As term two comes to an end, I have been looking and reading the blogs of the classes and I am really impressed.  The kids writing has been consistently getting better and more and more adventurous.  The writing is showing more of their own voice. 

I’m not sure if it is the topic for the term (space and aliens) or if it is coming from somewhere else, but I’m feeling that there is a sense of voice and purpose of the writing.  Room 6’s blog has become something of a hit around here, and when you read it you can understand why.  The kids love to read the wacky adventures, the silly poems and realise that their friends wrote it. 

I’ve begun giving kids the time to read and comment on the blogs during their ICT time.  It’s so good to see the kids actually appreciate other kids writing.  I ask them to make a positive comment and then ask a question about the writing or give the author a piece of advice.  I thought this might be a difficult task but even the year three’s have been able to write sensible comments and enjoy the sense of giving back to the author.

So in a nutshell….

Finally blogging is starting to take off here in our classrooms.  It’s been a useful tool to get our kids writing for an authentic audience.  Where to from here???  Keep the thumb of the classes to use their blogs - whether it is the juniors copying and pasting the publishing through to the seniors who argue points in the comments…I am starting to feel I have achieved something.

Tags: writing, kidsengagement, blogging

As part of my integrating ICT into literacy programmes throughout our school, I have been surveying kids beforehand to gauge who they feel that they write for (their audience).  The intention then is to get the classes motivated and engaged with an audience through a means such as blogging. 

Yesterday I received the most insightful answer as to why a 7 year old child doesn’t like writing.  Here is the answer “because it’s a waist[sic] of time if you do it at school because know one [sic] will read it.  I only like writing at home because I show people”.

If a 7 year old can verbalise this and feels this way about writing, what are we doing as teachers to recitfy the situation so that kids know that they aren’t writing just for the teacher.  I am hoping that there are kids out there that write because they are passionate, write because of a desire, write because they want to know not just because Mrs So and So said I had to write.

When I think back to when I was in the classroom, I have to admit that a lot of the writing I got my kids to do was because I said so.  There was very little “authentic” writing, and as a teacher I felt I had to teach towards portfolios and assessments.  I want to change this about my practise. 

Earlier this year, as part of a class’ Inquiry Based Learning, the kids needed to write to the council, write newsletters, write a script in order to convey a message or ask for assistance.  The quality of the writing that was produced was very high.  The class teacher was even “blown away” by the level of writing that the kids were producing.  When I asked the kids if and why they were enjoying the writing, the majority said it was because it was a real problem they were trying to solve so it was a real letter (etc) that was going to be read by someone.  

As teachers we need to provide a context that is authentic and has an audience in order for our kids to engage and attain in writing.  What do you think???

Tags: engagement, writing

This template originally came from the Unitec In Schools website. We are using this to attack our goals. Our goals need to be

I - inspiring
S - specific

M - measurable
A - achievable

R - realistic
T - timebound

Ok, so after a rather busy start to the year - it’s rather satisfying setting up the new digitally enhanced classrooms, even if there is a lot of work involved getting the computers up and running - it is now time to sit down and reflect on term one’s goal and refocus for term two.

Last term’s goal to get classrooms blogging got off to a fairly good start.  It would be really interesting now to get the kids to re-do the writing survey about the audience to evaluate how effective blogging has become in getting the kids to right for an audience.  I have noticed that some of the kids in room 3 have written some really well structured and argued pieces of writing that I (heaven forbid) didn’t think they could do.

My goal this term is to continue to work with room 3 with their blogging and sharing the audience with them.  With their teacher, I have added some arguments in their blog for the children and their families to argue and write persuasively (their main writing focus this term).  As of yet, possibly because of camp last week, there hasn’t been any comments left just yet.  To make it more aware to the parents I will send out a small notice to let them know that it is there for contribution by both parents and students.

To assess how the children are feeling about writing and who they write for, I will re-survey the children this week to gain some idea of how they are going.

Will update later in the week with any major discoveries.

Tags: ehsas, engagement, blogging

After a rough start getting the teachers on board (they know they haven’t blogged in a little while and I wonder how long after posting this it will take them to post again), there are some classes that are making some huge steps in their blogs.

Like I mentioned in my last post, Room 6 are away and flying and I think having a teacher that understands, enjoys and uses Web 2.0 technologies helps to get it up and running. The writing that is in that blog is really cool and they are now starting to get comments from family and friends around the world.

The two year 2 classes (room 7 and Room are starting to make advances as well. On Tuesday afternoon, I took 2 kids from each class and showed them how to get on to their blogs dashboard and how to write and publish a post. I then got them to do it over and over (slightly boring but they seemed to enjoy it). Since then Room 8 has added to their post by using blogging as part of the writing rotation. While the novelty is still there, I hope they run with it so that it becomes a regular part of the learning. Next step…how to add pictures. Just exported kidpix pictures to start with and then on to photos etc.

