My Stuff

I have spent most of this afternoon trying to show my husband how to use Facebookwhich is similar to My Space, Bebo etc but apparently for the ahem… more mature person, or so I’m told! As I guided him through the process of uploading photos, filling in profiles, etc. it occurred to me that what those of us who are interested in blogging, ICT, podcasts and so on do naturally and intuitively can be challenging even for those who use `’technology`’ everyday. It is a different way of using it and is one which produces tremendous results and enthusiasm for both staff and children alike. This can be a steep learning curve for us as teachers and yet one which children embrace easily. We, as educators, have to remind ourselves that it is to enhance the children’s education when we are struggling at 2 am to figure out just how to make the video link work or the photos to upload. I guess what I am trying to say is that it we should stick at it because it is worth it. When I start my new job in August that is what I’m going to be saying to my staff when I ask them to come out their comfort zone and give new technologies a try.

Today we were unable to see any of the comments that had been left on our school blog because websense had decided to block it. There was my P5 class desperate to see what comments had been posted about their podcast and it was blocked! We couldn’t read the comments on some of the other Blogger sites either. It can be really frustrating but at least our authority is allowing us to access these things – usually! – unlike some authorities. I am hoping this is just a temporary glitch and have been on to Gordon to see what he can do to help.

The other issue for us presently is the older machines with OS9 are really struggling to cope with all the things we are asking them to do and, as usual, we haven’t got enough money. I think we are going to end up with one machine capable of running GLOW in the classroom, one old one (which will connect to the internet) and some laptops. I have a boss who is really into ICT and keen to support it all she can but when it comes down to a choice between computers and Maths Workbooks you can guess which wins hands down – and I’m not sure I think that is necessarily wrong. Especially with money so tight. We are just keeping our fingers crossed that when our refresh rolls around in March we will have been found some more funds.

Last night after much tinkering and pushing myself way out of my comfort/understanding zone I managed to embed my Primary 5 French podcast within my school blog – success!! This might not seem like a huge achievement to some of you bloggers out there, but to me it is another learning leap! Of course I had to do the actually posting at home as I couldn’t upload it within the school network, but I can listen to it in within the school network which is great. The kids are well impressed with how it/they sound and this is just another motivation for them. They love the idea of “real French people listening to them speak French”! Check it out for yourselves!
It really makes me think about the tools for collaboration and sharing that will be available within Glow. Having had access to the GLOW pilot, I was impressed with the GLOW groups and the functionality of them but must confess to getting a bit lost when trying to get anyone to join my group – Pam no pals here! I would really like to have seen the interface the children were viewing to give me a better understanding of how it all works for them so hopefully there will be that opportunity in the next round of the pilot.

So what have I been up to over the last few weeks? Basically, teaching! I have been trying to get on to Glow and look at the pilot but I managed to lock myself out – entirely my fault as I use the wrong password the magic three times in a row before I looked at my old-fashioned piece of paper in my diary where I have written it down!! I have managed to reset this, but I have not been able to explore this as much as I would have liked due to covering staff absence. What I have looked at very briefly seems to me to need more time to inspect, play about with, understand… comments, please!

I am really interested in how other authorities are planning to take this forward at “chalkface” level. How are they going to get staff onboard with all these new tools? Are they going to cascade it at a cluster level, area, etc? I fully expect there to be a number of staff who see the potential and will dive in and experiment right away (thank goodness!) but what about the other who need a bit more hand holding before they get on board. How are you going to support them? It is definitely an exciting time!

It feels like ages since I was blogging – and I suppose it was. What is my excuse? The usual! I am not going to feel guilty though, as this is a personal blog and supposed to be a pleasurable experience.
I have spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of weeks getting Inchinnan Primary School News 1 (hence the catchy blog title!!) off the ground, but I have to confess to allowing myself to get bogged down by covering classes and it has taken a lot longer than anticipated to get up and running. Imagine my frustration tonight when I couldn’t upload it to the website!! (Has anyone else in run into this Quicktime version/OS 10.3.9 issue when viewing videos through the school network?) Anyway, it has finally been finished to the pupils’ satisfaction – although the sound is not the best (can anyone recommend a good mike to connect directly to a Canon video camera?) – but the most important thing is the children are immensly proud of it, as they should be, and the next team are raring to go. Hopefully, this team will complete the task within the alloted time! Check it out on our school website!

