I hope that I am able to teach you and share with you some skills. Now I would like you to teach me about txt talk. I have been brought up on correct and formal English. Your world involves both this and sms txt talk.
Years 9 and 10
I need 2 posts this lesson:-
1. Write up 3-4 sentences in your
sms txt talk that you might use on your mobile phone. My challenge is to interpret them via a comment on your blog. Then, you need to read what I have translated and correct my mistakes and tell me the words that I did not understand, by adding a further comment back. Challenge me as hard as you can.
2. Should students blog? Why? I need you to justify this as fully as you can, providing arguments to your school, families, communities and the Education Department to allow blogging to continue.
This week it is the turn of a student from Collaboration Nation to post a prompt. You can find the prompt at http://nrs08.learnerblogs.org/2008/06/08/my-favorite-holiday/ First you will answer the prompt in your blog, then copy that post and paste it as a comment back on nre08’s blog. The prompt is copied below:-
My favorite holiday is Christmas. I celebrate it by decorating my house with items that represent winter and Christmas. My family gets a tree in the begining of December and we decorate in the week before the holiday. We have no school and having my family over to eat on Christmas Eve. We stuff our selves with seafood and pie. Its delicious.
So my question for you is this:What is your favoite holiday and what are some traditions you have?
This week was a little dificult to get back into the flow of classroom work as I had spent the greater part of last week with students on the successful Tasmania trip.
With my students…
years 9/10 completed a post on the trip to Tasmania and commenced putting their choice of photos into a digital movie. Most images required resizing using irfanview. Movie clips had been taken with my flip video but as we have an earlier version of both MS Moviemaker and Sony Vegas, I had to put them through my laptop to convert to useable mpg files. These were placed on the student drive for ready access. The latter part of the week involved exams.
discovered the need for blog etiquette when some terms used in a comment by a student caused offence to our global partners.
Years 7 and 8 students completed live blogging with me on their use of social networking and online technology. They attempted to find connect with fellow global student bloggers by writing comments on other student blogs and replying to any who commented on theirs, by email.
Year 6 continue to work on their digital movie “A typical day in our school” for sharing on a ning site with schools in France and USA.
So proud of the way our global project with MrKp and KimCofino and their students developed on moving on together where students from UK, Australia and Thailand all spoke about what they are looking forward to, what they are nervous about, yet what they all ctually have in common on a voicethread. Take time to listen to it. It an easybut effective collaborative project. Thanks @MrKp for setting it up.
Getting staff on board web2.0
tried to comment on most of our staff’s blogs
For WIWOW (walk in walk out Wednesday) started our science lab assistant off with blogging and other staff present, converted powerpoint presentations to slideshare for embedding in their blog. Our internet access was woeful so it impeded much advancement.
Presented at a Grass ICT Day at Casterton on “what is a blog?’ and ran several workshops on blogging and MS Photostory. However, I did go home rather disquietened realising how many staff still lack computer confidence and online usage.
Student blog post of the week
….goes to leecie in year 10. Leecie took a turn to write the post prompt for collaboration nation and received more than 65 comments in reply to “what activities are you involved in after school?”
Blog post of the week
I have followed with interest the comment challenge and was disappointed that I could not participate in it due to technological difficulties. However dswaters has summarised the challenge with some really interesting reading. So, if you are into blogging, or even if you are not, check it out!!
Listen to Sandy Phillips from the education channel at the Victorian Education Department tell us how global teacher/student came about. Note that:- globalteacher/student is an especially designed and adapted campus through edublogs. Learn about the role that SLAV and Heather Blakey have also played in this area.
nb I really like using gcast as it embeds well and allows me to select the podcast to be played.
On Sunday, May 11th, Australians celebrate Mothers Day to acknowledge the important role that mothers take in our lives.
