Bailey Road Team 17 - A Classblog in New Zealand
What I would like to present to you here is a classroom blog I found on the internet during my research. The class 6 is from New Zealand (Bailey Road School in Mt. Wellington) and has a blog in order to show their progress and what they are doing at school to their parents and/or friends. Most of the posts are created by the students and only a few are created by the teacher Mr. Wood. It was actually his idea to start blogging and it seems to be very successful.
Click here to get to the class blog.
You can see that the students use different tools, e.g. do they include pictures as well as self-made videos. They write texts or scan posters they have created and upload them. The class does not only post results of their learning (content), but also fun stuff such as reports about excursions for example. The reader can always see when the post was created and by whom. Mr. Wood is the administrator who also controls comments that students or visitors of the blog want to write.
Click here to get to the class blog.
You can see that the students use different tools, e.g. do they include pictures as well as self-made videos. They write texts or scan posters they have created and upload them. The class does not only post results of their learning (content), but also fun stuff such as reports about excursions for example. The reader can always see when the post was created and by whom. Mr. Wood is the administrator who also controls comments that students or visitors of the blog want to write.
More...
Visitors Worldwide
The different posts can always be connected to Twitter or Facebook (there are little links in the lower right corner of an entry). Furthermore, it is quite easy for visitors to understand the structure of the blog as there is a blog archive which gives an overview over what has been posted in January, February, March and so on.
On the right side there are also other elements visible such as a visitor map which clearly shows that this classblog has been viewed by people all over the world.
On the right side there are also other elements visible such as a visitor map which clearly shows that this classblog has been viewed by people all over the world.
News
Nominated for an Award
The latest update is that this class blog was nominated for the 2010 Edublog’s “Best Class Blog” award which is quite good!! If you are on the blog and click on the picture which is shown on the right, you get to the Edublog Award Webpage which lists all of the blogs that have been nominated.
I personally like the idea of having a class blog as a kind of diary in order to show parents and friends what the students have done and worked on recently. It should include content of teaching as well as projects or excursions that have taken place outside the classroom. Students are motivated as it is an “open” page that can be viewed by many people and they get feedback from all over the world, as, for example, from me a couple of weeks ago.
I personally like the idea of having a class blog as a kind of diary in order to show parents and friends what the students have done and worked on recently. It should include content of teaching as well as projects or excursions that have taken place outside the classroom. Students are motivated as it is an “open” page that can be viewed by many people and they get feedback from all over the world, as, for example, from me a couple of weeks ago.
Interview with the Class and the Teacher...
The students answered the first part of my questions in their blog...
I wanted to know a couple of things from the students and from the teacher Mr. Wood and that is why I decided to ask them a few questions. I sent an email to New Zealand and here are the questions and answers.
This is how the students started the blog post about my questions which you can see in the picture on the left:
"Today we got a question from a university student in Germany who wants to use our blog as an example to show her teacher. She had some questions for us and we answered her in this blog."
This is how the students started the blog post about my questions which you can see in the picture on the left:
"Today we got a question from a university student in Germany who wants to use our blog as an example to show her teacher. She had some questions for us and we answered her in this blog."
How old are you guys?
We are 10 and 11 years old.
How often do you use new media at home and what?
Some of us use Facebook at home almost every day. Others only get to go on the weekends.
When did you start blogging?
We started blogging in the beginning of the year. We first had just a class blog that we all added to. Now we also have our own blogs.
Is Mr. Wood the first teacher for you to work with new media? Yes
Why did you start blogging?
We wanted to learn more about the internet and e-learning. We are also able to share our writing and learning with our families and the world.
Do you like blogging?
Yes!!!!We do like blogging it's really awesome, we love writing our own blog. And we love reading and commenting on other class blogs. We really like getting comments.
How do you use it?
Our teacher (Mr. Wood) made us our own personal blogs and the class so we just log in and write a blog post about our learning or our own interests. We always put something about what we are learning each week on the class blog.
With what kinds of new media do you work (most?)? [I just know things like Skype, Twitter, Blogs, Weebly, Wordle (check that by the way!! Look at my page), PiratePad, YouTube… It would be cool to have an overview over what you have used, what you did with the tool and so on.
Blogger: for class blog.
KidBlog: for student blogs.
Wiki: for class website and projects.
Windows Movie Maker: we use movie maker for podcasts and we made digital stories.
Audacity: for recording things.
Vocaroo: recording things.