I have neglected my own blog over the past week mainly because I have been so busy pushing on with all my great inspirational ideas from SETT. Our school website is beginning to take shape with lots of great suggestions from the staff about how to give the children ownership of their class pages. I spent another productive afternoon with Susan working on our school blogs and on Thursday morning my Primary 5s were so excited to find they had 36 comments! Their enthusiasm was fantastic to see and I was particularly impressed to find some had gone home and got big brothers/sisters who are now at High School or in P6/7 to leave a comment. It really gave them an audience and they were so motivated. They couldn’t wait to go and leave comments on Kirklandneuk’s blog. The standard of their written French after only 7 weeks is just staggering! They insisted that I showed them how to add the accents because “it wasn’t right to miss them out, French people wouldn’t!” and they posted really full comments. What a motivator!
I have also begun gathering photos and information from each class for our first edition of Inchinnan Newscast which we will be filming, editing and, fingers crossed, posting on Wednesday, 25th October. This should be a great challenge for the children and I hope they will get loads out of it. I will post details when it is complete.
Enjoy your holidays all those teachers out there!

I had a meeting today with Susan Ronnie from Kirlandneuk PS about setting up our French blog between the two schools. It is great to be involved in this kind of collaboration and we both feel it will really benefit the children. Susan had found a great French podcast which she had encouraged her P5 French class to download and listen to on their mp3 players. The children loved this idea and were highly motivated to complete their homework!! Those who didn’t have an mp3 player were able to listen to it online.
So here we are, two enthusiastic Primary teachers with no real ICT training, apart from (me) a PostGrad in Educational Computing 8 years ago, really excited about setting up this new technology but the stumbling block for us is the understanding of how this new technology works and about html language, RSS feeds, tags, etc. It is a steep learning curve but one we feel really worth while. At least both of us can follow instructions from the help menus – just don’t ask us to repeat it on our own! We have set ourselves the task of linking our blog to Bubbleshare with pictures and audio this week and are meeting again next week to compare notes. Hey, we are nothing if not ambitious!! So please bear with us as we muddle our way through and thanks to all who have been leaving us comments.

My Primary 5 class have just posted their first ever blog at Inchinnan Primary School and are feeling highly motivated and excited about it. This is a plea to all you educators out their to please leave a comment to keep their excitement going. Thanking-you all in advance!!

I have just arrived back from our Primary ICT Co-ordinators meeting, put the kids to bed, have hubby cooking dinner (yes I do know how lucky I am!) and thought I should use this window to blog my thoughts on tonights meeting.
The presentation from Paul Smyth of RM on Glow gave me a feel for all the possibilities that Glow should create. I am particularly excited about the collaborative tools to help, as Paul said, teachers always reinventing the wheel which is a bug bear of mine! However, I do still have concerns regarding two things.
Firstly, parents coming online with this. I am not sure how far I want to go with shared information about everything. Teaching challenging pupils can be a hard enough job without being attacked (metaphorically) at every turn. As a parent myself I can see that it would be useful to have access to certain information but as my boys are not yet at school, I am unsure just how far I want to go. Those of you with kids at Secondary could maybe open my eyes more.
Secondly, I am concerned about how we are going to get on board all staff with this new technology. Of course, I’m sure there will be plenty of enthusiastic colleagues who will embrace the challenge of Glow and carry some staff along with them. But how do we get on board those who don’t “do computers”? How do we get the message to them that this will revolutionise (there’s that word again, Gordon!) the way they teach when some are quite happy with what they are doing, thank-you very much. I suppose a little at a time, showing them the benefits to their classroom, their subject, a little step at a time. Today’s mention of online report cards may be just the carrot we are looking for. Hope I’m not going negative again, it is a genuine concern for me from an authority point of view.

Well it definitely worked. I was once again inspired by all I saw at SETT. I started the day on Wednesday attending David and Ewan’s seminar which set me down the blogging path once again. I have now decided to set up a French learning blog with another local school ( Kirklandneuk ) and we are meeting up this week to go through all the technical stuff. I really took on board what they said about letting people know what is out there by advertising it so I guess this is my first attempt to do it. More on that once I have set up our blogs.
I also attended another seminar by Rob Henderson, Teacher, Hillhead Primary School, Highland which was all about his school news programme. This really excited me as I have been looking for a way to connect with my parents other than through newsletters and I think a termly video podcast is definitely the way to go. Check out Inchinnan Primary for more details soon. This linked in with another superb idea from Susan Buchanan, Principal Teacher, Woodhill Primary School where they have created a blog to engage their parents in debate about policy, etc. I can’t wait to take this to my Head Teacher and see what ideas we can come up with. This leads me back to John’s brilliant idea of advertising through posters in local shops – sometimes the simple ones are the best! A design a poster competition beckons …