Term One 2010 is Over.

Term One has drawn to a close and overall its been much more positive than the corresponding time last year. The students in the class are different, I've certainly opted to aim for more collaboration this year, that's been important. The kids have been excited by that more than anything. That's fed excitement with the blog.

Resources have played a point too. When I started I was told that I would have a digital classroom, a data projector and 12 classroom computers. Due to the fact that I have only two power points in the classroom, we had six computers last year and two never worked and no data projector. Maybe I should have kicked up a fuss earlier but its made such a difference. We've had eight computers running consistently this year. Plus the kids overall are a lot better. My school has abandoned streaming for students, which means the best kids are split amongst the five core classrooms. In the past they were all in one (non digital classroom).

Google says we've had 3,200 classroom visitors, and while this is inflated (its not unique visitors) for a start its more than acceptable. Its onwards and upwards from here. We've just started looking at adding material through teachertube and youtube and that should start driving visitors through the site. We've got a lot of momentum, last year I was a bit shy with hyping the site through third parties, I guess deep down I knew it wasn't strong and I was repeating Tamaki Today in a diluted format. Interface Magazine had a feature about Blogs and I decided to nominate myself for it, not because I believe its particularly newsworthy but thought that it would add to the traffic that is going through the site. I guess I am playing the game. Next step I want to start looking at awards that I can nominate myself for with myself and the students online work.