T.C as Connected Learners: Knowing why we 'Share'

At our staff PLD this week, Lenva Shearing from Manaiakalani, discussed the aspect of Share from our cluster wide kaupapa of 'Learn, Create, Share'.

Humans have been sharing since the beginning of time from the time of cave man paintings and it is not a new thing.  Although the mode has changed, our human instinct hasn't. 

"Creating and sustaining relationships is the key to sharing".  In the past, sharing was limited to the people in the classroom and around the learners but today there are no limits - sharing can happen anytime, anywhere with anyone.

When our staff were asked what our favoured medium of sharing was, the majority of our staff who used social media said facebook.  Some of the reasons people used social media was to share stories, keep in touch with family and friends and stay connected with the outside world.  When asked what our boundaries were, one staff member said 'if it's something you wouldn't show your grandma, don't post it'. 

A challenge was put to our staff and we were asked to blog about it.  The statement was that 'All this technology is making us anti-social'.

Staff really got into it and I could hear from staff around me some good debates going on.   I personally could see both points of view as I understand that different generations see social media in different ways and I guess it depends on how you define being 'social'.

I am thinking carefully about my blogpost.

Lenva reminding us the importance of blogging for our students

We were reminded of the benefits for our students to continue to write and share blog posts, most of whom have been blogging since primary school.  Lenva shared the amazing results of the summer blogging journey - that if students blogged at least twice a week, they could potentially go up at least two asttle scores.   This was evident in the results shown by the 5 students from our school who took part in the blogging journey and all made good gains in their asttle writing scores - blogging was their golden recipe for success and could be for the majority of our kids too!.

A few of our summer bloggers who made good gains in their February asttle scores.

Sharing blog comments across the cluster

In year 9, our students are learning about Globalisation and the importance of staying connected.  Recently, I have been collaborating with a colleague, Elfrida at Glenbrae primary, who wanted to start a 'commenting club' between students from our schools.  Whilst our years 9 and 10 write posts every week about their learning, it would be good to see more comments from different audiences that could support our learners.

I've decided to focus on two year 9 classes and their blog connections with a few classes at years 7 and 8.  I want to track their progress and see if they can utilise comments to support their learning and their writing.

One of the year 9 classes I had the chance to catch up with today is a lovely group of students who were comfortable with posting and commenting.  A really good document that Elfrida shared with me showed how to write good quality blog posts and provided scaffolded examples of comments.    I let the class know that I will be sharing their class site with their learning blogs to the students at Glenbrae so that they could share what learning they've been up to.

Many of the students read the blogs that were shared and just before the end of the class, I asked students how they'd found reading other students blog posts and most replied that it reminded them of when they were primary school and they'd enjoyed reading them.  I relayed the fact that Globalisation involved staying connected with people and students outside of our school and that sharing our learning with the world helps support them more in their learning.  The next step could be to collaborate on a common task or event and possibly invite other primary schools in our cluster to join our 'commenting club'.