Miss W. and her Smartboard

Been back at work now for two days.  Mentioned to the students about blogging and using lots of different technologies in the room - their responses ranged from looks of boredom in having to use the computer and oohs and aahs about having a world wide audience look at their work.

 The Smartboard has not been installed yet, so my lessons on Internet safety that I had put together with Ros will have to wait a few days. But this does allow time for discussions about what the students already know.  I decided to use a lot of the cartoon clips from Cyberquoll which was developed by the Australian government.  Some great worksheets and follow up activities including storyboarding - I’ll see what the students come up with as a way to create a video.

A very wide range of ability levels in my class this year - I was about to give away some of my teacher reference books for lower ability and younger students but I have had to drag them out again to use this year. The students have worked well for two days - been helpful towards each other, polite and courteous, a few chatterers but overall a great start to their year.

I spoke to the principal about using blogs in the room and as long as I had parent permission, separate from the school’s computer user agreement, then it was OK for me to use them.  Some other teachers have asked me about blogging and will be interested in the way students use them and the difference in their attitude towards writing this year. I gave the students a brief introduction to our blog pages just before I gave them the notice they would have to bring back to class; their keenness is shown in that I have had 20 replies to my blogging notice, while only seven replies are back about school computer use.

My niece and nephew spent a day setting up the classroom last week.  They do this every year and it only costs me a bit of money and lunch at the “Golden Arches”. Desks and chairs are set up, posters and pictures put up around the walls of the room, card kits used in the room are sorted into the correct order and all the teacher equipment for the five grade 6/7 classes are sorted and sent to the teachers’ rooms - blu tac, scissors, cardboard, pens, textas etc. Those necessities for everyday life in the classroom.

As part of our agreement with the Education Department we have to do professional development for at least one day before school goes back.  This year there is a big push on using the “First Steps” program which originated in Western Australia nearly 20 years ago.  It has been updated and revised and is a great program for reading and writing.  We looked at the writing program in our PD day and it reminded me of my years teaching in the primary school - charts in the room, creating word lists, describing the steps for writing a great piece of work - then I looked around my middle school class - there were the charts and the steps for good spelling and writing.  Once a primary teacher, always a primary teacher!! Despite having taught through to grade 9, I always have charts and posters on the walls of my room.

My big question for today is  ….  Do I create

 a single classroom blog where all students can create posts and make comments with me as moderator?

or

 one blog for each student  linked to my blog but where I have admin moderation control over each student blog?

Can I create these by using edublogs or do I need to do it in learnerblogs?  I have looked in the forums at edublogs and the responses are so confusing.  Would it be easier with classblogmeister or 21classes ?

Teachers who blog with their students - do you have one class blog or a separate blog for each student attached to a general class blog?

I have about one week left to get myself ready to start with blogging with the students in my new class for 2008.

Well, Friday is the day.  I am heading to visit Ros, who is going to help me design some lessons for my Smartboard to use with my new class when we get back to school.  Yesterday and today, I visited many websites and blogs that already have lessons to use and hints for writing lessons using Notebook software. 

 My first lesson is going to be about Internet safety  and I would love to embed some videos or podcasts into my lesson.  I visited the website where Faux Paw shows students how to be safe on the internet .  Perhaps my students could design a wiki about Internet Safety.  Or they could produce something similar to a Voicethread program I saw on creating new American Holidays but use different rules for being internet safe.

I don’t know what these students already know about being internet safe or how often they use the computer both at school or outside of school, so perhaps a survey would also be interesting to organize. 

WOW!! This is going to be so much more interesting than photocopied sheets or standing in front of the class and lecturing.

Well, it is less than a month before I am back teaching.  A new class of grade 6/7 students - what computer and internet skills will they have? What social skills have they developed for small group work?  Using the Smartboard is going to be more new skills to learn.  What about those other teachers and students who come into OUR room to use OUR Smartboard?  Will they also have the same thoughts about keeping a room clean and tidy and looking after equipment in someone else’s room?

I know there are some teachers who have used Smartboards in their previous schools and because the one in my room will be there permanently with the data projector hanging from the ceiling, those teachers will also want to use it for their classes.  Each teacher has their own laptop provided by the Education Department but will it be more efficient to have all our Smartboard lessons stored in one area of the school’s server? 

Last year I used to mention when the Smartboard was being set up in my room for the day and teachers could come and ask to use the room at a time when I could take my class out for a different lesson.  This worked well but now with it up permanently, there will be no wasting of time setting it up and packing it away each lesson.  I am sure  other teachers will start wanting some lessons on how they can use the Smartboard with their classes. Will I need to organize a booking sheet for using the Smartboard?

How does it work in your school?  Remember, we only have the one Smartboard for grades 6-10, about 350 students in 13 home groups.