My little space in the world

As well as hooking reluctant readers into reading through the blog, I had hoped to create ‘reading conversations’ about books through the blog. This is more than evident in the blog with 282 comments! These are mostly from other students in our school and relate directly to either the other persons experience in reading the book, or in their interest in wanting to read the book. I think that any conversations about books within our school are positive and 282 comments that wouldn’t have occurred without the blog must surely be a measure of success!!

My big problem is that I had started with 22 students – 10 buddies, 10 mentors, and 2 ‘back up’ mentors. Unfortunately our ICT suite only has 16 computers. This was more than enough initially when buddies and mentors were paired up. NOW THOUGH . . . most of the buddies are more than competent in making these posts independently (and do) – which means that I don’t have enough computers all of a sudden!! We are managing this with the Bloggers laptop (thanks to the Unisy’s Grant last year) and the fact that some students can be using the Easispeaks to record their snippets while others are on the computer.

After 3 days away from school (2 at CORE in Christchurch with the other e-fellows) it is nice to be back in the company of my wonderful bloggers! The excitement for today is that Aidan has had a reply from Kate De Goldi’s agent in regards to his post about her book ‘The 10pm Question’. He has sent her the link to his post and so we now wait in anticipation to see if she makes a comment on his post. Lucy has also really enjoyed Tania Roxborogh’s book ‘Limelight’ and so she would like to try and make contact with her in regards to the post she is currently putting together. Others are now talking of other New Zealand authors such as Vince Ford that they could read the books of and try and contact!

This is giving even further interest and adding another ’spark’ to our programme.

Yes – I have been a slacker (well in the digital world anyway!). I am in Chch tonight excited again about a couple of days being spent with my fellow ‘e-fellows’! I have however just realised that it has been far too long since I have made a post on the blog. I have found that due to the nature of mentioning student names a lot (I guess I could be just saying Student A) I have been writing a lot in the ‘old technology’ – pen and paper (my ‘other’ reflective journal)

The blog continues to grow – in size and popularity within the school. I have brought in a few more students who are VERY excited about being included. There are still a great deal more who would like to be included in the programme. Ideally I would like this to continue next year – but open it up so that students make their posts in reading time from within their own class. Instead of a relatively small group (22) coming to me – I could make myself available to support ‘inclass’ in the classrooms, eliminating the stress and maybe expectations on themselves for teachers. I’d like to think that with time the teachers would develop the necessary skills (and confidence) to run it quite independently in their own class.

I spent some of last week interviewing the bloggers about the programme. I took them back to their reading survey that they carried out back in April (based on NEMP Reading Attitude). It was interesting to see the shift. Not one child went ‘back’ in their attitude. This in itself is interesting as at an Intermediate it can be very easy for the ’strugglers’ and reluctant students to get harder on themselves and ‘more down’ about how they are achieving (or not). In most cases there were improvements in regards to how they felt about reading and how they perceived their reading ability. My big ‘aha’ that I will share at our workshop tomorrow will be series of video clips from interviews where a majority of the students have told me very simply that they now ‘enjoy reading’ – how beneficial must that be to their self-esteem, their ability to function in class, and their perception of what they can actually do – or try to do. I will get my summaries up here in the next day or two, along with any ‘aha’ moments from my two days with my ‘like minded fellows’ (and our mentors of course!!)

Click here to view a little multimedia summary of our project so far:
For blog

I have taken the time to chat with one of the classroom teachers (remember that I bring students from classes throughout the school together).  This teacher has 1 student involved as a mentor and three as buddies. 

HER RESPONSE HAS BEEN SO AFFIRMING . . .

She made note of the following:

• That all of the buddies (who had been identified as reluctant readers) are finding any opportunity that they can to read – and to have a text available to read.
• That the one student who stated that he loves Bloggers because he hates reading in the class – is feeling positive about reading  in general – which is a big step from where he had been.
• She believes that she has seen considerable gains in their ability to write reports (the writing focus of the term) – more so than students in her class not involved in the bloggers.  She sees that while the focus is on reading, they have been thinking carefully about the writing process and writing for an audience.

My discussion with her was incidental, however developed into quite an indepth talk about the programme.  My initial reason for initiating the discussion was in planning for what the bloggers might look like next term – will I keep on the same mentors and buddies?  Will I bring on more buddies?  Can the buddies operate like this, but back in their classrooms?  My concern being that while the students are engaged twice a week in ‘Reading Conversations’ they are also being pulled from directed and focused classroom teaching sessions that delve much deeper than this programme does.  This teacher sees the programme as complementary to classroom reading sessions and as a great incentive for those who are on it.  In summary she would see it as beneficial for her students to continue on a programme similar to that running.  I need to make the time to have similar conversations with other teachers of students in the group.

It has been too long since I have made a post regarding my E-Fellowship project. With being away in Week 5 it has taken me a while to get back into the swing of things!

The blog looks like it is ticking along nicely:
*it is taking shape with reports, photos and podcasts
*it has a number of ‘conversations’ happening involving people from outside of our group
*it is encouraging the reluctant readers to read
*it is developing some leadership and co-operative skills of the mentors

BUT . . . the quality of the reviews could be improved and just how many posts are individuals making?

The kids have done a really good job of keeping this ticking over while I was away – the blog has continued to grow and contined to get feedback on it. It almost doesn’t need me!! There are some ‘avoiders’ though who have been happy enough to have their mentors ‘model’ reviews for them, with very little effort from them required. Today I set up something that I wish I had organised from the beginning – a log of what they are working on and noting when they complete an entry. I am sure that this will direct them even more and show them their productivity. I have also allowed a space for self evaluation for them to reflect on their posting – was it OK? what could I do better type of comment. I’ll see how this goes.