Room 3 also are able to blog pretty much by themselves - once their teacher gets them going. Have to say, because I don’t know the kids and their writing abilities, it’s hard to tell whether what they are writing is more meaningful than usual. We are also about to try using voicethread as a way of recording their IBL. I saw what Marnie (a teacher up at Meadowbank) had done with her year 2’s and could see the potential for this right away.

Ok so title has little to do with this post other than to date it really.  In terms of my goal, with the senior classes I am making a little progress.  Room 3 have begun blogging - just little articles that I have assigned them to write but the cool/interesting/great thing is that the kids are volunteering to do the writing.  I almost wish I had got the kids to name their surveys as it would be interesting to see if the kids who didn’t like writing were those kids that were volunteering…..perhaps next time.

One piece of writing I read from Room 6’s class blog blew me away.   I thought it was a piece of shared writing, but when I spoke to the teacher it was just the kids work.  The voice and thought in it is amazing - read it here.

I have also got the yr 2 digital classrooms blogging.  The kids seem really excited by it and the reaction from the other class whilst reading it is great.  Room 8 even has a buddy class at Meadowbank School - maybe we can begin to seek classes further afield.

Anyways, I seem to be cracking with this blogging and classes lark - sometime I do wish I had a little more control over what was going on in the classroom.  (Does this mean I want to go back into the classroom when I start questioning that??).  THis may end up being a long term goal that lasts longer than this term……

I gave 2 classes my little writing survey last week (one class is a yr4/5 and one is a yr5/6). Totally anon of course with only a B or a G to distinguish between the genders. Yesterday I was collating the results and came up with some interesting findings - oh my goodness - no wonder our kids don’t like writing!!!

Of the 60 (ish) children surveyed - all of them write for their teacher at school, with the next most common answer was friends with 14 children saying they also sometimes wrote for them.  Parents were the third most common answer.

At home most children answered that they wrote for their parents and extended family.

Sadly, across both catergories (at school/at home) only 15 children answered that they wrote for themselves.  THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Some of the more perceptive children answered that they wrote for portfolios, display and the principal.  Not exactly a real and authentic audience.

If we want our kids to become better writers (who enjoy writing) we need to provide them with an authentic audience where people will read, comment and converse with the kids rather Mr/Mrs So and So at the front of the class…..

Does any of this surprise you????

Download Video: Posted by jessmcculloch at TeacherTube.com.

Download Video: Posted by mrstacey at TeacherTube.com.

Ok, so I have thought about what I would like my goal to be for this term.  As we still have this big focus on writing, I thought it would be interesting to compare two classes and their attitudes to writing - especially for an audience.  I would like to see if the children’s like/dislike of writing changes when they know that there is an audience of people outside of their classroom - particularly their teacher - reading their writing, if they enjoy it more, put more effort into it and if their overall attitude improves.

In order to do this, I will survey a class of children (yr 5 and 6) about their attitudes towards writing (similar to the one they have already done) but include a few questions about audience and the perceived audience.  I will then ensure, with the help of the classroom teacher, that they continue to blog regularly (if not daily) throughout the term.  At the end of the term I will survey the children again and see if their attitudes have changed either negatively or positively.

Ok so I know I’m a little late getting round to blogging this week. I know that we said that we would have it done by the SUnday night so I truly suck and it’s only one week in….how on earth am I going to last a whole year of getting this done….I WILL GET THIS DONE!!

So one week down (not really counting week one c’os it didn’t really count for us - go specialists!!) and I still don’t know what my goal for this term is going to be. I would like to think that getting routines established isn’t going to take as long as last year, and not being able to do what I wanted to last week because of the lack of the student disk, meant that I was able to set up all the kids on their “own” computer and get the rules etc sorted without the pressure of getting some work done. We’ll see this week how well I did at getting that all sorted!!!.

Okay, so now I need to come up with a goal for my professional practise. It seems a little hard to verbalise something at the moment. I find that because we have such a short time with the kids, who are wanting to be here and are engaged for the whole time, that it’s been really easy to get into a “lazy” teacher mode. I want to improve something, but as everything is going so well, I am finding it difficult to figure a goal out to work on….

Okay so now it’s Monday afternoon after our QLC. I think my goal is going to be based around blogging and getting it into the senior and middle classrooms. I think that I need to think and articulate the actual goal…also am going to need to get the teachers in those classes on board…help how do I get the teachers on board??!?!?! They will get to see and learn how the blogs work during ICT but how do I guarantee that they’ll do it their classes away from the structure of the suite??

Comments…questions….