Leanne+Hainslin


 * **Reflections **

This project has opened my eyes to the possibilities of communication and learning through IT. I am still learning and am gradually implementing new ideas in my classroom. As I am in the junior area of our school, I have mainly taught the fundamental skills of computers to my class. (We don’t have an ICT specialist). I am always surprised by how quickly the children learn new skills and are excited to learn more. We endeavour to use multi-media programs in our literacy and integrated studies program. Our 1/2 class is not part of the netbook project, however we have access to desktops and notebooks.

One of my achievements in this project has been to set up a blog for our class. The main purpose of this is for the children to reflect on their learning and add comments to each other’s posts. __http://www.meadowsps12h.blogspot.com __ This is a work in progress and we are still ironing out some obstacles, which I will mention later. The grade 5/6 class came to our area to teach the students about blogs and wiki spaces. It was fantastic to see the interaction between the two age groups and their enthusiasm. From the setting up of the blog, we had the need to discuss the content that should be used when communicating on the internet. We found this to be valuable as there has been some issues with cyber bullying in the upper grades. By educating the students at this young age, we hope to reduce this problem.  I feel that my own personal learning in this area is another success and one I intend to build on. There were a few challenges I faced during this project. One of the main ones was my inexperience and lack of confidence in the IT area. I found the NING a useful tool and enjoyed reading articles, expert’s blogs and other team member’s comments. Another challenge I had was working out how to implement my new knowledge into the classroom. We have recently merged with another school and gone from forty grade 1/2s to eighty with two more teachers. The children from the other two grades had limited access to ICT programs and thus, we had to go back to the very basics of mouse control, keyboard skills and ‘Word’ features. Fortunately, my students have been able to help teach the other students, which can also be looked at as a success. Finally, in regards to our class blog, currently we add posts as a whole class as I have to log in. We discovered that the students can’t all be on the blogsite at once to contribute comments. 
 * Successes **
 * Challenges **

To combat our issue with the blog, I am going to set up a g-mail account for each student so that they can log in with their own passwords. We are also going to start using our wiki page to start a newsletter for the grade 1/2 area. We thought we could show this to the prep students who will be coming up to our area next year. They will be able to see the excursions, camps etc we have been doing this year.
 * What’s Next? **

Also, I have arranged for the 5/6 classes to teach the 1/2s in the other classes about the blog and wiki. I found this to be a successful way of passing on knowledge and the other teachers are keen to take this on board. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Next year I’m hoping to continue the blog and wiki and also to introduce bookmarking to the students when they find relevant information. I would also like to use such features as SKYPE, especially for our ESL students, who have difficulty with written language. Unfortunately, due the merge and to ‘blockers’, I have found it difficult to trial these things this year <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I’m looking forward to next year! || Type in the content of your page here.