Exploring Learning

I set up my blog in Malaysia about five years ago; I moved to Singapore and maintained my blog. Most recently, I came to Qatar. My Blog address, as stated in the settings of my Blogger dashboard is: Google, however, redirects Blogger blogs to country-specific domains . For instance, if you open  blogspot.com in your web browser, it will change to blogspot.co.uk if you are accessing the blog from UK, or, as in my case, when I was in Singapore, I had the address mrshollyexploringlearning.blogspot.sg , and now I have mrshollyexploringlearning.blogspot.qa . For the past two and half years in Qatar, and for the years I had my blog before moving here, this has not been an issue. Until today.  I submitted my latest Masters assignment on my university VLE, and, as I often do, wrote a blog post about it. I was able to access my dashboard, write, edit and publish. I previewed my post and then, when ready, pressed publish. All this was fine. As always, I wanted to...

I have not posted for a long time! Shame on me. One of the reasons is having moved, a) job, b) house, and c) country! Aren't these some of the most stressful things you can do? Anyway, to cut a long story short, the past 12 months have been very stressful and trying, but all is ok for now and we are settled and I am ready to start writing again.  Fortunately, I have just started a new module of my MEd, and part of it focuses quite strongly on Blogging - which is an excellent motivator to get me back on track!  Over the next few weeks, I will be exploring and posting about Web 2.0 tools that could be suitable for use in my classroom. I will include: 1) The Name of the Web Tool and, 2) Discuss briefly why and how the tool could be will used in the classroom with reference to how it will enhance student learning. Stay tuned for more frequent postings :)

I recently became certified as a digital citizenship educator. I wrote an article for The Guardian , which was published yesterday. The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014:  http://gu.com/p/3ypzy

As part of my the Information and Media Literacy unit I just completed for my M.Ed in Integrating Technology, I had to explore personal learning networks. My post  PLN: A brief review  outlines the new one I tried - The Educator's PLN ( edupln.ning.com ) - in comparison with my trusted favourite , Twitter ( Twitter.com ). Twitter, of course,  came out tops. I have been using Twitter for over a year now and I find it invaluable as a resource for ideas, support and news. I recently spoke at the Google Summit KL, and in the scripting session I attended by Evan Scherr*, he finished by asking how many of us in the room were on Twitter? I was shocked at the poor response, but glad he then evanglised  about how educators must be on Twitter. I agree with him whole-heartedly , it is an essential tool in being conected  with a global network of like-minded educators - and if you are not connected, you are missing out.  This morning I read a great p...

At the start of the year, I began a writing initiative based on both my experience of teaching free writing, and following my reading of the book Spilling Ink . My post in August, Spilling Ink: Writing Journal Agreements outlines this in more detail. I try to make each prompt visible on a single slide, and we work on the same prompt for the week. We have written about all sorts of things, from shapeshifters to thunderstorms, garlic gum to invisibility potion. Learners are always given the option to choose the prompt, or write about something they need to write about. They can fold over any writing that they wish to keep private. They are also encouraged to go back and rework previous writing, revising to make it better, or making into something new. I ask them to focus particularly on areas we have looked at in lessons, such as narrative perspective, sentence clarity, adjectives or noun phrases etc. Sometimes I will give specific targets to learners as they need it,...

In today’s world, the idea of ‘citizenship’ is in constant and organic flux, just as the notion of what it means to be literate in the 21st century is also evolving. Viewed under the cultural and global lens required for successful international school citizens, the definition is even harder to pin down. We all have notions of what a good ‘citizen’ is, and teachers in international schools bring a myriad of ideologies and cultural understandings which simultaneously present opportunity and dichotomy. Rich and fertile in breadth of experience and belief, the knowledge and cultural understandings can, at times, be at cross-purposes with the culture of the country, which again might be different to the cultures of the classroom and the school community. In international schools, as Ferguson acknowledged in her post, “ What kind of global citizens are teachers creating? ” (25 November 2013), the nature of what global citizenship is is “arbitrary” - individual schools decide how to ad...

As mentioned in my recent post, Common Sense Educator: Digital Citizenship Certified , I believe all educators today must address information literacy and teach learners how to operate safely and effectively online. Literacy today is more than reading and writing; as educators we need to teach netiquette,  cybersafety and digital citizenship. I set up Blogs with my learners to showcase their writing and provide authentic audiences. My emphasis is on the need to create a positive online persona, and the Unit leading up to the creation of our blogs, asks learners to think about how they want to present themselves to the world. The 'Snapshots' unit is a comprehensive unit that I teach to Year 7 (Grade 6) learners on entry into secondary school (middle school). The 'big question' underpinning the unit is How do I present who I am to the world? and the final outcome is a reflective learning blog that they use throughout their time in school.  Exampl...

For my MEd this week, we are looking at Personal Learning Networks - of which I am a huge advocate. I chose to review http://edupln.ning.com/ as I am already a member and dedicated user of both Edmodo and Twitter – both of which are excellent for creating PLN. Edmodo is great to use in the classroom as an organisational tool and learning portal; I use it for all my classes. I have posted about Twitter previsously and strongly advocate all educators create an account. As suggested in the video Being Connected , (U.S. Department of Education, Sept. 2013); your PLN will grow organically as you become familiar with the way that things work. What I liked about edupln.ning.com, is that when you sign up, you can add in your Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ details etc., which shows me this place is one that recognises the power of connection. Having accounts linked together is really helpful when managing a PLN – because, as suggested in Trust’s article , managing a PLN (particularly a...

For the past few weeks I have been working on scaffolding my IGCSE Second Language English class. These lessons arose out of the start of year assessment we conducted to determine levels and needs. This is pure assessment for learning. The writing was very weak and in reality, way below the prerequisite for success at this level. However, as I am a big believer in self-fulfilling prophecies, I told them what a great start they had made and proceeding to dig deep to form some solid foundations to allow them the success they deserve. The IGCSE exam requires learners to write two essays of between 100-200 words each, depending on the level of paper they sit. One requires formal register , and one, informal register - normally a letter. AfL dictated that a letter was at present out of reach and so, my little unit on postcards was born. Previously, I have written about the first two weeks of this plan which involved: labelling an image of a beach to provide and expand vocabulary ...