Thursday 7 July 2011

To Blog or not to Blog?

Having only just started this blog for our new Cloud Educator Programme and I was very interested to read the views of Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of learning technology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth. He has a very interesting blog titled Learning with 'e's. In two recent postings he talked about Seven Reasons Teachers Should Blog and Reasons Teachers Don't Blog.   
Although most teachers are confident in front of their own pupils and maybe just as confident with staff from their own school, many become shrinking violets when asked to share their work any wider. Working in a school, particularly a small primary school can be quite isolating. One of the amazing things about a blog is you are never quite sure who will read and just what kind of response you will get back. Both of these aspects make blogging a fantastic tool for reflective practitioners. 
I am hoping that all of the Norfolk Cloud Educators will produce their own blog about their journey towards becoming a Cloud Educator and in the process help and support other teachers on the way.

4 comments:

  1. What a fantastic programme for Norfolk - we need more of this to ensure that the recent momentum to support school improvement and more exciting learning with the help of ICT gathers pace. Norfolk Educators are still keen on the use of technology to support learning - only yesterday I had the please of working in a big Norwich High School, where Year 7 pupils were using iPods to read QR codes and solve problems.

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  2. Exciting times I will follow this with great interest. I know that this initiative will ignite excitement with our primary school children and engage them in their learning. It will also allow teachers to communicate across schools in Norfolk and develop links which is crucial for the future.

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  3. From the ‘Confessions of Secret Blog Reader’
    This looks like an exciting adventure for those brave enough to participate! Teaching as, you remarked, can be an isolated job - even in large schools (definitely in small schools – I should know!).
    Many professional development programmes, where teachers socialize informally with others of similar ilk, create spontaneous communities of practice and dissemination which are a valuable component of the session. We talk shop, reflect on our practice, steal good ideas and ignore others, empathise and mutually support each other all over a cup of coffee and shortbread.
    We already do this ‘sharing stuff’ ....don’t tell anyone though! Shhh!

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  4. We are getting excited in our school. We have used google mail and Google apps - protected through Norfolk - to work with the high school. We have just opened up our new scheme of work for ICT (QCA is so out of date and boring the teachers begged for a new one!) It suggests google mail for the communication unit and google apps for another unit! I expected fed up teachers - not another ICT inset! but they really got into it - easy to work and the scheme comes with creative ideas, APP and AF tips - and most of all it is up to date and teaches about technology the pupils use- we are hoping our VLE with be through Google and then the training will not be wasted.

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