Yesterday afternoon I posted a plea for some comments to be added to our Primary 7 Writing Blog. At the same time I faxed a number of local schools with a similar plea for help.

By 5 pm today, every post in the P7 blog had at least one comment and most had several. Where did all these comments come from? Not from our local schools – I hope that we’ll see some activity from them over the next few days – but from fellow bloggers out there who gave their time to add supportive, and often very perceptive, comments.

My thanks to a trio of regular Scottish bloggers who immediately rallied round – John, Ewan and Andrew. I think the mention on Ewan’s site probably brought in a number of overseas commentators from the USA and France. In particular, I’m indebted to Nancy McKeand from Louisiana who throughout the day posted no fewer than 17 comments!

This is a great example of how there is a real community spirit within the blogging fraternity. (Fraternity – is that politically correct?).

Thanks to everyone out there who helped. I’m looking forward to see how the kids react.

Having given details of one of the teachers who worked on website of materials and web links I have discovered that the other teacher has also produced  a great site at http://del.icio.us/forehill with nearly 500 links. Both teachers started the sites but other teachers in the schools contribute to them.

Can you help?

Some primary 7 pupils in Aberdeen have  been posting stories and poems on their blog. They would like to have more comments from other schools.

If you go to http://www.abernet.org.uk/wp/ you’ll see the Primary 7 blogs.

As you’ll see, some stories don’t have any comments at all so if your pupils can spare the time to add comments they’d be much appreciated.

If you would like our children to comment on your blogs, just ask.

Looking forward to reading your comments.

Two of our teachers put together an excellent website of materials and web links categorised in terms of the 3-14 curriculum. the site contains downloadable resources and links to sites which the teachers considered useful.

Then on of the teachers came across del.icio.us and realised that it was much easier to use than maintaining a website and could be kept up to date quickly and easily. The result is http://del.icio.us/loirston which currently contains over 300 links which have been tried and tested by teachers and organised in terms of 5-14.

This is a great example of a teacher seeing the potential of a new way of working and using it in a very practical way.

I presented a seminar a couple of weeks ago on new technologies with a specific focus on using blogs to develop creative writing. As I put the presentation together I realised that I had to go right back to the beginning and talk about why we teach writing at all. Speaking to some English teachers beforehand and at the seminar resulted in responses like “Because we have to – it’s in the exam”, “It develops language skills”, “They might be the next best selling author.” None of these really appears to justify the time spent in schools on creative writing. Someone said, “Because the kids enjoy it, ” and I thought this was a better reason but hardly convincing.

Over the last decade or so, education has become obsessed with assessment, obsessed with measurable achievement, obsessed with delivering a highly structured curriculum. Teachers with this mindset are often enthusiasts for ICT because it can help them deliver curricular targets more efficiently.

What’s excting about the new technologies (and much of the ‘old’ technologies) is that they offer ways of doing new things, not just better ways of doing old things. But many of these things are not easy to assess and don’t fit neatly into the existing curricular structure.

When I started teaching in the 70s there was much that was wrong in education. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the relative merits of education through the decades, but one thing that seemed better (certainly in secondary schools and especially in schools in disadvantaged areas) was that we were concerned about the whole child, not just academic achievement. Now I know that nowadays we have armies of support staff whose concern is nominally the ‘whole child’ but often the reality is that only academic success is valued.

I’m getting sidetracked here, so to get back on task – creative writing is good for kids for many reasons but especially because it can boost self esteem. Producing self confident children who go on to be self confident adults with a belief in their own worth, whatever their acadmic success, is one of the greatest things a teacher can do.

What many of the new technologies do is build children’s self esteem by letting them take responsibilty for what they’re doing and for it to be valued by a wide audience. Children can have a sense of controlling their own learning, can contribute to collaborative work and can have their individual skills valued.

Let’s hope that the rhetoric of A Curriculum for Excellence can be turned into action and that technology can be used to enhance the lives of our youngsters not to grade them.

I was just catching up on Ewan McIntosh’s blogs and feeling guilty. Ewan seems to post a new blog every hour of the day except when he’s delivering presentations about blogging. And me? Once a month or so I look at this blog that I’ve started and think ‘I should add to this’ and then promptly forget.

I think I feel guilty because one of the points of a blog is that you can record fleeting moments and ideas and move on and I find that difficult. I blame the teachers. When I was at school many many years ago we were exorted to plan, draft and revise a piece of writing before it was deemed respectable enough to be seen in public. Just putting an idea quickly on paper (or now, online) does not come easily.

So I need to learn how best to change. Do I force myself to post something every day or so and take the risk that I might not have anything intersting to say? I’m not sure.

Anyway, why bother? So many blogs are only read by their authors that there’s little need for another. Do I have anything to say that’s of interest to anyone?

I decided to focus this blog on ICT and education because I know quite a lot about it. I’ve been in education in various guises for over 30 years and have been involved with computers since the first Commodore Pets (which were probably made before Ewan was born!) so I have a lot of experience and a lot of opinions (some actually considered) which I’m happy to share.
Old habits are hard to break – I found myself reading over what I’d written so far and making amendments.

Right. Stop feeling guilty. Start recording passing thoughts. Don’t worry about revision. life’s too short.

Now just give me a moment while I check this over before publishi

I’ve just come across this great resource about ‘new’ web technologies – blogging, podcasting, wikis, social bookmarking, etc.

It’s a wonderful introduction to the technologies with case studies and many links.

Go here for a full description and to download.