning that he regularly posted to it for two years after he left primary School.

• Longevity Issue 2 – Kayleigh’s New Home

Marc wasn’t the only one that year who continued to post to his blog after he’d moved on to high School. A handful of others posted during their first year of High School. Danni was one of these … and it was amazing to see a comment on her last blog post from Kayleigh.

Gi Day Danni
sorry it’s a long time since i spoke last. Iv’e just been so busy at school. I came 4th in the school cross country and 18th in the interschool cross country leauge out of a 110 people the lap was about 3km. They after that we had our faction sports carival (there like the houses we used to have) am in beard which is blue. these are the individal avents i took part in : 100m sprit i came 3rd out of the 8 people i raised ,i came 4th in the 200m out of 8 people, i came 3rd in long jump my longest jump was 3.29m and the last of the these events was the 400m i came 4th out of 8 people. After that we went onto team avents this is what they were: my team got second in leaderball, we came 3rd in flag relay, tunnelball,zigzag realy and shuttle relay But sadly we came last in passball. I have done other this as well i will tell you about them some other time
have a good on
from your friend kayleigh

The comment was from Kayleigh, who’d left Carronshore half way through primary 7 to go and live in Australia. It was just fantastic to read her blog post to say that she’d arrived safely and was settling in to her new life ‘down under’. It was also wonderful that there were 15 comments on that post in reply. These included comments from:

•  friends in her old Carronshore school
• virtual friends she’d met via her Carronshore blog who live in another part of Australia
• classroom assistants from carronshore
• teachers from Carronshore
• the HT from Carronshore!
• a member of staff from another authority in Scotland

You can read Kayleigh’s post and comments here

Longevity and portability Issues  – Troubles with edublogs

The blog posts from the next group of Primary 7 bloggers didn’t have as much success when it came to either ‘portability’ or ‘longevity’ issues. Unfortunately just as these primary 7′s left primary school, edublogs began to have problems with bloggers logging on to their blogs. Passwords had stopped working and I looked for help on the edublogs forum – I discovered that others were also having difficulties accessing blogs.

I asked for advice:

I’m also very concerned that all the blogs I set up last session for my class now can’t be accessed by them. They were all added as users (admin status) but have now moved on to High School. If they try to log in, will they not gain access? Although I still monitor their blogs, I’ve no easy way of showing them a way around this new problem. Their blogs can be found at http://mvass.edublogs.org/examples-of-pupil-blogs/

Luke replied that I should ask the pupils to reset their own passwords … not straight forward in my case because I’d set up the blogs in such a way that I had given the pupils control over their own passwords … equal admin rights.

Hi Luke,

The students have their own blogs (set up with the gmail hack). I can reset their passwords because I know their usernames, but can’t then change the new passwords back to their own on because I don’t know what this was.

They’ve all moved on to High School now so i can’t even ask them!!

The blogs were set up in August 2007. I know that some used them just recently.

Because of the gmail hack set up I can access them with my own username and password as I also have admin rights to each of their blogs, but that doesn’t help them to gain access

The reply was:

@mvass:
Quite a sticky situation there. You could maybe add a contact form/note on your blog, asking students who can’t log in to contact you. You can then give them the new password. Other than that, maybe James might have a better idea.

This problem led to a lot of the primary 7′s being confused as to why they couldn’t access their blogs. I know this was happening because I was receiving ‘change password’ email requests – but I’d no way of getting the new passwords to the ‘High School’ pupils.

Ok, that was hard work writing this and it’s time to press the  publish button - but I’m thinking that there might be a way forward with some of these ‘portability’ and ‘longevity’ issues  ….. watch this space

Recently, I’ve been reading about ePortfolios … e-portfolios …. and even Eportfolios (not sure which one to use!) Anyway, when I first heard the term I looked it up and immediately thought that the concept would be great to use when giving children their own online space. I’ve been introducing teachers here to class blogging … but after a time, they tend to ask me how they can give the children their own space. I can understand this – it’s exactly what led me to giving the children in my own class a page in a class wiki - then eventually their own wiki, and their own blog. The next question I’m asked is always…. ‘So – how should the pupils use the space?’ After more than two years of giving children their own online spaces, you’d think I’d have been able to answer that question straight away – but I always hesitate. I’ll attempt to reflect here on why that was.

Year One

The first attempt at giving the children an on-line space was via a page on a class wiki. There were four wikis, actually – one for each type of writing. The children either wrote class work directly on to the wiki or, if they didn’t have the typing skills, they would put on a short section of whatever they had hand written. They also had a space on our topic wiki, and they learned how to upload pictures, slideshares, videos, etc. There were even maths group problem solving spaces where they wrote about on what they’d been doing in class …. and early attempts at making group podcasts to say how they’d solved some maths problems. At some point the children were given their own blogs where they wrote about school related items.

