Sunday 24th May (End of Week 4)

Things seems to be progressing well. After being out of school for three days, I returned to the classroom on Thursday with a number of students happily reporting they had embraced their blog. I have been surprised by the way students have now embraced the 1.2 blog as a kind of online portfolio for all of their writing. I think they get a sense of pride from seeing their efforts published, and like that they can see it grow (particularly as I have been setting a rather cruel number of practice essays).

This week I have a colleague coming in to observe the 11 English class doing peer feedback. I am hoping to get the students to create their own marking rubrics by responding to a range of exemplars. They will then use the rubric to feedback on each other's writing, making comments on why they gained a specific grade and advice on how to lift their grade. This will then inform a redraft that I will check out. I am hoping this will encourage them to start placing feedback on on each other's blogs. I think they are checking out other people's work, but are a little hesitant to comment.

Vince (my project leader) will be in Thursday afternoon and Friday to meet with me and my students. I will be interested to see how he views our progress.

Sunday 17th May (looking back on Week 3)

Frustration is abating a little. After being thwarted by the lack of open Internet access at school and apathetic students I have manged to get a few more students on board and online. I did resort to getting students signed up using my computer whilst I was logged on. At least I feel there is now enough students involved to make my project valid.

One nice, and rather unexpected development that has happened this week is that several of the students who are blogging are looking at how else they might use the blog. Several students now want to use their blog as a portfolio for all of their practice essays and even their Reading Logs for US8808. Another nice development is the ongoing dialogue in both classes about what they have written and if I have checked it out, there is a sense of pride in completing each entry that really doesn't happen with the paper and pen students. Another positive is that the only students to "resubmit" essays as a result of feedback are two of my blogging girls....hmmm I am interested to see where all this goes in the coming weeks.

Monday 27th April (week one)

Well first week in to project time and already experiencing delays! I am at home most of this week with a chicken pox covered daughter. The upside is (as well as cuddling daugther on couch), is that it is giving me some extra time to work on getting the student sites and resources ready. I have updated my 11 English Avanced site from last year, and have replicated the page for for 11 English site also:
11 English Advanced: http://englishwithamos.pbwiki.com/Your-English-Blogs
11 English: http://amos11english.pbwiki.com/Formal-Writing

Over the next couple of days I will be creating a short survey looking at student attitudes to writing and their preferences for using ICT or pen and paper.

Next week I will set up the first topic and students will have the choise of completing the fortnightly tasks by hand or as a blog hyperlinked to formal writing page of their class site.