Learning at Schools 2012- 10+ways to raise achievement in literacy with Jill Hammond

The key message in this session was MOTIVATION. In any area of learning children must have a stimuli, something that will motivate their learning. If it is writing they need to have an audience otherwise what is the point? With an audience comes feedback and with feedback comes improved writing.
So often we tell our students how to present their work but Jill posed the challenge of expressing themselves in a way that interests them. That makes sense but I also think they need to have a certain level of understanding in all areas of writing to be able to deliver their message in the best possible way.
One tool that Jill introduced me too was Etherpad. This is a good collaborative tool for writing and will be great to use on my reluctant writers. It reminds me of Google docs but is probably more child friendly. Students can then work together on a piece at the same time or one could be writing and the other buddy could be editing it as they write. When it comes to editing using track changes (in word) can be a useful tool as it gives the students ownership and credit for their hard work as it is improved.
She also spoke about using wordle to highlight to children how frequently they use words such as 'and' or 'then.' I can see this being a powerful tool as you often point out to students how often they use these words but you wonder how much they take it on board, but if they understand how a wordle works and realise that the bigger the word the more often you have used it in your writing it may make them think twice about using them next time.
Another tool she touched on was using powerpoint and using the action button to create a story that has numerous endings. This could be a fun reading/writing activity that requires students to think at a higher level in each creating a different ending for the one story. Later in the year I will keep this in mind to try as a collaborative task with my top reading group to extend their understanding of what a good book needs.
When looking at motivation I loved the idea of Lulu.com that Kevin Honeycutt introduced us to a publishing tool where you can actually purchase the children's work. How cool would it feel to be a 7-8-year-old and be a published author. I can see how students would then take more pride in their proofreading/editing phase.

Learning at Schools 2012-Solo Taxonomy with Pam Hook

The SOLO taxonomy session with Pam Hook was great for learning ways of showing students how to clearly follow their own progress and then create their next learning steps. What I like about this higher order thinking is that it gives students the power and they become responsible motivated learners. While at primary we often have to push for work to be handed in or finished but when they get to high school there won't always be someone reminding them of when assignments are due, so isn't it better to prepare them now rather than later on how to become motivated life long learners? While the names of the stages are quite large (prestructural, uni and multistructural, relational and abstract) I like the images that are linked in and the hand signals children can use. In class I will often use the thumbs up if your confident with the instructions, thumbs sideways need it explained one more time and thumbs down need to stay on the mat and work with me; I can see the hand signals of SOLO taxonomy being used in a similar way.
In the Middle Syndicate we always allow a page or two for each of the key competencies under the headings of thinkers, managers, communicators, contributors, explorers. There are great rubrics based around each of the key competencies which I will be putting into each of the kids learning logs and getting them to rate themselves as managers, thinkers, contributors, communicators and explorers and what they need to do to reach the next level. One important aspect when children are anaylysing where they are at is that they say my learning is at a relational stage NOT I am relational.
One great idea that Pam used as an example which I will be keen to try was teaching children to back their ideas up in their writing (could be used for expository). In one colour paper the children sequence the event, with the piece of paper going vertically up the page. Alongside this they put another colour paper to answer the why questions and add the detail. Once children had this planning under their belt they writing becomes a much stronger piece.
A cute You Tube view that explains SOLO a bit futher was put together by Newmarket School and can be seen on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV6Dmm7X4Eg

Learning at Schools 2012-Marnia View TV

It was really neat to go to my second session with Marina View school to learn about their television studio. I don't know if part of my interest was sparked from my former occupation as a journalist or my own enjoyment of being part of a television studio at intermediate but it was the idea of a TV station at school that drew my interest to this workshop. It was great that a dozen or so children came a long and could give us teacher (or in this case students) some what of a crash course in how to put together a basic show. I was amazed to find that they do it all using an Adobe programme (Adobe Visual Communicator).
The childrens enthusiasm for the show was evident particuarly in the fact that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they get to school at 7.30am in order to set up ready in time to go live at 9am.

What Marina View School have now is as the result of 10 years of hard work.
So where do we start with this cool new tool?
-Could it be used to screen book reviews?
-Could the class put together their highlights of the week and screen it in a show to share with family?
-Could it be used as a publishing tool for students to show their work at the end of a topic?
-It would be a great tool to teach the technique of interviewing and asking the right questions, leading into writing newspaper reports.

The teacher challenged us to come and visit the school to look more closely at what they are doing with the TV station and to make our own bulletin back at school which if we sent it to him he would include in Marina View's show. I then discovered that Cambridge East School have also more recently set up a television station, so I would be keen to take a visit out there on one of my BT day's to learn more about how they use the TV station, what it adds and what benefits it has for the kids. As well as taking Marina View up on the challenge of sending in a bulletin from Vardon School.