foolfillment: the blog

Following on from yesterday’s post, there was a short flashmeeting last night where we discussed ideas and possible solutions for what might be done on snow days.

A big thank you to everyone who took part: Julie, Ian, Joe, Sinclair, Alan, and Alan, and particularly to John who joined us from Dubai. Also thanks to Theo who joined in right at the end, sorry you missed it all Theo.

As was pretty much guaranteed to happen, we arrived at no conclusions, but there were a few important points.

The main difficulty I saw was that snow days come unannounced usually, so getting word to pupils would be difficult. It was discussed that it would be great if a class were so used to using online materials at home that they would perhaps know to go to a certain website for ideas for work tasks or messages from their teacher. Julie has found that the wiki she is using with her classes had been visited by pupils while the school has been closed – in fact it was a class that she expected not to have looked who seemed to have made most use of it!

Other than having a well trained class it might prove difficult to spread word around, though often on snow days pupils and parents are desperate for information on whether the school will be open or not, and so check school websites and local radio pretty often – these could easily be used to notify people. It seems that some schools in Aberdeenshire are already doing this and are directing pupils to Glow to access things to do.

Ian suggested a few tools such as wikis and wall wisher that could be used as a way of operating a session, and that it might be good to focus on one particular topic, or exam question. It followed that the sort of thing that might be delivered in a ‘live’ session is possibly quite likely to be similar to what might be done in a revision session, whether online or in person, near to exam time.

There were I’m sure a great many other points discussed, but unfortunately the meeting wasn’t recorded, and I didn’t make as good a set of notes as I might have done, perhaps those who took part could add to this in the comments?

Once again, thanks to those who took part.

With the weather having been dreadful recently the schools in the Scottish Borders have been closed all yesterday and today, and are due to stay closed until at least Monday. What that has meant is staff working from home. Finding things to usefully do can be pretty difficult when resources are all in the closed school building. However I kept myself occupied today keeping in touch with my wonderful PLN on twitter, and listening to the tremendously local Radio Borders.

Two things that have kept creeping up on twitter is the mention of teachers delivering ‘lessons’ online, and the use of glow. So I’ve been wondering how I could try and do something useful for pupils – and let’s be honest they must be fed up of this snow, it’s not as though there’s anything fun you can do in it, is there?

Can I make a request – would it be possible to have some sort of online meet tonight to discuss how we can use ICT to keep education going when schools are closed. I’m thinking Glowmeet if most people have logins, or perhaps we can set up a flashmeeting?

Why tonight? Well, it needn’t be, but I’d like to attempt something tomorrow, while schools are still closed.

So, if you are interested in taking part or helping, can you either leave a comment here, or sent me a tweet to @stuartmeldrum – I’d really appreciate it.

Two examples of such snow lessons are @PrimaryPete_ ’s (post about lesson here) and the Year 6 online lesson at Heathfield by @deputymitchell.

Update:
Flashmeeting booked for tonight at 7.30. Feel free to join in. Join it here.