New year - new posts!

I haven't posted for a while, but have been busy working on a new class blog for 2011. I really find it a useful tool for communicating with the parents, a portal for students to access useful websites and to encourage students to improve their ICT skills.

Useful Blog

This is a great resource for teachers, well worth a look! I get updates on my news feed on Facebook...

Learning beyond the boundries of the classroom

I would like to write a post about my class blog. It has been almost half a year since I started it and feel it is time to reflect on a few things:

Why did I create it?

As ICT education is a real passion, I wanted to find a way to provide my students with access to learning via technology beyond the classroom wall. I also thought it would complement our home learning program by providing engaging and enjoyable activities that support a range of learning areas. It was also a way to share the student's work with the community via the Internet.

How has it been recieved?

I have had many parents provide postive feedback about the blog. It has been wonderful to see comments by relatives of the students who live far from the school, but through the blog have a portal to their learning. The children enjoy the challenges and activites that cover all learning areas. As we are a global community, the responses from children overseas has been rewarding.

Where to next?

I teach a grade 3/4 class and am pleased that three of my grade 4 boys have created their own blogs. A grade 4 girl from another class has decided that they need their own blog and I have assisted her in creating one. I hope this trend continues, however from this experience I would like all my students to eventually use a blog to document their learning.

Check out the latest puzzle on my class blog - it is a real beauty!

Art Project and Tumblr

About two weeks ago my grade 3/4 class and another were involved in a project with some students from RMIT (The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Their project was about endangered animals and students using art to represent their thought about how they might adapt to changing environments. The project, ArtAptation, uses a new blogging application (well new to me!) called Tumblr. Please take a moment to see the wonderful work these students did, but also check out Tumblr - I think I would like to use it for my next blogging project!

Interesting Blog

Just stumbled across this blog "Classroom 2.0", a social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in the classroom. They have plenty of useful links and live video presentations.

Firefox vs Internet Explorer

I just noticed that one of my widgets, "Countdown to ACEC2010", does not work with Internet Explorer. I recommend viewing and creating blogs using Mozilla Firefox (free and easy to download). One thing I have noticed is that when using Edumail (Victorian Education Department email service) firefox does not automatically create links when entering URLs in your emails, IE does. I now use IE for edumail and firefox for just about everything else.
What are your thoughts on different browsers and their pros and cons?

The seven-year-old bloggers

This article is about children as young as seven creating their own blogs in England. I have a class blog at the moment, but think it is exciting to see students in primary school creating their own.

Bringing us together (interesting blog)

This blog is worth a look...here is an excerpt

"From September to December, 2008, Sue Waters and Sue Wyatt ran an international student blogging competition. About 500 students and their teachers took part by writing posts on class blogs, student blogs or as commenters. The competition was so successful that by the end many of the students and teachers expressed a desire to continue.

So this blog has been created to:

• build on the friendships begun in 2008
• encourage more students and classrooms from throughout the World to connect with each other"

Class Blog

I started a classroom blog about three weeks ago and has been well received by both children and their parents. Not only am I using it to showcase children's work, but also to promote ICT out of the classroom and as a communication tool. I try to put on variety of posts, including messages and reminders, fun activities and videos. I had never done a blog before and have found the more I experiment the more I find out to enhance it. If you have a moment it would be great if you could visit it and leave a comment.