Week 4

Digital Movie Making this week was a slight disaster. We recorded our movie, which went quite well and no tecnical issues while recording. There was a slight issue that our seismometer didn't work, but this is something that we will reflect upon on our video. This week we were supposed to be editting. But this did not happen. This was due to there being a compatibility issue between the iphone and windows movie maker. We had to change the format of the videos, but we did not have the appropriate software, nor did we have the skills to do this. As a teacher, this shows me the importance of checking software before teaching a class and being able to ensure that it should work. It also stresses to me that there should always be a back-up plan when taking an IT lesson. As a group, we scapped the editting for this week, due to insufficient knowledge and moved on to create a wikispace.

 The wikispace is used to hold information and share with other people. We used our wikispace to discuss information we found out about Earthquakes in our research. (Our wikispace can be accessed here.) This was an easy process to do collaboratively and something I would use within a classroom. Pupils could either work together on the whole thing, or can be assigned a page each to work on. As long as pupils have the link and the log-in details, they can edit the pages. Wikispaces can be both public and private. I would advise private stuff to be used within a classroom until moderated by a teacher.


Also this week, we looked at storybird. Mel and myself collaborated together to create a story. This was a great tool and something that I would use with younger children as well as older children. Using it with older children, I would ask them to write a story to perhaps use with a younger pupil for paired reading etc.

Paired reading is a fantastic way to help pupils read in school. Although some pupils believe that the younger pupils are the only ones that learn from paired reading. I believe this is not the case.  I would allow younger pupils, including nursery to just experiment with the tools. I would try and encourage them to add text, but if focusing on nursery, I would not put emphasis on this and would be very pleased with just the connect between text in stories. This would be a sign of emergent writing. If pupils are making the connection that stories have both images and texts, then they are beginning to develop their knowledge and understanding of story books.

I think pupils would find storybird fun and exciting and a good collaborative process. I think the advantages would include being easy to use and it helps collaboration between pupils. A disadvantage would be any one can edit the wiki, unless it is set to private. Another blogger has evaluated wikispaces.


This week, I bought a blackberry. I was torn between an iPhone and a Blackberry but due to pricing, I chose the Blackberry. Next week I intend on evaluating the blackberry (providing I have figured out how to use it!) and reflect upon the educational values on the Blackberry.

Blogging - What is it?

So, What is Blogging?

Well.... Cambridge Dictionary states that a blog is "a diary (= regular record of your thoughts, opinions and experiences) that you put on the Internet for others to read and which often contains links (= words or pictures that connect to other places on the Internet)".  I fully agree with this. Whether people blog for educational purposes (like myself) or whether they want to share what they have been upto, it is all a way of sharing things on the internet with other people.

We learn from others, but this does not necessarily mean that we have to be face to face with people to learn from them. We can learn from their thoughts, opinions and perhaps research that they place online. BBC reported 3 years ago that blogging was starting to be used for academic purposes. It is another communication tool between lecturers and students, but I feel this can be used within a classroom as well. A blog can be set up by the teacher that directs perhaps tasks or homework that the pupils are to feedback usign comments. The only issue I see with this, is that they do not use it in the correct way. A lesson would be needed to teach the pupils what is meant to go in a blog and perhaps how the class is using it, if in a different way from others. I would make the pupils aware that anyone can see this, and in this case I would tell them not to put their name on their posts. Although pages can be made private, I would prefer to not have an issue arising.


Although I would use blogging for educational purposes, I think pupils would need to be aware that blogging can be used for personal purposes also. Pupils need to be taught how to do this safely and that this should be shared with parents. I feel that blogging should be shared with parents, both for academic and personal purposes. Parents should be able to be a part of the child's learning.

At university, we communicate with our tutor/lecturers in a variety of ways. (Email, Blogger.com, facebook, blackboard etc. ) Email is good for communicating quickly but I feel that blogger is much better for giving my views and opinions about education.

I believe blogging is good both educationally and personally, and is a good tool for both reflecting and learning from.