Blogging for teaching and learning

We had another meeting of the Assessment for Learning group this afternoon. We looked at the use of the Geography blog with years 12 and 13, for the dissemination of information to students, as well as the assessments of their comments to gauge understanding. This is a closed blog, visible only to members, so we cannot post a link.

In ICT we are experimenting with the use of a blog with 2 top set year 9 groups. The students have only been doing this for a few weeks, and only have one hour a week ICT, however, at the moment the results are very promising. The purpose was to get the students to use a variety of different means of electronic communication, view a wide range of samples of each others' work, and to make constructive comments on each others' work to help sharpen their critical facilities for their own work. In general the students find it very difficult to assess and suggest improvements for their own work, however; by reviewing the work of others they get practice at the skills. Future plans include: use of the on-line site SlideShare to share their presentations and setting targets for themselves for this year.

To emphasise the importance of on-line safety students have not been allowed to use personal names, photos of themselves or include any personal information in their profiles.

You can see their progress here.