Ms.G's blog

Sometimes I wonder where the time goes in my classroom! I have so many ideas for projects and investigations with my kids, and I never seem to get enough time to get cracking on them. I guess it doesn’t help that they have 11 subjects to fit in, and I only teach 4 of them – 4 main ones, but still they are gone from me for a lot of the day. I have to admit, I do enjoy the odd day when the art/science/Spanish/dance/wellness/music/tech teacher is absent for some reason, and I get extra time!! This works really well when we have a number of different things on the go, with the kids at different stages of their work – I love to get a good chunk of time, 2 hours or so, and be able to have them plan out their own morning. They decide if they need more time to get the maths done, or to work on a particular project because they could use extra time and know they are ahead or finished in something else. There’s always such a sense of industriousness going on as they plan out their time and then get going on whatever work they have planned. I usually guide them by saying certain things are a priority, or giving them some things that have to be at a certain point by the end of the morning, but the freedom for them to allocate their time to the areas they need it is liberating for them. I just wish we could do it on a regular basis!

I’m having to rein myself in a bit at the moment, I’m ready to start a project with my kids and already have a couple on the go. I’m determined to have them communicate with schools in other countries this year – they have started their own blogs, and I’m looking on Twitter for teachers and classes to connect with so they can comment on our blogs, and we can comment on theirs. I want them to see that the internet can be an incredible resource for communicating with others, and that learning can take place all the time, in many different ways. I’m not sure they are completely convinced about the blogging yet, but it’s early days and I have faith in them!  I love the fact that I can say to them ‘This is something we are going to try out. I’ve not done it before, but I think we should go for it and see what we find out as we go,” and they respond with such enthusiasm! We are having a great year!

Right now my students are figuring out how to change their theme, add posts, organize them into categories, make comments on their classmates blogs and respond to comments they receive.

Now they are going to read a blog of a student from another school and make a comment on that blog.

I’ve finally got the blogs set up for my students! It took a while, and there was a lot of backwardsing and forwardsing but FINALLY they are all up and running. They have all uploaded their first ‘about me’ post, changed the theme (probably 3 or 4 times by now!) and they are coming up with a title for their blog. Sometimes I’ll assign them a post for homework, but I’m really hoping they’ll be excited to write for a wider audience – more than just me and their parents – and add entries other than those that are assigned. I guess we’ll see.

We are getting ready to start our feature article unit – introduction went well today, and once they choose their topics we’ll be able to get writing. They started listing possible ideas today and are talking to their parents about it this weekend. They suggested I write a feature article on coffee – but as I told them – I may drink a lot of it but I don’t know enough about it!

So far Edmodo is going well – I’ve connected with a school in Sydney through a Uni friend on facebook, and we have the kids leaving messages on for each other, and sometimes they are on chatting – out of school time because of the 15 hour time difference.

During parent conferences this week I’ve been sharing what we’ve been doing with tech and my goals for helping them become successful and appropriate users on online technology. Pretty good response from parents – most of them relieved that we are talking and learning about it and that their child is in a class with a teacher who is excited about learning and using web 2.o and teaching them digital citizenship.

I feel like I’ve talked all day today! We had our family conferences and I had 7 today – which means 7 more coming up, a couple on Thursday, then Monday and the following Thursday. It’s exhausting. I love my class though so it’s not so bad talking about them. It’s funny how during school the kids have so much to say, then in conferences most of them really don’t!

We started connecting with students in a school in Sydney on edmodo – hope it grows into something really meaningful, beyond the ‘hi’ ‘hello’ ‘hey’ ‘hi’ that they are doing right now! Early social networking. Very early.  Trying to get my kids on to edublogs to begin blogging – the kids are writing their ‘about me’ entry in their notebooks, and hope to be able to type them in by Friday – but I’m really not loving edublogs right now. I’m going to have them try to change the titles and themes of their blog pages and then I guess we’ll see.

As I write this I should be getting ready for family conferences, but I’m procrastinating for now! Yesterday was Halloween and I saw so many crazy costumes – I think the adults go for it more than the kids! I’ve finally managed to get blogs set up for my students, so now they can sign in, and set up their theme and everything else and hopefully have time to make their first post. I’m hoping they will be inspired to write by the idea of an authentic audience, and that receiving comments from people in other parts of the country and world will motivate them to write, write, write!!