2012 has been a great year for Vardon. Both staff and children have trialed different e-learning tools and have become more able in their IT skills but also their understanding of the pedagogy behind using ICT to support and enhance existing classroom programmes, and for the children - their understanding of how to increase and enhance their learning. Children are actually understanding why they are using tools, such as voicethread, their blogs and the purpose of using these tools.
For me it's about ensuring that I have a purpose for what I am doing when teaching/incorporating e-learning/ICT into my teaching - which is how we think about teaching maths, writing,etc. When I plan for any unit of work or a one off lesson i am thinking of the best tool to use to suit the purpose of what I am trying to achieve, or what I want my class to achieve.
This term I have being using a class twitter account for my class to collaborate with others, improve their writing skills and to also learn about other schools.
I first started with a whole class "tweet" session and this worked well. Most of my class were engaged for the whole 40 minutes. The second time we tweeted I was in the ICT suite so I set up the four library computers and had four chn tweeting. WOW! It worked so well! They were so excited about the amount of tweets coming through and were "hooked" into what they were doing!
Using twitter in the classroom has really motivated chn to write and connect with others. I am definitely continuing this next year!
I have passed on more ownership to my learners and encouraged them to ask me to create new learning using a variety of tools. This is slowing growing and going well. I have chn ask regularly to make a puppetpals to make a movie (an example - on how to make ice-cream- therefore linked to learning) or ask to create an animoto to show their learning of swimming at swimsafe.
I have begun to train my Year 3's so they can take the reins next year.They have been excited to take these lead roles and I'm sure that will continue into 2013!
With our purchase of three new iPads I would like to explore the use of these within our existing classroom programmes. Our iPods have worked really well and have engaged the children who have been using them. I need to ensure all children have equal access to using them and that they are using them in a meaningful way and to also increase their learning capability.
This article http://www.vln.school.nz/pages/revision/122278 is where I will start my learning journey in exploring the use of Ipads within a classroom programme. I will track my journey here on my blog and would really appreciate your comments and questions to guide and challenge me along the way!
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