Cassie’s Laws

This week we started using wikis. Although it’s been a bit of a slow start and we haven’t had a lot of time to write on these there has been a lot of interest from the class.

This class have expressed an interest in writing on their wikis at home. I hoped this would happen and I have issued a letter to parents to check if they have computer access at home. Hopefully most of the children will have access to the net and those who don’t will be able to get time in class.

I’m hoping that the class will begin to comment on each others wikis. I haven’t really mentioned this yet, I want to see if anyone does it without me suggesting it. As part of our Harvest assembly Sam and Emma read out their poems. Sam typed his up on his wiki but Emma was off ill. Rachel offered to type up Emma’s poem and then she suggested it would be a good idea to leave her a comment on her wiki to let her know. I hope that this enthusiam continues.

I know that some teachers worry that not having a traditional structured ICT plan might mean that the children are not learning the necessary skills. After only 3 days of having a wiki the class have had experience of typing, copy and paste, embeding an animation from the internet, logging on to a website, using a search engine and manipulating text. I think using a wiki has provided a natural context for valuable ICT skills to be learned.

I am also hoping that I will begin to see the kind of online community that I witnessed with 7V last year beginning to develop. I know it won’t be the same as they do not have blogs but I’m hoping it creates a community that in turn will be a real audience for their writing.