Today in the classroom we spent a considerable amount of time viewing the following video form Mrs Yollis's wonderful classroom site in California, USA. We are going to be looking at examples of online things that we can learn by looking at other classrooms, and Mrs Yollis has the sort of blog that you can learn so many things about. The original video which Mrs Yollis' classroom produced and we used as a guide for the lesson was this:
Let's Learn Spanish! from mrsyollis on Vimeo.
We really enjoyed watching it (and I think that Mrs Yollis and her class showed so much expression, it helped us enjoy it!). So while we had PE last block we produced this video of some of our Room 8 students speaking Spanish...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
There's no such thing as bad publicity...
I use Feedjit a lot as a way to monitor where traffic to my class page is coming from. Its not perfect, although I have to say that overall I think it provides a good free service. Its been a way of locating classroom blogs and I really believe the importance in paying dues and acknowledging sites that are promoting yours.
Its also been the source of three sites that have 'riled' me over the past three years.
The first was in 2009 from a blog in the USA. It was directly critical of the semantics emanating from my class page. I know that my language can be a bit loose at times, it always has. At first I was offended by the criticism that I read, and it was very negative. However I effectively took the bait and commented back. That's what the sites author was after and they took it upon themselves to launch a series of posts criticising the work that my students were publishing online. On behalf of the students I suppose that I took offence that someone should criticise them, and tried to stand up for them on their behalf. The funny thing was having done that, to little effect (except as I said fuelling the 'fire' of the other blogger) we had a class discussing about it. One of the students in my classroom during that discussion likened it to name calling in the classroom. They said "Mr Webb why don't you just ignore them so they get bored and go away and bother someone else?" I just sat there and had one of those moments of clarity thinking "uh-huh".
A few weeks ago I found another linking site to my class page taking the work, taking one piece of work from one of the students in my class and using that as the basis for the critique of teaching, students and the New Zealand education system. I felt it prudent not to respond in a similar vein to the point the child had made about "ignoring" them. So the other day I received this comment from the author of the same site, which was left in a form of a comment on my class page. Again as I felt it wasn't in the correct context I chose not to publish it, but felt it was worth repeating here:
As I say I believe the person leaving the comment was looking for a reaction for their site. Its taken a piece of work from an individual student, completely out of context I believe and made some assumptions, and judged a particular student for it. I know on some class sites that comments are automatically published, and possibly I could have published this, but where do we as 'gate keepers' for our site draw the line?
Did I do the right thing in choosing not to publish this comment? Has anyone else had similar experiences?
Should I have discussed this with the student concerned or the classroom? In opening our students up for the greater community by publishing it online do we take the good with the bad?
Its also been the source of three sites that have 'riled' me over the past three years.
The first was in 2009 from a blog in the USA. It was directly critical of the semantics emanating from my class page. I know that my language can be a bit loose at times, it always has. At first I was offended by the criticism that I read, and it was very negative. However I effectively took the bait and commented back. That's what the sites author was after and they took it upon themselves to launch a series of posts criticising the work that my students were publishing online. On behalf of the students I suppose that I took offence that someone should criticise them, and tried to stand up for them on their behalf. The funny thing was having done that, to little effect (except as I said fuelling the 'fire' of the other blogger) we had a class discussing about it. One of the students in my classroom during that discussion likened it to name calling in the classroom. They said "Mr Webb why don't you just ignore them so they get bored and go away and bother someone else?" I just sat there and had one of those moments of clarity thinking "uh-huh".
A few weeks ago I found another linking site to my class page taking the work, taking one piece of work from one of the students in my class and using that as the basis for the critique of teaching, students and the New Zealand education system. I felt it prudent not to respond in a similar vein to the point the child had made about "ignoring" them. So the other day I received this comment from the author of the same site, which was left in a form of a comment on my class page. Again as I felt it wasn't in the correct context I chose not to publish it, but felt it was worth repeating here:
"Is it wise to get young children all worried about things like global warming? Especially when it isn't scientifically proven. I worry that such teaching is merely going to raise a generation of neurotic overly anxious young people who have little hope for the future. It seems wrong to inflict such concerns on the young who lack the maturity to process it. Childhood should be a time of joy in learning not taking on the concerns of the adult world."
As I say I believe the person leaving the comment was looking for a reaction for their site. Its taken a piece of work from an individual student, completely out of context I believe and made some assumptions, and judged a particular student for it. I know on some class sites that comments are automatically published, and possibly I could have published this, but where do we as 'gate keepers' for our site draw the line?
Did I do the right thing in choosing not to publish this comment? Has anyone else had similar experiences?
Should I have discussed this with the student concerned or the classroom? In opening our students up for the greater community by publishing it online do we take the good with the bad?
Thinking about taking the next step
Its not going to be a surprise to anyone where I am going with this. I really can't explain to everyone how valuable I see the slideshare/powerpoint connection. I have always felt that blogging should be the publishing of the classroom work rather than separate stand only material just for the blog. By using third part uploading utility locations I think Slideshare meets that criteria. Slideshows are bog standard, I don't think you have to be particularly clever to produce them, however what I can never understand is again why students and educators seem shy about publishing them online. As a PC school they'd be one of the first and foremost things that students can produce work that's accessible on. I've seen so many "Digital Classrooms" not take the next logical step and publish online, the fact that some don't really surprises me. I have to be diplomatic about this, but anytime I don't see that I see it as a missed opportunity.
Planning Idea's Off the Cuff!
Learn to Count to 20 in Thai from myles webb on Vimeo.
Currently we have two students from Thailand in our classroom for two weeks, who are departing on Thursday. They've been learning more English while at the same time teaching our own students some Thai. This video is focussing on teaching our students to speak Thai and also there is some bonus footage of the students showing a skill that they learnt, using Rakau sticks!
This is a natural progression. We had two students who were placed with us for two weeks. Our students had to interact with them, which we did, and we also took the opportunity to produce some material that related to their stay. It allowed our students to interact with them successfully, allowed our students to produce material that I believe had an interest to others, and allowed the students to have meaning through their work. Was it the best produced video ever? No! Were the students the most confident, no not really, but did they achieve something with what occurred. Yes. I have always said that by FAR the most popular thing that students in my classrooms have authored has been the "Learn to Speak [Samoan]" series of lessons. Its something that I am sure must exist somewhere else in some format produced by educators but I haven't seen it. Perhaps I'm missing something but I would love to see 'Learn to Speak Spanish' or 'Learn to Speak French' (actually I have seen a rip off of my idea by someone who told me that yes that's exactly what they are doing I couldn't believe the awful quality of it to be honest). I don't understand why educators don't take the plunge and do it. It would a) be easy to produce and straightforward b) it would bring in an audience not only as part of school work but a wider educational audience [google searches] c) the kids would get a huge thrill out of it as it would empower them by involving their culture!
Friday, May 7, 2010
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