I am really enjoying using the technology available and feel I am getting into the swing of it all now. At the beginning of the year it felt like one more thing to learn and come to terms with and while I knew it was just a matter of playing to see what it could all do I felt like time was an already stretched resource. But getting ideas from one another and trialling them in my own class one at a time rather than getting bombarded with all the great ideas has worked well.
For Room 11 while we have only recently got a flip video I can already see the benefits of capturing those moments and using it as another reflective tool. Having got Rhiannon to video Josh with his reading has made him more aware of reading with expression and quickly. He enjoyed being filmed and then enjoyed being behind the camera filming Rhiannon read the same book modelling what a good reader sounds like. This is something I will use to monitor his progress as it is a medium that he enjoys rather than pen and paper activities or just reading a book for the sake of getting that reading mileage.
As far as blogs go Ashton (our regular ICT goer) has been fantastic and is always keen to share back with the class what he has learnt. One of the first things he likes to do when he gets to school is to go on the blog. It is a great way to get students writing without them really knowing they are and assists with the reflective process. We have started using the reflective questions as a springboard for reflective posts on the blog but we still need to work on giving detail and thinking more deeply about the question.
This term I also want to get students to go back to old posts and make the time for them to read the comments they have received from others and responding to the comments/questions left for them, rather than just going on to make a new post. As well as this I want students to not only go onto their blog and make a post but use the ICT time to maybe comment on someone else's before their own to increase that idea of writing to an audience.
The two ICT cluster meetings I have been to at Southwell have also been great in getting me inspired about what technology can do in the classroom and being creative in the approaches we take to teaching. For a lot of this generation being in front of a screen or using technology is part of their everyday lives and will only become more prevalent so why not use it in our teaching and teach them the skills they will need in the years ahead?
