Using Wallwisher - an online notice board!

I had a lot of fun trying out Wallwisher.com with my classes today. Wallwisher is an online notice board where everyone can contribute at the same time. First I started with the Grade 2s and asked them to write down what they remembered about their weather theme. Next I asked the Grade 6Bs to write some story starters. The Grade 3's recalled interesting things they have learnt about dinosaurs. After that I asked the Grade 6Gs to write down some of their memories of the world cup. Oooh, I love exploring with Web 2.0!

Here are the links to the walls:
Weather (Grade 2): http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/fiona-weather
Storystarters (Grade 6) http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/fiona-6Bstorystarter
Dinosaurs (Grade 3): http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/grade3ginosaurs
Refections of the Fifa Soccer World Cup (Grade 6): http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/fiona-6Gcountries

Skyping with Bob Greenberg from the USA

Today I had a Skype video chat with one of my PLN (Personal Learning Network) colleagues from the USA. His name is Bob Greenberg. He likes to interview teachers from around the workld for his ONE World: Ready. Set, Skype series. What he does is he takes snippets of what they say and makes an ONLINE VIDEO with these snippets. Here are the links to his Parts 1 - 3 videos:
Part 1 http://got.im/KAy
Part 2 http://got.im/nBy
Part 3 http://got.im/Nxz
He is currently busy Part 4. He wanted to ask me especially about the Soccer World Cup that was hosted in South Africa this year. What an amazing, happy and unforgettable time for us in South Africa that was. Internal problems faded into the background and we became 'one nation'. Our infrastructure was vastly improved - our roads, stations and airports especially. If you are wondering what Bob saw on the Skype screen...this is it!

Developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network)

One of the things that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE about social networking is my PLN (Personal Learning Network). PLNs are all about using Web2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, twitter, facebook groups and online tutorials etc. to create connections and extend our learning. We end up learning together and it is SUCH an empowering feeling. My PLN comes in the form of networked colleagues, virtual friends, blogs I look up all the time, my twitter network and endless tutorials, to name a few. Of course my Google Reader RSS keeps it all together for me. Every day I embrace a new member. For example, I have only just discovered Mark Barnes’ LearnitN5 channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnitN5

Richard Byrne from Teaching with Technology has provided a great online tutorial on developing a Personal Learning Network. Here it is:

Constructing a PLN

View more presentations from Richard Byrne.

I love being part of the global community – how else would I keep up with the growth in technology?

School Tube video

Have you ever thought of joining School Tube? It is a video sharing site mainly for school educational purposes, launched in 2007. What I like about it is that everything that is submitted is moderated by other teachers before being acepted. Every day I receive an email notification about the ‘video of the day’. (Unfortunately I rarely have the time to look at them!) Well, we are ‘twinned’ with a school in the Wirral in England, Great Meols Primary. They sent us, by post, a dvd of some poems that they had written about the Wirral and expressed in performances. I asked them if I could put this on to School Tube which I had just joined and they agreed. Here is their video.



The link to this video is http://www.schooltube.com/video/0b802cc5e385fdad0f20/Great-Meols-Primary-The-Wirrell

Working with Glogsters

The Grade 7s are experimenting with glogsters which are online posters. We are reseaching the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 and putting the information on a glogster. It is a lot of fun creating with them. Unfortunately our Internet connection is very slow when working with large classes, and we are taking a while to complete the glogs. If you are interesting in trying out glogsters with your class, you can go to Glogster.edu (http://edu.glogster.com/product-informations/), choose the basic free option and they will email you 100 glog addresses to use with your class. Here is Kayla's glog.

The Deputy Minister of International Relations visits our school

Well, Friday 13th August was an exciting day for us. Earlier in the year, during the time of the Haiti earthquake, we wanted to do something for Haiti but didn't quite know how to make a difference. Our librarian had the great idea of letting the children perhaps come to school in their casual clothes during the month of February, and each day they did this they could make a donation to the Haiti fund. The children loved this idea! We raised R40,000. We didn't quite know how to get this money to Haiti, but the government came to our aid and the Deputy Minister and her entourage came to the school to collect the donation.


It was very exciting for us. These are some extracts from the TV newscasts of the event.