Year Two

With my next class, I began to allow the children more freedom over how they used their on-line spaces. To begin with, I’m not sure they knew what to do with this freedom …. this quote from Anna’s blog will demonstrate what I mean:

‘Well a couple of days ago me and courtney were pestering Mrs Vass and asking her about blogs and stuff and me and courtney were a bit stuck about what we could write on our blogs.So Mrs Vass made it very clear to me anyway that a blog is like an online diary and i found it intresting because everyone in my class thinks a blog is only for school stuff and its not its like courtney has been writing about Dundee.Anyway i just wanted to make it clear that a blog is not only for school stuff so thanks Mrs Vass for telling me that! ‘

What happened after that was just great! The children began to use their blogs for reflection – what they wanted to do when they were older, worries – and hopes – for High School, thoughts about family life, hobbies, etc. etc. They were also keen for the blog posts to be read out to their classmates, and this led to inspiring others to go home and write their own post. I’ve written a few blog posts in the past about the positive impact of giving the children more ownership over their blogs.

The children also began to use their wikis for writing imaginative stories. The quality of writing on their wikis was far superior to the writing they were producing in jotters during class time. Again, I’ve blogged about the great teaching opportunities that arose from sharing these stories on the whiteboard ….. not to mention important lessons that were learned about copyright issues

So why the hesitation in recommending that other class teachers leave  children to their own devices?

Well, on reflection, it may have worked so successfully for me because the children were actually very well aware of the fact that their use of their online spaces was going to be used in the case study I was writing up for my Chartered Teacher course. Because I was going to be quoting them in my write up, permissions had to be granted by everyone involved. They were also aware that I was blogging about the whole journey, and a couple of them even left comments on my blog.

I’m not sure what would happen if children were just handed these spaces and told to ‘get on with it’ …. would it turn out to be no more that a bebo or myspace type of thing??  ….. not that I think that would be totally wrong, either – but that’s another story What I’ve been lookng for, is something in between simply using the space for classwork and a kind of ‘laissez faire’ policy.

Could a type of ePortfolio be the answer – and if so, what form would that take? I’ve been reading a bit about ePortfolios and here are some thoughts so far ….. wee snippets taken from literature I’ve visited (apologies that there’s no direct link to original sources)

What is an ePortfolio:

• In general, an ePortfolio is a purposeful collection of information and digital artifacts that demonstrates development or evidences learning outcomes, skills or competencies.
• A collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s efforts, progress, or achievements 

What should they look like?

• They should be purposeful. Without purpose, an ePortfolio is just a folder of student work
• The student work included in the portfolio should be that which best tells the story they want to tell – so they need to justify their choice of content.
• There should be evidence of student self-reflection

What’s the teacher’s role?

• They will only have the desired effects if  planned for carefully
• There needs to be clearly defined criteria to allow students to paint a picture of their efforts, growth, and achievement
• Effective feedback should be given to students, to encourage them to observe their own learning journey
• Assessment techniques should improve achievement and not just monitor it
• Assessments should align with what is considered important outcomes in order to communicate the right message to students and others about what is valued

What about the pupils?

• Students need to see samples of good self-reflection so that  thoughts and comments go beyond “I think I did OK” or ” I think I have more to learn.”
• Criteria should identify what is most valued by students and teachers alike
• Pupils should be monitoring their own learning so that they can adjust what they do when they perceive they are not understanding.

Well there it is! My new recommendation for next session when teachers ask about giving children their own online space.

Blogs or wikis?? I’ll suggest wikis -  I have recollections of the primary 7′s not liking the fact that their blog posts seem to disappear (archived).  Also, on a wiki, the menus at the side and the discussion facility facility on blogs  just seem to lend themselves more to the purpose?

Wow!  Writing this post has been a learning journey for me ……. and it’s only thrown up more questions that I want to find anwers to ….. time to hit the publish button :-)

 The idea of ‘online and offline’ co-existing communities is something that Victoria suggested I look at in my Case Study: She suggests looking at:

I think that some of these issues can be addressed following some recent activities on the pupils’ blogs.

 Maryam posted this on her blog early in January:

I posted a comment that led me to thinking about introducing the children to different Learning Styles. The children were very keen to find their preferred style. The quiz they took can be found HERE. This led them to want to research what job they might be most suited to .. and they began to Blog about this.

I think  Ainsley  was the first to post.

“i just love reading books i dont know how i just love it. I love to write stories and read stories. when i am older i want to become a writer and write lots of things ( but i dont know yet what i am going to write hehe.I love scary books , sad books , adventure books and etc. I dont read the news paper because i find it boring and i just dont like to read it but every thing else is fun to read. maybe you should try to rite your own book and i will to. i will come back to you when i have wrote atleast 4 pages hehe”

Nina wrote a great post at home one evening. It was obvious that she had put a lot of thought into writing it, and when I noticed it on ‘google reader’ that evening, I decided that I would share it with the others the next day ………. it’s interesting that after the post had been shared, there was a spontaneous ’round of applause’ and when she got back home, she re-vamped her post by adding paragraphs and some more interesting words and phrases here and there (audience awareness?). I’ve included a bit here:

“Decisions.There is so much decisions in life there right infront of you,some are hard and some are easy(i tend to ask for advice on the hard)

Like one for example what should i have for breakfast?But the one thing that is the hardest i think is what your career should be.Well when we were young we all wanted to be heroes and heroines like firemen,Police,Vets,doctor,teachers,dancers and more.But when you get older you start to think more about this. I’m not old enough to get a job yet of course but it just makes me think.

