Room Nine

electricity.

When I first started, way back in 2009, even then Room 9′s blog was for the students to use rather than just the teacher. It’s use was to be for the students to show how well they understood the Inquiry Process, which was a focus for our school under a Ministry of Ed. ICT -Prof. Dev. contract to encourage the use of ICT, thinking skills and Inquiry Learning. So right from day 1 I provided each student with their own blog under the Room 9 umbrella! That required a fair bit of persistence on my part as the whole site admin structure was a bit of a mystery in the beginning, especially trying to create users and then links so that I could display a class roll. The distinction between users and links took a while to crystalise. The came the part where, after just posting information, we wanted to post pictures as well. Our network’s ISP only provided minimal upload file size so we had to renegotiate the contract which worked in our favour in the end. Then we discovered You Tube!! Wow! Powerful stuff for learning. Learning how to embed videos became de riguer. Later I needed to be able to keep track of what each student was doing so I learnt how to use RSS feeds to find out and comment on their work.

As far as Inquiry goes the students have to choose a topic related the class one. For instance this term we are studying Mayflies, so each student has to choose another invertebrate to study on their own like: Dobson Flies, Caddis Flies or Stone Flies. They have to follow the same Inquiry Process that we are using in class to study Mayflies, but on their own.

The students really enjoy being in charge of their own blog. They get time in class to do it, but many choose to do some at home as well. Parents are encouraged to comment as well as me.

Ruary

I joined this because I have set up blogs for my students over the past two years and found it useful in encouraging them to do their own study related to the class study – this term Mayflies. However, I want to learn more about the potential of blogs to help students learn how to learn independently. At present the part that I have struggled with is managing my personal time so that I can do the activities and not get behind. I started the TC Blogging for teachers but got lost in the slough of despond when I got behind. I am DETERMINED to kepp up this time!

This blog Fresh Flowers had an amazing video about the development of the wealth and health of the world over the last 2oo years.

This blog The Groovy Librarian had some interesting videos about how to use video in the classroom using a free editing too called Jaycut.

The last Blog Book Frontiers has useful instructional videos about how to use media in the classroom.

I read Vanessa Jenkins‘ blog about using Digital Cameras in the classroom.

I like the fact that it is a picture rather than text right at the start. Pictures tell a lot. They also provide colour which is a releif from lots of text. It was good to have all the links within the text as it meant that you could get the picture straight away and go back to the particular details later if you wanted to.

Effective posts posts need:

1. A good title to hook you in.
2. Short paragraphs that get to the point and that break up the “wall” of text.
3. They have to be interesting i.e. communicate something of interest to the reader fairly smartly.
4. You have to feel that the blogger knows what they are talking about so that what they are saying is worthwhile.
5. The first sentence has to give a good idea of what the big picture is. Then the detail will follow to back it all up.

Activity 1 Post in Wordle

Well, I managed to do this activity after a lot of fiddling around and help from my mentor and Edublogs.

Battle of Orakau 1864

The above picture was one that I used on the Room 9 Blog when we were studying the New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s.

1. When did you start?

I  started back in 2008 when Admin was part of an ICT-PD Contract here in the Waikato in new Zealand. He actually started off  with BlogSpot at a course in Rotorua.

2. Why did you choose Edublogs?

Our contract faciliatator Donna, encouraged us to have a go at Edublogs because it was more user friendly for schools.

3. How did you start off/

I just started with one blog and experimented with putting up posts and publishing them. Quite exciting to see the first post on line.

4. Did you post pictures then?

Not at the start, but down the track we need to illustrate the topic that the students were studying in class.

5. What issues did you have with pictures/photos.

We had to learn how to use Windows Picture Manager to resize the pictures so that the blog would accept them readily. Also our internet security server had a low upload setting so we had to get them to allow bigger monthly allocations.

6.  What made you decide to allow students to have individual blogs under the Room 9 parent blog.

It was really to allow all the students to have a go themselves. I think that the sense of ownership and the fact that Edublogs provide a great range of themes and tools so that students can really personalise their blog, makes them keen to have ago.

7. How did you supervise what was being posted?

I subscribed to Google Reader so that at home I could log in to Reader and go to each of the students posts and leave a comment. Great tool!

8. What makes it a powerful learning tool?

Really, students choosing their own topic related to the class topic, and using the inquiry approach to guide the sequence of posts meant that the blog had a serious purpose, so the students took it seriously.

9. Were the students’ blogs assessed?

Yes we had a go at using the comment boxes as a place for admin to provide an on-line assessment of the topic as posted on the blog.

10. What was the most exciting thing for students?

I think probably embedding YouTube videos about their topic made learning come alive – literally – for the students.

11. Were students able to share their blogs?

Yes we had a time each day where two students where able to show the rest of the class their blog and answer questions about their topic.

12. What is the next step?

The next step is to get students viewing and commenting on other students’ blogs and encouraging their parents to do the same.