Sep 06 2008
A little help from my network…
A new term a new start and I kicked off the first few days of the term with an upper key stage 2 assembly on Thursday morning. I wanted to talk to the children about the prospects of a new term and what it meant to us all. Twitter was buzzing with well wishes as the US schools returned at the same time as most English schools, so I thought I would invite my network to help contribute to the assembly with their own thoughts about the new term and the new beginning we were all about to take.
I asked for responses from my network a few hours before the assembly and then retweeted with a quarter of an hour or so to go and was so grateful, as I always am, to receive teachers thoughts from around the world.
After talking in the assembly about new beginnings for some people in my own family, I invited the children to explain their feelings and reflections on the first few days of school. We discussed what they were looking forward to and any apprehensions they had.
With a global twist I shared the thoughts from my network on the beginning of a new term and what it meant to new people. I finished with Ian Usher’s reflection that a new term is “like a fresh piece of paper with nothing bad from last term written on it.” They really liked that thought and it ended the assembly on a positive hopeful note. Thanks to Ian and everyone who helped it was lovely to be able share your reflections in our assembly.
Why not ask for reflections on a topic or assembly subject from your own network and give the children a global perspective.
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This “power of the network” post is great feedback.
I like the “fresh piece of “paper” idea for students. It is visual and has the potential for a whole series of tasks and revisits. Elaine
[Reply]
[...] Social Media tools can be incredibly useful in schools. They can be used to help teach students safety online and as a way of showing students how many opportunities an online presence can give them. I’m sure those in education who are keen on ICT innovation in schools could come up with loads of great ideas for using Social Media to aid the teaching process. John Sutton at Creative ICT is busily promoting blogging to Primary School children while Tom Barrett has used Twitter to crowdsource a plan for an assembly. [...]
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Always interesting to read about technology being used innovatively in education!
See my blog post here where I’ve linked to you: http://14sandwiches.com/2008/09/12/social-media-and-education-avoiding-the-rabbit-holes/
[Reply]
[...] have used Twitter in a similar way in the past and once again I was thrilled to get so many responses that [...]
[...] have used Twitter in a similar way in the past and once again I was thrilled to get so many responses that [...]