Mel


 * Wow it's 2012!** This is the year that we should see the fruits of our labour. For the past two years the staff at Westmere School have been observing, trialling, exploring and delving into a range of eLearning tools at various times. The children are more aware of the tools that are available and have become familiar with them to be able to suggest ways in using the eLearning tools to support their learning.

http://cs4online.blogspot.co.nz/

Week 3, Term 2 We are having problems with Wallwisher at the moment. We're going to use the widget below to do some tests. media type="custom" key="17256816"

__**Week 7, Term 1**__ Today the digikids in Room 19 hosted workshops around their classroom to introduce a range of eLearning tools to their fellow students. There was a workshop on how to use;
 * AudioBoo
 * Embedding videos from You Tube
 * Editing their class Wiki
 * Photobucket
 * PhotoStory3

Their next steps are to: media type="custom" key="13159208"
 * Learn how to resize / compress digital photos before using the photos on the internet
 * Assign a wiki login to each child

2011 is here! This is our second year where eLearning is a key area of professional learning.

I am the lead teacher for eLearning at Westmere and during 2011 I'll be available every Wednesday for in-class eLearning support throughout the school. media type="custom" key="9873737" align="right" __**Week 9, Term3**__- Year 5/6 discussing using eLearning Tools at Planning Day media type="custom" key="10616360" __**Week 9, Term 3**__ - Year 2 discussing using eLearning Tools at Planning Day media type="custom" key="10600752"

__**Week 3, Term 3**__ Here's a cool website for teachers and students to use which has many great eLearning tools to use to support learning. Cool Tools for Schools My class will be trialling some of the thinking tools over the term to see which ones support junior learning best.

__**Week 1, Term 3**__ Late last term I developed a simple planning template for teachers to use to help them in being prepared for trying a new eLearning tool in their classroom. It only has 4 steps of thinking which allows you to think about what you need to have organised prior to a lesson. i.e. what the curriculum learning intention is; which eLearning tool/s you want to use; a reminder to ensure you've checked everything works before the lesson; and a place to reflect on the successes and/or next steps. I trialled the planning template with a teacher in the final week of term 2 and she found it extremely useful in that it scaffolded her preparation so things ran smoothly during the actual lesson. I tried to make the template simple, easy to understand and not too wordy so it becomes a helpful document, rather than yet another piece of paper to fill in. This planning template will be used throughout the school so I look forward to getting more feedback about whether it helps (or not!).

During the morning block today I worked with JA's math group to set up a wiki with them which will be used to record evidence of their learning. Once the wiki was set up they used vocaroo to record themselves talking about the strategies they used to solve addition and subtraction sums. Here's a link to their wiki. media type="custom" key="9699982" Next week we'll continue on with where we finished today. Today 2 of the group members became the experts for the group. Next week I'll get the experts to mentor the rest of the group through the process of recording, embedding etc with my support. JA said that it's her aim to get the chn independently using the wiki by the end of the term, with the aim to have the chn independently decide when they want to share their learning. One child already said he wants to think about some math strategies he uses and record himself talking about these at home. Motivated already! media type="custom" key="9699142"
 * __Week 6, Term 2__**

__**Telescopic Text**__ A few weeks ago I found the tool [|www.telescopictext.com] but hadn't had time to have a play around. Today I gave myself 5 mins to see if it would be suitable for primary school children. Here's my example My example of using this tool for editing. I wish it was able to embed!!! I have emailed the creators of the website to see if they can create an embed option for the texts.

__**Week 5, Term 2**__ I spent the entire day working the David as we developed the Mind42 resource tool for teachers here at Westmere. There's a staff meeting in week 7 that this resource will be unveiled.

__**Week 4, Term 2**__ It is an aim of mine to give ‍‍‍‍‍children the power ‍‍‍‍‍to select ways to create evidence to show their learning achievements. Vocaroo is a very powerful tool for children to use because it allows children to record themselves talking about their learning and next steps. Here are some examples of children trying to show their learning in writing today. I scaffolded them through the process today, but soon they'll be able to manage this process themselves. media type="custom" key="9548912"media type="custom" key="9549168"media type="custom" key="9549172"

__**Week 4, Term 2**__ Over the last few weeks there's been more and more request for children to use Fotobabble in the junior school so this morning I spent 30 mins with two of the year 2 digikids from Room 14 to upskill them in using this tool. Last week when working with year 1 children they had trouble navigating through the drives to find the photo/s they wanted to use so having some experts available to assist them should make using Fotobabble successful. Here is an example of one of the digikids having a trial run of Fotobabble. media type="custom" key="9545892"

__**Week 3, Term 2**__

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__**Week 2, Term 2**__ media type="custom" key="9457282" http://learningdiscovery.wikispaces.com/editing for more information

5th April 2011: Tomorrow I'm introducing a simple audio tool into a classroom who have requested to learn about an eLearning tool that would support their oral language. Fotobabble is a great tool and it's simple to use. media type="custom" key="8967726"

Testing Dvolver to ensure it still works a-okay before the TOD on Tuesday media type="custom" key="8193436"

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