Many thanks to all those who commented on my rant last month with regards to Internet filtering etc within school, I know it’s something a lot of us come up against each and every day.

I thought I’d quickly update those who were interested on my progress.  I put together a list of exemplars of Teaching & Learning via the Web and passed these on to my Head.  He sees them as a persuasive argument and is keen to set up a whole-school debate on the issue.  I couldn’t ask for more than that, so fingers crossed that I can continue the persuasion at the next stage.

The quick examples I used were:

• Youtube: As a random example, searching ‘Sequences Math’ returns over 300 videos.  There are great education videos available for free, particularly useful for spontaneous class discussion moments.

• Google Docs: Allows multiple users (teachers & pupils) to edit the same text document / spreadsheet / presentation at the same time.  Would be greeat for collaboration / communication / AfL skills.  I’ve set up an AfL spreadsheet to share with pupils which I think will be powerful.  Could be used in Science/Maths for collecting data from experiments.  Could be used in Humanities for collaborative writing.  Tom Barret (a Primary teacher from Nottingham has been doing exemplary work on this) see here and here – his blog is full of stunning online work.

• Maths in the Movies: Great talking point for lessons.

• Flickr: Amazing collection of images and photography that could brighten any lesson.  Blocked for staff, some inappropriate images but only if you create and account, sign in and turn off safe-search.

• Pupil blogs: Graham Wegner from Australia has some excellent examples of students blogging for all the World to see and engaging in conversations with people from around the globe.

• Wikis: I have been trying to run a wiki with my Y9 class for the past 9 months or so, unfortunately it is constantly falling foul of the filter, for a short period last year it became a powerful tool, if the pupils could have easy access to edit it as well I think it’s use and potential would take off.

• Web 2.0 Storytelling: There are some great examples of telling stories using the Web.  One is the 5 Card Flickr game using the above website’s images as inspiration for a story.

• VoiceThread: Allows you to share a slideshow or audio recording with the world and have them comment on it.  Could be used for anything from Geography/Culture to Storytelling to Maths.

Image courtesy of etrusia_uk on flickr