Skip to main content

Squirrel Nutkin is back

Yes, the school holiday is almost over in New Zealand and Squirrel Nutkin is back from his holiday with Tania and using his blog to tell everyone all about it including the children of Manaia Kindergarten New Zealand where he's based and their friends in Spring Trails Kindergarten in Illinois who actually sent him to New Zealand in the first place. (The children in America were talking about squirrels but there are no squirrels in New Zealand.)
The idea of having a toy, often a teddy bear, which goes home with members of the class and reports back on his adventures via the child’s writing and photographs, is not of course new. The digital equivalent though has a wider audience, the world and your granny, a very real audience worth doing your best for

Looking at the two blogs they are wonderful examples of early learning environments, all about the children, bright and colourful, with sound, pictures and video, lots of interaction and activity designed to celebrate their achievements with an audience beyond the building.

Read through and look at the range of free web 2.0 features used to engage the audience, Spring Trails makes use of Odiogo for those who would like to hear the pages rather than read them. Cathy has also used the blog to help parents at home by making a video about telling the time.

Let me know if you’re a UK foundations stage setting and are making similar use of blogs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The snow walk

Saturday was to be the day for setting up a new blog, but the prospect of a walk in the park , snow still on the ground and sun bright, was tempting. I asked my fellow tweeters what I should do first, walk in the park or work on the blog? And the unanimous response of those around was to walk first and then set up blog and write about it. So no couch potatoes there. Sadly once we were out there it was so good that that we did not return for a long time. No new blog set up :-( Whilst out I tweeted some photos from the iphone but this was not enough, a blog post was required so here it is. Instead of the new blog I'm showing the pictures in two ways, first new to me a Photopeach spiral (Thanks Simon Widdowson and Allanah King for sharing this at about the same time) and then using Animoto . I have an education license for this so can make longer films Enjoy my walk Snow in the park on PhotoPeach . Use the slider to hear the sound and click on...
3 comments
Read more

Blogging.. making a start

Want to start blogging with your class? John Johnson of Sandaig Primary offers step by step advice based on his experience. He’s been blogging and podcasting very successfully with his children for some time and they have an international following. There are links to all the school blogs in his own blog , take a look at Sandaig poets, inspiration for poetry writing in the classroom.
Post a Comment
Read more

Me at the end of 2019

My work and passion is in learning, teaching and technology, not only in how digital technologies are used as tools in a computing curriculum but in how they can transform learning and teaching and potentially education as a whole. I spend a lot of time encouraging people to join me.  I’m also a wife, mother, aunt and granny and am involved in the rough and tumble of extended family life.  I have a car, a good pair of walking boots and trekking pole,  a well-thumbed passport, trail running shoes and compass   My extensive book collection ( I moved to a new house for it) includes food stained cookery books. I’ve access to music, live, streamed and recorded, a Wii and an Xbox Kinect and many ‘robots’.  In spare time I volunteer at a wonderful National Trust property, Woolsthorpe Manor, the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton and talk to (if they want to)  the amazing, interesting people who come to visit.  Life is indeed good! A ...
Post a Comment
Read more