Myst V – first week finished

I thought it would be of interest to post my thoughts, conclusions and also comments from my class after our first week of exploring and using Myst in our classroom. 

I had my initial doubts whether the use of the game as a teaching and learning tool would be suitable for a class of children who have Spanish as a first language but after playing with the game I decided it would be a wonderful opportunity for developing speaking and listening skills. My thoughts were proved correct as the game has brought so much conversation into the class and with it more descriptive and interesting language.

Myst V – Day 3

The excitement and anticipation that this game has brought to my class is truly an inspiration. Before we had even gotten into the classroom children were asking me when we were going to do Literacy. It’s become their favourite subject with no exceptions.

I set up two chairs for hot seats and asked the class to recap on yesterday’s events. I use hot seats in the way wrestlers use their partners – children can tag others to get into the seat to talk and since we started using Myst everyone wants to talk. It’s a busy 5 minutes and the conversation is wonderful; I will have to record one session for you to listen to so you can experience the intensity of discussion.

Edmodo part 2

We’re into our 2nd week of using Edmodo and the enthusiasm for it is growing. I posted a ’secret assignment’ for over the holiday weekend and the response was good considering quite a lot of the class travelled away from home and access to a computer.

The idea was born out of the Telescopic Text activity from Mark Warner’s brilliant site Ideas to Inspire, and which we tried out in class a few days previously. I typed up the task in Word then uploaded it to Edmodo, set the due date on the calendar and sent a message to all the group about the assignment. I focused the activity on the use of descriptive language, creating effect and correct punctuation. And for a class of second language learners it’s a perfect exercise for perfecting their grammar.

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Edmodo

A few weeks back I was in England for an teaching post interview which I got. During the interview and my time there I had a long chat with the teacher leading ICT and found out about VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). I only had a vague idea what these were so on my return I delved into finding out as much as I could about them.

Edmodo was one webtool I came across and I’m so happy I did. It’s described as a free private microblogging platform used in Education by teachers and students similar to Twitter.

I have a class of 24 children, most are 10 years old and all are very inquisitive about technology especially this year since our school installed IWB’s in every classroom. I created an account on Edmodo and then set up my class as a group, giving them a very simple password to begin with so they they could change it later. I showed the class around the tool and described what they would be using it for and the reactions were fantastic. Everyone wanted to get home to do their homework! That was a first.

Edmodo gives you the ability to set up assignments and have your students complete them and turn them in for grading. My first assignment is due on Monday 4th May so I’ll let you know the response to that. So far one student has sent me her work and I have corrected it for her to edit and improve, which she has done.

The children use the site as a place to find out links to their assignments from me and each other and they have told me they find it very useful being able to chat to each other for help. Here are a few of their comments about Edmodo.

‘I like the way I can talk with someone and ask them for help if I need it’, ‘I like putting links and files to help my friends do their work’, ‘My parents love the calendar so they can find out when I have do my homework’,

and perhaps my favourite ‘My homework is better now and I like doing it more’.

Edmodo has been described by it’s creator Jeff O’Hara as not exactly being a VLE as such but it’s a brilliant tool which I and my class will continue using for the rest of this term. You can listen to a discussion about VLE’s and Edmodo here.