Amazing website

In an email chat staff were having around a website called Free Rice that involves children playing learning games to donate rice on correct answers to countries that are experiencing famine, Stephen introduced this stunning, factual website called Breathing Earth on population growth and CO2 emissions. Check it out and be amazed, educated and challenged all at once.

Room 23's learning log

I really like the way that Stephen Eames uses his learning log. When you visit the log it reflects a very interesting collection of things that the children have been doing in class this year and shows the incredibly diverse nature of the 'modern' classroom. It shows their learning journey. 

Stephen uses the children to do the posting and you can see with the accuracy of their work that they have a very clear understanding of what they are doing during their learning sessions. Parents of room 23 can check in all the time and get a clear picture of what their children are doing at school. Great communication and using ICT tools extremely well.

Stephen is also using a wiki to support his year 7-8 children through some of the more time consuming 'assignment' work they are doing. Check out his science fair wiki which the children are currently working on. It is very impressive.

Maths development in year 5

Yesterday I wrote about Richard Dobson's use of digital learning objects. Today I want to steer you to year 5-6 senior teacher, Karen Chao's blog and her work on improving basic facts outcomes with her class using a wiki. All teachers this year are undertaking action research to gather information that shows gains in learning through the use of ICT. Karen is looking to improve basic facts by developing a wiki as a centre for resources related to her targets. Children can access this in class, or at home, and run through the drills that help them build up recall knowledge to improve their speed and accuracy. Check out Karen's good work on her blog.  You can go straight to the maths wiki now if you like.

Digital Learning Objects

The Internet  is very much part of our daily life these days. Often very contentious, our children are growing up in a world that is online and interactive. Someone who is at the forefront of promoting social software in education is Ewan MacIntosh from Scotland who provides an interesting commentary on the use of social software in his blog .

I like the way Richard Dobson, senior teacher and year 4 teacher in room 7 shows the use of digital learning objects in his blog. See how Richard uses DLO to explain the tides to children as part of their inquiry on the Seashore. Check out their class blog while you are there and see what else they have been up to.