I want you to tell me about your Mum, so answer the following questions as a post on your blog:-
experimented with live blogging and www.coveritlive.com with the year 9/10 students (thanks to Jess McCulloch for her help) This was in preparation for our live blogging linkup with CT, USA on Friday. Also had a trial run with CT
Friday……the BIG ONE!-the big highlight of the week. Linked to CT, USA using live blogging. Our yackpack link was blocked as was the live video of Mr PBogush, our highly skilled virtual teacher but the live blogging worked. Students loved the live blogging, collaboration and learning outcomes (See post)
As a result of the popularity of this session, I recieved a delightful email from one of his students, the next day, asking us whether we can do it again soon.
Still working on our camp in a sentence with year 7.
Grade 4/5 students received (much to their delight) another wonderful parcel of letters, a book on Canada and a new webkinz - a white polar bear called Diamond from their friends in Canada. We got to know this class through our cross posting blog on webkinz pets.
My experiences
attended an elluminate session, on Wed night, on the flat horizons project that my students and I will be involved in for global peer reviewing.
Commenced reflecting on the huge, educational possibilites that live blogging could be used for.
stood back in amazementand awe, in our live blogging session with CT and the sheer virtual ability of Paul Bogush, in disciplining, teaching and helping all his remote students.
applied for an emerging technologies grant, throught the Victorian Education Department, to create a flat classroom
ordered a flip video from USA through Australian ebay (Cannot wait until it comes!!!)
Student blog of the week …goes to a lad in grade 5. Congratulations jimmyg on the number of posts you have presented, both requested and voluntary ones. The images you have used adds to the overall presentation. Keep up the great work!
Favourite post of the week…..
Educating students to be more effective presenters (and teachers as well) My students still enjoy working with MS Powerpoint for its ease and simplicity of use. I liked this post for its suggestions on using it more effectively.
Hmmm….. The warts will show up big time, this week!
Student Achievements
…the warts
One of our most prolific bloggers in grade 6, accidentally (I still dont know how) deleted his blog
logged in to the http://ms1001tales.wikispaces.com site to only find that another of our grade 6 boys had managed to edit the ‘gorgeous’ front page and put his personal photo and ‘about me’ page on there. Horror of all horrors!!! A quick ‘edit this page’ deleted his ‘about me’ page, but I quickly emailed Jeff Whipple to ask him to restore the original front page. It is now as it was!!! Whew!
attempted the impossible with grade 4 and 5 students and failed miserably, despite having the help of two year 9 students and a student teacher. Tried to finally enrol remaining students onto the 1001tales wiki, asked them to place comments on to the Thai student blogs and required a post of them. One boy ended up under the table!!! And it seemed as though out of this class of 28, I had 20 students hot on my heels requesting help. The wiki enrolments were fraught with problems too. Next week, will be a much simpler task. Groan!!!! Not such digital natives after all!!
Anzac day public holiday, a strike half day and a teacher professional learning day, meant I missed my 9/10 classes and the posts for collaboration nation will have to wait until next week.
…..and all
year 8s were successful in commenting on student posts from Costa Rica, and again I heard squeals of excitement from students when they got their first comment back
year 7 students were settled into their blog tasks, which allowed me to commence their ‘camp in a sentence’ into a voicethread. Will finish next week, and each student will embed the VT into their blog post.
Grade 6s wrote a post on Anzac Day
Heather Blakey managed to rescue the deleted blog!! Thanks a heap Heather.
Personal achievements
Jess and I used Thursday as a TPL (Teacher Professional Leave Day) to reflect on our accomplishments at laying the eplanks in a virtual classroom floor and to plan our future directions. Added to our wiki on eplanks re our achievements. Discussed how we could get more staff on board web2.0, and proceeded to interview a secondary English teacher and podcast her opinions and comments, and then enrolled her for a blog, much to her excitement. All steps taken will be podcast and available soon.
worked with some individual primary school staff helping them with blogging mechanics
‘Walk in walk out Wed’ = first session. Two staff attended but we worked together on their needs (email problems, music grabbing for network use etc), and placed work on our intranet. A very productive session!
enrolled for the after school online session with Marcus Torres in May. (He is visiting Australia)
took part in the online session with Oz/NZ teachers using flashmeeting.
