From this term we have joined an online learning community of primary students from schools around the country via an award winning blog "kidsedchatnz".
Each week on the blog is a topic or theme with some challenges or tasks relating to that theme. We then work through the challenges during the week. We also have 10 questions to read to prepare for our discussion.
Then on Thursday from 2pm to 3pm the exciting part happens!! That's when we get on twitter and connect with the other kids to discuss our work!
So that we can 'see' all the other kids and their tweets etc we need to use an App called Tweetdeck. It lets us sort twitter into columns and have multiple user/private conversations with other kidsedchatnz users. It kind of looks like this...
Yes, it looks busy!! And it is, the messages column constantly scrolls through as kids from all over NZ tweet their ideas. We have to use all our reading and writing skills to keep up with the conversation.
To control the flow and direction of the discussion, the kidsedchatnz creator posts up the 10 questions one at a time during the online chat.
So what learning is involved in this sort of activity? Well, reading, writing and spelling for a start!! Also a lot of general computer and keyboard skills too. But the real deep learning and skills go way beyond that. The kids are learning to share ideas with their peers, build on others ideas and work in a creative and collaborative way. They are also reflecting on their learning that they have done during the week. Here are a couple of clips I took of the tweetdeck chat session today!
Thanks for watching.
Mr Evans.
P.S. Just a note on internet safety. As we are online live, I am working closely and monitoring the twitter chat with the 4 students at all times. Also the chat is only accessible to those who have been approved by the kidsedchatnz administrators. No other twitter users can join our conversations. Nor can we or chat with the general twitter public during these sessions.
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