Focus:Facilitating discussion by giving feedback – giving prompt feedback to encourage further learning and participation.Learner centred – ensure project remains learner centred

Focus - giving prompt feedback to encourage further learning and participation.

When I was completing an online teaching paper I had difficulty facilitaing discussion which is a key factor of online learning. Upon reflection I thought that my feedback could encourage more participation.

My initial attempt at this was using written feedback by putting comments on their blogs however they did not get into the habit of looking at the comments on their blog.

What Next -Involve the parents to try to encourage the children at home and get them use to making comments on others blogs to improve the interaction.

A couple of parents made comments which encouraged those students

I wanted to ensure my project remained learner centred as blogs lend themselves to this type of learning very easily.

Through my readings I have found that the student needs to be the most active in the task. Therefore my project is very learner centred with the teacher using direct instruction to teach the skills then stepping back and taking on the role of a facilitator.

I felt there needed to be scaffolding to ensure the students had the skills needed to work independently. I found initially I was having to show students individually what to do. Before the Malaysian students began responding I had to help with using our class blog to get answers to our questions from the teacher.

What Next – I buddied up students and trained several tech angels which also resulted in the students working collaboratively. This enabled me to step back and to use that time to let through the comments and blog entries.In future I would also use a skype audio or video call to allow the children to interact more freely.

What Next?Set up blogs with new students next year before interacting with another class. Share initial planning with teacher and more details before beginning

What?Communicated with Liza by email and then by blogsSet up class blogAll students set up own blogVisited Malaysian class blogs which included a virtual field trio through photos.Parents commented on blogsVenn Diagram done by students to compare their dayHow?

More contact with e teacherLonger timeframeI needed to comment on 4 Akim’s blogs and involve myself moreSynchronous technologies such as skype to enhance projectWhole class work Roster for computer managementTrain more tech angels to help othersMore information needed on country before beginning to enable children to think of questionsUse wiki more

Why?Lisa the Malaysian teacher was enthusiastic and keen and set up her blog quickly and kept it updated. She responded to students blogs.Students were keen to help each other with their blogsStudents had high expectations for Malaysian students to respond to blogs immediately.Communication with home by a newsletter with links etc involved parents

What an effective learning experience that created enthusiasm and fun learning. This was so successful that I have set it up in other classes and will be setting it up at the beginning of the year in my new classroom. All students improved their ICT skills as well as their social and cooperative skills.

Barriers to learning were the short time frame available for the project and the amount of time it took to initially set up each students blog. This was due to lack of computers and time in suite. I would set this up and have it running all the time with students blogging in their writing time each day. The wiki was a late addition to my project and if set up initially both groups could’ve added to it. I think is an effective tool when working with a class overseas.

As I wasn’t the class teacher I had to fit in with her timetable. If it was my own class I would’ve included a lot more class teaching using the data projector. I was having to work with groups.

I enjoyed blogging with the class teacher and she was a great help to me with this project. The potential of interacting with classes overseas like this is neverending