Student blog of the week
Goes to teddaoo, a year 8 student, who has worked so hard at establishing a social network. She has made so many comments on other global student blogs, and the red dots are finally appearing on her cluster map! She has also completed all tasks that have been set her.
Have not attempted my google reader so my favourite blog post of the week will have to wait
As it has been some time since I completed a post with this title, I shall reflect back over the last few weeks. Student achievements
Year 9/10 commenced cross blogging with a school in Conncecticut, USA. The first post was written by me, seeking answers to – What is unique about your school and what is the best thing about living where you do? Students in both countries answered the questions in their personal blog, copied it and pasted it into a comment on my blog (I got 69 comments!!) Many further questions arose from this exercise, so they were then given as comments on PBogush’s Collaboration Nation blog for his students to answer further.
Still attempting to enrol all my grade 4-7 students on the 1001 tales global project wiki. I have had endless problems with what should be a simple exercise. Most students have completed their stories.
Primary students are creating their avatars and uploading them onto their blogs. Personal pursuits
Taught a class of students in New Brunswick, Canada, from the comfort of my own home
Participated in an online Aussie teachers get together Sunday evening nb few people look like their photos or avatars. Guess we all try and put on our best face. This was a live video conference meeting, greeting and talking.
Enjoyed using slideshare to upload ppt presentations.
Attended the first birthday party for classroom20 and offered to be a host to greet newcomers to the site.
Attended a familiarisation session at Deakin uni for an upcoming conference – “Challenge and change: Re-imagining your role in the digital age!”
3 hrs online training using elluminate as a presenter
Presented an online session “We have a very big backyard”, using elluminate, for
Knowledge Bank online. Despite several technical glitches,this took place Tue afternoon after school
Parents as partners
During parent teacher interviews, parents were shown their student’s blogs. As the day progressed students brought in their parents to show off their blogs. Parents became voluntarily involved proofreading, helping their students add to their work and offering ideas for improvement. Getting staff on board web2.0
The teaching and learning session after school, discussed incorporating blogging and other web2.0 tools into specialist subjects areas. Other Notable events Heather Blakey returned to our school for a day this week to work primarily with the other staff who are now interested in blogging. As a result, grade 6 have a class page, as well as personal blogs. Student blog of the week.
This blog is belongs to a grade 6 student, who uses her blog voluntarily as a journal. There are pages for her school stories and school work and an avatar and voki have been successfully completed. Well done Skippy!
Years 9/10 and year 8 (Grade 6 instructions are below)
Complete making your avatar. Goto irfanview and ensure that the avatar is a small size (380 wide). Goto options>blog avatar>browse for your avatar file>upload and crop image. Goto users>avatar>browse for avatar file>upload and crop image. Then ensure that you have an avatar widget in presentation. If not grab the widget and drop into your sidebar and save.
You need to complete two posts today.
Post no 1My avatar.
Follow the instructions at the bottom of this post. (Click on the link to read what to do)
Post no2eSafety
Do you feel safe blogging in our school? If so, why and what precautions have you taken to ensure that you are safe.
Design a cartoon to show an aspect of cybersafety and insert the cartoon image into your blog. Possible cartoon design sites can be found at http://ejourneys.wikispaces.com/cartoons
If time permits, commence creating an animation using powerpoint or other software.
Grade 6 You are to create an avatar in MS Paint. Follow instructions above to add to your blog. Then choose some of the work you are doing in English to add as a post to your blog. Add a clipart picture or a picture you drew in paint. Write a post on a topic of your choice.
If you have any problems, add a comment below and send to me.
It is just on 7 months ago, the students and I, under Heather Blakey’s tutelage, commenced our classroom backyard blog.
Yesterday, I was priveleged to present an online in-service to interested staff in Victoria. Elluminate was the software used, and this allowed audio interaction, application sharing and other collaborative work. My presentation, outlining our journey with blogging, commencing with our classroom backyard blog is shared with you in the slideshare below.
Please note that some schools may have the slideshare site blocked.
hard at establishing a social network. She has made so many comments on other global student blogs, and the red dots are finally appearing on her cluster map! She has also completed all tasks that have been set her.
