Finding the silver lining

In Auckland, we find ourselves once again in the learning & working from home situation. Although this is disappointing after returning to relative freedom, I know we are hugely fortunate compared to many places in the world, and we can continue our lives using the power of digital technologies. I also believe that every cloud has a silver lining, and there have to some awesome things to come from lockdown 2.0!

At the beginning of this term, I started working with two classes who are new to Chromebooks at Edmund Hillary School. Their teachers were really keen to support learners to share the learning they have been doing at home, but we knew these students were not yet ready to be introduced to their own blogs. I knew that we could use email to post to the class blog, but I also wanted to support students with the process of writing a blog post by using 'cues' for each section. Working closely with one of these teachers, I created a form that students could complete when they were ready to share their learning. The questions in the form are designed to guide learners through the thinking process ofcrafting a blog post. 

Behind the scenes, I created a template for the blog post, which I connected to the form responses using the Autocrat add on. The merge job is set up so that each time a new response to the form is submitted, an email is sent to the class blog so that it appears as if student work is published straight away. On their learning sites, teachers will embed a rewindable demo to show students how to complete the form, and a link that students can use as frequently as they need.

Click on the image above to see the learning Kylie's students are sharing to their class blog

Throughout this process, I asked myself whether my work would be empowering for learners or whether I was doing the heavy lifting and therefore disempowering them. On reflection, I believe that this type of support is empowering, as it is scaffolding students towards ever increasing ownership of their learning. I think of it a bit like the way we introduce children to sports; initially we want them to achieve success so we keep the goals close and anticipate any major hurdles. As skills and knowledge are developed, we make the goals higher, the court larger, and we introduce 'twists' such as the stepping and contact rules that teach our young people to be more responsible for being in the right place at the right time. 

Normally when I work in classes where students don't yet have their own blogs, I ask the teacher to share a few examples of student work to the class blog. I'm wondering if in future, I might set up this type of system to enable sharing right from the start. What do you think?

If you would like my support to use any of the resources that I have talked about, or if you can see other ways this might be helpful, please let me know in the comments!