I wanted to be a Ballet dancer when i was small but i don’t go to dancing because of my spine, therefore ballet is not a job option for me as things have changed.Well i think if i go to Uni or College i could become most of the things because i think i’m quite clever not at language though,i don’t like it.

Here are a few jobs i’d like to do and why.Well my first one is a Journalist i’d like to do this because i like to find out things and it would be interesting and i think i’m alright at writing.I’d like to get in touch with a newspaper and get better at my writing…….”

 Anna then wrote:

“Nina’s Post kind of got me thinking…There are a lot os Desicions in life.I guess we make never really think about it!Well when i’m older i really want to be something along the lines of a Journalist. (eg;Fashion magazine editor;Write:Journalist) That kinda stuff.One time i considered being a Police woman but then i though nahh…The uniformas are hideous!! No i’m joking really i think if i were a police Woman I might get hurt or something So basically this post is to say thanks to Nina For giving me a  bit of a boost and stuff like that haha xbye xxx”

Miss L is a final year Bed student in our class at the moment. She was keen to set up her own blog and added a post to join in with the ‘conversation’. A short extract is below:

“I thought I would write something about this as so many of you have. Although I have not fully entered the world of work officially I am nearly there! Fingers crossed anyway!Where to start? Well, when I was wee I always wanted to be a teacher. I used to make my little brother sit and listen to me when I pretended to teach him! I used to have to bribe him with sweets etc! However, when he got a bit older he did appreciate the help with his homework so I think we both benefitted from it!…………………..”

Bethany added this post just this weekend:

“I didn’t really know what to write a post on and everyone seems to be writing about what they want to be when they are older. It got me thinking of how many choices we actually make in life. I mean there is little ones like what will i eat for breakfast? or what will i wear tomorrow? There are also bigger choices like Will i buy the game i want that is £45? The choice that quite alot gets to me is what i want to play when i go to my friends houses. I can never seem to decide. I think a reason for that is that you are worried incase the persons house you are at does not want to play that thing and you are making it boring for them. Another choice that is hard for me is what i want to be when i am older? When i was smaller i used to want to be a ballerina or a nurse but now that has changed especially because i dont really like programs that they cut people open and things. I just personally could not do that and i cant understand how some people can do that! I also used to want to be either a vet or a teacher until i found out that being a vet can involve putting animals down.:( ! A teacher i am still considering with about a million other jobs. If you think about it there is so much out there so i will just have to go with the flow and see what life throws at me!”

Monica joined in only today:

“When i am older i would like to become a singer. I would go on the X factor. I have always been quite shy. So that would be a thing i would need to work on. I am not sure if i am a good singer or not lol. Its hard to say when your friends say you are good but then all the boys say you are rubbish. The only thing is i am not sure about going on the X factor is i might go on and make a fool of  my self if i cant sing lol. But i will give it a try in the future.

 Another job i would like to do is be a teacher. I would like to teach primary schools. Also i would need to be more confident to be able to speak in front of people. These are only two jobs i wouold like.

Bye x

Do you think i should go for the X Factor when i am older?”

So to return to Victoria’s email suggestions:

I have lots of thoughts on this and will devote a post to the topic  

Although these two issues need to be looked at very closely, it is a fact that the ‘Learning Style’ quiz idea came from reading a post on one of the children’s blogs. I’ve also arranged for an author and a journalist to visit the class because of the interest shown in these careers in the recent blog posts quoted above …………

….. and If anyone knows a famous X Factor star, I’m sure that Monica would be very happy if you could arrange a class visit

In her email to me, Jackie‘s thoughts included:

•  the idea of exploring the area of gendered representations of identity

She was referring to the children’s use of ‘weemees‘ to represent themselves.

The children had great fun designing their characters. The girls (2nd row) all spent a lot of time getting their weemees to look like themselves …. eye colour, hair colour, face shapes, etc. The boys (top row) are less recognisable! They’ve designed characters to depict their interests. I know, for example, that the boy represented in the first picture is very interested in characters in computer games (this also shows in his imaginative writing tasks). The ‘guitar hero’ doesn’t really look like his creator, but I know that he does enjoy playing the guitar.

Jackie also highly rated:

• the importance of allowing the children to drive the use of the blogs

I’ve tried very hard this session to make sure that this is the case and have just carried out a quick review of what has happened over this last month.

I looked at gender and types of posts. Here’s my ‘snapshot’ view of the situation in the month of January (2008!)  ……… learnerblogs was VERY slow tonight, so may have got fed up waiting for a few of the blogs to load

Girls …. 30 posts

Boys …. 24 posts

I broke down the post into types:

• basic pictures from web
• what’s happening in class / school
• playing with codes
• own thoughts

The ‘breakdown’ is as follows  – girls are blue, boys are red

Basic pics from web – 0                10

Class/School posts   – 12               10

Playing with Codes   -  3                 0

Own Thoughts          -  15               4

These numbers are just for January .. the bigger picture might be different