I’ve interviewed some kids today and it is interesting to get their personal responses. Jessica was clear that she is really enjoying having a place where she can write about what she is reading and share this with others. She has students from her old school ringing her up and letting her know what they think of her reviews. Joel believes he is reading more books as he wants to get more posts up, and Lucy (in her mentor role) has acknowledged how much she has learnt in the leadership role.

The blog has really taken off – I must be moderating approx 25 comments a day now. Students in classes are quite receptive to these posts and the dialogue in response to the reviews is becoming more thoughtful and also encouraging further depth of information from the blogger who wrote the post.

A couple of ‘aha’ moments that I have observed have been:
One of the buddies wasn’t very confident to read a paragraph from the book that they had. The mentor (without thought) just encouraged the buddy to read a sentence at a time onto Audacity and then they put it all together to create an entire paragraph that sounded like it had been read in the one sitting!

In another situation the buddy wasn’t confident at all to read aloud. The mentor decided that a way around this would be for the mentor to interview the buddy about the book. This came across very well on the reading blog!

Another plus is that in all my ‘busy’ness (with heading off to the Microsoft Partners in Learning Conference in KL this week) I haven’t the time to get letters to the parents. HOWEVER – in the meantime there have been parents commenting on the blog (from both the mentors and the buddies). I will still get the letters out on my return next week, as I think that there are other parents who with an extra bit of encouragement would post comments too!

I enjoyed Michael’s visit last week – it was great for him to see the kids in action – (and it was kids in action and not me – as in their peer tutoring roles there is very little for me to do at times!!). He saw that this (in its current form) is moving ahead and has students engaged and involved in their learning. Michael also took time to interview students and myself and I look forward to him getting some feedback to me in regards to what the students enjoy and where they see the next steps as being.

The ‘big’ test is this week, as I am away for the entire week. The students decided as a group that they still wanted bloggers this week – even in my absence and insisted that they could run it without a teacher supervising!!! This is great – however is against our safe use of ICTs policy and so Mary – my Principal – will oversee and see them in action. The beauty of Web 2.0 tools is that I can watch what they are doing (well at least what they are posting) from afar!

Parents have been invited (through initial letters to ‘Buddy’ parents, and through the newsletters) to comment on the blog. As yet – no parents have done so, however in talking to a couple of parents of students I know that they have gone in and had a look at what is there.

So – how do I get parents involved and commenting on the blog?

I will look to send home personal letters to each of the Mentor and Buddy parents next week – giving them some feedback as to how their child is doing in their role in the group – and inviting them to go onto the blog and comment. Will see how this works.

Things continue to buzz. This is great considering half of the group are reluctant readers, who are often hesitant contributors to classroom lessons. All of the ‘buddy’ bloggers, have either made a post (or two) or have posts ready to go. Now that we have all of these posts on I would really like to ‘refine’ or improve the quality of the postings – asking the kids questions such as
* How can we make these as inviting to others as possible?
* What am I looking for in a passage to read aloud?
* In what ways can I share a variety of types of books, but ones that still appeal to me?
* How can I make the text as appealing to readers as possible?

There is still a lot of room for improvement here – but I do feel that we are making good progress in improving the enjoyment factor of reading for reluctant readers.

On the other hand the rest of the school are really getting involved in the site too. This afternoon I approved something like 18 comments – all of these from students in our school. Their comments continue to be of a varying nature – agreeing with reviews of books that they have read, or acknowledging that the review has enticed them to read this book.

Another item to note is that many of the books that the students are reviewing aren’t on the shelves in the library anymore – students are reading the reviews and then going and getting the books out!

BubbleShare: Share photos – Easy Photo Sharing

We are well and truly on our way! The mentors are doing a great job of working with the buddies -the only thing is that we have come to a standstill – our blog has used up our quota of 20MB!!!! I am in the process of upgrading our blog which gave everyone the opportunity today to get everything ready to upload in our next session next week.

Comments are coming in thick and fast. I have two extra ‘mentors’ who aren’t assigned to a buddy. I have been using them as technical assistants if the mentors aren’t clear on anything ‘techie’ wise. I am also now intending on using them to give feedback to the comments that we have received, as some of the comments are written in this regard. The students are buzzing and the ‘reluctant’ readers are tuned in the entire time in the classroom. Not once have I had any difficulty with management or ensuring someone is staying on task.

In a quick ’round the table’ summary at the end of today’s session, I asked the ‘buddies’ to share what they had learnt so far. All were able to state something, along with an enjoyment factor. This is how learning should be for all students!

http://oamaruint.edublogs.org

This is a blog that I have started with a group of students at my ‘new school’ – Oamaru Intermediate.  Through this blog we are looking to celebrate the students’ literacy skills (written,  oral and visual) and keep the community (and beyond) up to date with the happenings in our school.  We meet once and week, and in between the sessions the students are now looking for many opportunities to plan and prepare some ‘meaty’ topics!

 Another aspect that is developing is the use of a wide range of tools to plan, prepare and present our information.  Already the students have been introduced to Audacity (audio clips), Bubbleshare (the files of still photos) and of course Blogging.  Our range of skills and tools will continue to develop as our blog grows!  Keep an eye on it -and please feel free to give them feedback on what they have put together so far in the first 2 sessions