WallWisher: a place you can write anything you want on the wall, we sometime write about what we learnt.
VoiceThread: to record our voices talking about pictures of a topic.
PhotoPeach: to make cool slideshows with quizzes.
Skype: to talk to other schools all around the world.
Wordle: to mix up words.
Podcasts: to tell other people our news.
PowerPoint: to make slide-shows.
What do you not like about blogging?
We don't like it when we write a whole big paragraph and when we write the same thing on the blog it looks really short.
Will you continue blogging when you are older?
Most of us promise we'll keep blogging.
And for you, Mr. Wood: What are your experiences?
I love using new media for learning. It is real and engaging for the students and they have become more aware of a global audience who will comment on their learning. Below is an example of a transliteracy unit we did earlier this year.
http://inanimatealice-aperspective.wikispaces.com/
Do you still use traditional methods?
Yes, every day.
We are 10 and 11 years old.
How often do you use new media at home and what?
Some of us use Facebook at home almost every day. Others only get to go on the weekends.
When did you start blogging?
We started blogging in the beginning of the year. We first had just a class blog that we all added to. Now we also have our own blogs.
Is Mr. Wood the first teacher for you to work with new media? Yes
Why did you start blogging?
We wanted to learn more about the internet and e-learning. We are also able to share our writing and learning with our families and the world.
Do you like blogging?
Yes!!!!We do like blogging it's really awesome, we love writing our own blog. And we love reading and commenting on other class blogs. We really like getting comments.
How do you use it?
Our teacher (Mr. Wood) made us our own personal blogs and the class so we just log in and write a blog post about our learning or our own interests. We always put something about what we are learning each week on the class blog.
With what kinds of new media do you work (most?)? [I just know things like Skype, Twitter, Blogs, Weebly, Wordle (check that by the way!! Look at my page), PiratePad, YouTube… It would be cool to have an overview over what you have used, what you did with the tool and so on.
Blogger: for class blog.
KidBlog: for student blogs.
Wiki: for class website and projects.
Windows Movie Maker: we use movie maker for podcasts and we made digital stories.
Audacity: for recording things.
Vocaroo: recording things.
WallWisher: a place you can write anything you want on the wall, we sometime write about what we learnt.
VoiceThread: to record our voices talking about pictures of a topic.
PhotoPeach: to make cool slideshows with quizzes.
Skype: to talk to other schools all around the world.
Wordle: to mix up words.
Podcasts: to tell other people our news.
PowerPoint: to make slide-shows.
What do you not like about blogging?
We don't like it when we write a whole big paragraph and when we write the same thing on the blog it looks really short.
Will you continue blogging when you are older?
Most of us promise we'll keep blogging.
And for you, Mr. Wood: What are your experiences?
I love using new media for learning. It is real and engaging for the students and they have become more aware of a global audience who will comment on their learning. Below is an example of a transliteracy unit we did earlier this year.
http://inanimatealice-aperspective.wikispaces.com/
Do you still use traditional methods?
Yes, every day.
I think it becomes clear that there are classes which already use new media to a larger extent than we are used to. The students have fun and blogging seems to be a motivating activity. What I especially like is that this class seems to realize my idea of using Skype in order to talk to people around the world and other classes.It seems to me that, for these pupils, using new media is an ordinary thing. Amazing! Nevertheless, the teacher said that they still use traditional methods as well which supports my personal opinion of combining old and new.
I recommend looking at the Edublog Awards page if you want to have a look at many different blogs in addition. It is quite cool that this class, which is still quite young, uses tools we got to know in class and even uses tools we do not know yet.
If I am more familiar with new media and more professional regarding the realization of a blog, I will probably integrate such a blog in some of my classes in the future. As you can see on the internet, blogging seems to be an ordinary activity for many classes already.
Last but not least: I would like to thank Mr. Wood and his students for answering my questions!
I recommend looking at the Edublog Awards page if you want to have a look at many different blogs in addition. It is quite cool that this class, which is still quite young, uses tools we got to know in class and even uses tools we do not know yet.
If I am more familiar with new media and more professional regarding the realization of a blog, I will probably integrate such a blog in some of my classes in the future. As you can see on the internet, blogging seems to be an ordinary activity for many classes already.
Last but not least: I would like to thank Mr. Wood and his students for answering my questions!
Some Extracts from the Classblog
Current top of blog - The nomination is the latest news
Blog Archive
Blog Post about Kayaking (with video)
added: December 14, 2010
