room16

April 22. LT shared kidspiration with the class. All ch played on the software and we created examples of the different sorts of things the program can do in literacy. T is planning to use the program with guided reading follow up lessons. Wordle was also taught to the class and a wordle of community was created. Jane's response... Since Sue has shown us how to use kidspiration we have been using it regularly in our reading programme. The chn have been making flowcharts about the stories they read. Each child is able to use this programme with ease, but I find it benefits my lower groups the most. The difference between using kidspiration and writing their responses in their books is mainly - they finish the task. Motivating chn to complete set tasks in relation to their follow up reading is difficult. When I observe them working with kidspiration, they are sitting with their journals open, in pairs, discussing the story, summarising the main ideas, importing pictures to support their reflections on the story. Completely engaged!!!

June 9th LT took group of 5 to teach them movie maker program for up coming project. They will now be experts for rest of class. It was good to see the ideas created from the program. I believe their creativity was stretched further than had they just videoed their play. The effects and titles and music they were planning to include and the reasons why showed a depth of thinking. Re visited group on June 11 to help with sound. This group now have the skills to use this program and can now teach others to allow access to the whole class. A project would need to be chosen for the class that is of valid context, not just to use the program. This may be next term. Jane's response... This was a huge task to complete. The girls had the skills but had difficulties saving their work and as they made errors they lost entire bits of the editing process. This was not altoghether a bad thing as they had to trouble shoot and see Sue on and off to find out where they were going wrong. The great thing was, when they were teaching the skills to others they were able to bring childrens attention to the loop holes so as to prevent them from making the same mistake. Of course movie maker is a wonderful way to engage children in their learning. Two of the girls have coached two other chn to use movie maker and they are in the process of editing our video footage of our celebration assembly.

Term 3

Today I began my speech writing unit. It was highly successful. I showed a variety of You tube persuasive language speeches. I get blown away at how this totally engages chn. We watched several that I had already chosen. They were able to set their own success criteria based on what we watched and then they were away. I wil now teach aspects of the speech as per my unit but just such a wonderful way to hook kids in. I plan on showing the chn tomorrow how to use google to research their speech topics, effectively. This may seem like an easy enough skill but I know that chn can spend an awful lot of wasted time searching for irrelevant info that doesn't apply.

July 27 the LT in to show how webspirtion works - quick demo to class who are already confident with kidspiration so they can now try and use webspiration due to lack of licences. Jane says...Ongoing use of webspiration. I used this as an example when we had our cluster sharing of successful ICT tools in our class. I have been using it mostly with brainstorming so my reluctant writers can sort there information into ideas. I have without a doubt noticed an improvement in a select few when they use webspiration to plan and then use the laptop to write their stories.

Aug LT reminded class about track changes on word. Goal to have class computer being used every writing session and any editing done through track changes. Jane says...I will endeavour to use this more.

August 23rd. I attended a mini workshop with Sue today on creating a BLOG. I am going to set up the account today and then go through it all in a class session with the kids. I think this will be a vital part of their learning as I am antipating using the BLOG more rather than the WIKI. Septerber 24th. Our blog is fantastic! Two of our children set it up and they have been slowly teaching other chn in the class how to upload work. It is the most wonderful tool for showing the kids learning. We used it for our coal showcase where the children uploaded video and showed it to their parents on our showcase evening. Again, with all ICT the kids who are not normally engaged in class are completely engaged when working on the blog.

29 October 2010

In summary...

We had a final session with Jill last Thursday where we learnt some info about Web 2 tools. Some of these I thought I could use in my classroom to enhance learning. Overall, the tool I have found to be the most beneficial for childrens learning is the blog. []

I have now linked it to my WIKI page and my intention is to get much more of the children's learning on there so as to create that school to home link. I really want parents to be able to see and give productive feedback to their children about their learning.

I have found being part of this contract so rewarding. I just regret having arrived at WGS a year before we were due to end. The Learning at schools conference in Rotorua was amazing. I am still introducing new teaching practices as a result of this course. I am just about to introduce the children to Solo taxonomy. I was inspired by two women from 'Hooked on thinking' when I attended thier workshop. I want to use this as a tool for enabling the children to really think about how they can access much deeper thinking and understanding about a given topic through the tools of Solo taxonomy.

Thank you Sue for all of your hardwork as our ICT lead teacher, I have learnt so much from you, and thank you to Jill.