Vashti+2010

=**Vish Is On A Mish!**=

//Welcome to E Learning through Blogs!//
Blogs are an easy-to-use website that allow you, and your learners, and their families, to publish work, comment on work, and evaluate their progress. They also allow you to provide access to safe websites.

Here is a powerpoint about Blogs:

As we go through the year, I will update this Wiki to show my learning. Congratulations on taking your first step towards setting up a class website- I hope you, and your community will enjoy the new learning opportunities that the web, and web friendly tools, can offer. :-)

Links You May Find Useful:
Vashti's Links Page Vashti's Class Blog Year 3 and 4 Term 3 Topic Blog

Term 3

 * CS4 have a blog**

Our buddy class have been looking at our blog for a little while now, so we are going to help them learn how to use their own. Nadine has made a blog with some help, and we are using Friday mornings as an opportunity to teach the younger kids how to comment. We have a roster system with the buddies and we show the blog up on the projector.


 * Protected Posts for Photos**

The children now know how to put a password on a post, so that only people who know the password can see the content. This means they can show pictures of themselves without revealing their identity to a global audience. Some of the boys are writing from home on a regular basis and putting up photos of themselves- I've also had parents asking how to help do it, so I will be creating another JING tutorial to help the parents. I would also like to run a workshop with the kids to help their families learn how to use the blogs...

Term 2 Review
This term has been interesting because a lot of things have been happening with technology in my classroom- and I didn't plan for them to happen!

The first was that I received training in how to use a Mimio. A Mimio is a sensor device that you connect to your projector and laptop. It has a stylus that is calibrated with the software to link in the projection and the whiteboard. The whiteboard is then an active board- you can type on the whiteboard, use interactive software and go on the web using the stylus.

This was really much more difficult than I expected- suddenly I had new technology and the pressure of having to be able to use it the next day in a teaching environment when I didn't know how to use it that well myself. I wasn't even sure how to use it in my teaching- my environment had already adapted to using laptops and putting them in a tumble with reading and maths. Suddenly I had a teaching and learning tool to incorporate with all of that.

I started off teaching with it and my class and I worked through our problems. I then started to use our class blog on it, and to get us playing games together. We would turn on the Mimio before school and my students and I would play on it. Now, we use it for maths. A group plays with flashcards on it while another group is on the laptops. Essentially, half of my class has an encounter with technology in maths and reading every day.

The second big step was opening up to using recording devices like Vocaroo. We have had a big struggle with getting this internet recording tool to work because our network has been playing up. I brought in my Vodafone mobile device to get it to work and now I have children recording their stories orally instead of having to type. To facilitate typing in the meantime, I have linked to typing games on my blog and taught them some typing basics every day before school.

We always start the day on my blog when we've done the register, and it is really starting to take off...

The final, most important development has been that now, EVERY child knows how to log on to the blog and post... and they are doing it in their own time! This has been a very powerful tool for improving their awareness of audience in their writing, and has allowed us to focus on punctuation and spelling without having a gruelling session writing in our books. Stay tuned- big things are about to happen, and they're not centred on me anymore. My blog is now an online community of children....

**June News:**
In June, I was taught how to use a Mimio, which effectively turned my whiteboard into an active board. I had about 45 minutes directly after school on a Thursday to learn how to use it, and then I jumped in the deep end on a Friday. Setting up the Mimio was easy- it's just a device that I stick to my board, and then there is a dongle that goes into the USB port on my computer. Once I've turned on the projector, I'm ready to go. What wasn't easy- figuring out how to use it in class with my kids!

First, we played on our class blog and used the Mimio just as a way of playing our spelling games and Tutpup basic facts games. Then, I tried to use it to write an explanation on a website, writingfun.com. It took a while to find the keyboard and also took a while to type up...

Finally, I braved using the Studio. I couldn't remember how to turn the writing into typed print, but soon enough I found it!

To facilitate the use of the Mimio with the kids, I made sure it was on before class, and then the children all played with it themselves. Now, I've found the galleries (after not being able to remember anything of the short workshop, I had to just suss it all out myself) and suddenly we have children using flashcards on the board, and watching handwriting lessons on templates with margins and half lines already ruled up.

My next step is to see if I can use the Mimio for publishing.

**May News:**
In May, we practiced using our new video cameras in the Middle School. We had an assembly to present to the Middle School, but because it was so wet and cold, we decided not to go to a central area and make a movie instead. Everyone decided what they wanted to show at assembly. We then wrote our scripts. One student was asked to be the expert and learn how to use the camera to video. She then filmed some children while the teacher filmed other students. We learned how to upload the film together by watching on the projector, and then the class decided the order of the film and the titles.

We put the film on the server because it was 11MB- far too big for You Tube, and our software didn't manage to compress it and send it to You Tube on time.

Our next step is to get a parent to help us make a video for our topic, and teach one group of children how to make a movie. This has been difficult because Vashti has been sick, and then the parents have been busy as well. We will try again in Term 3.

April News:
My overall goal has been to improve our learning of basic facts and spelling through using online resources. I have been using my blog, learningstuff.wordpress.com, to facilitate this learning. My first step was to get children to buy into the blog. I taught one child how to post, and then I taught her how to comment. As an expert, she then worked with her reading group to teach them how to comment on a post in the blog. After a child had commented on the blog, I would celebrate their learning by reflecting on what had happened and reading out their comment to the class. We then moved on to posting our poems on the blog. As each child had their own poem, their cousins and friends suddenly came onto the blog and told them how great their work was. This was a huge motivator for the kids- they had a real audience!

Once commenting on the blog had been established, I tried to use it for reflection. My students would go on the maths page after Tutpup and say if they were beginner, proficient or advanced with their basic facts. I also used the blog to make sure they could find Tutpup or Spelling city, the two online resources I wanted to use to improve basic facts and spelling.

CS11's First Foray into online reflection
Check out these posts to see children in CS11 using their blog to talk about their learning: Maths Learning Tutpup Learning Reading Poetry As you can see, the children are focussing mainly on reflection, and on how to do this online, rather than on spelling and publishing. It is very child centred, and sometimes you cannot understand their comments, but I hope to show progress in the surface features of their writing as they progress- the main point at the moment is that the children are getting into a routine of openly reflecting on their learning and evaluating their achievements.

The steps taken to help children to do this: 1. Teach them about the blog 2. Teach them about the online learning tools: Tutpup.com, Spellingcity.com and the reading games on the page. 3. Roster these activities into the tumble and reflect orally on learning intentions, success criteria, and next steps 4. After a week of doing the activities, get them to then learn how to comment 5. Now scaffold/model a reflective comment online 6. Make reflection a part of their online activity

Our next step is to use a spelling tool or what we have written in our books to help us, and to refer to our success criteria when we reflect.

The Tutpup Session
On Thursday, 25th February a handful of Westmere staff converged on the staffroom to set up their classes to use tutpup! It was a very instructive session. We learned how to: 1. Create an account 2. Create a class within that account 3. How to create accounts for children using a code that added them to our class 4. How to use Tutpup.com 5. How to manage the use of the game within our classrooms