Today I launched my mission to make my Year 10s the most e-savvy learners they can be.  (How else to put it? ) I had two things to show them today: a) Khan Academy and b) Twitter. An opportunistic last-minute booking of an ICT room was the first hurdle successfully overcome. Seat of my pants as ever……

a) We are about to run some experiments on refraction and the new IGCSE syllabus requires students to know Snell’s Law.  So, to prepare for the next lesson, I asked students to take the next week to teach this to themselves, taking notes as appropriate, using the video tutorials from the http://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics.   We discussed the nature of the notes that they might need (definitions, diagrams, some worked examples) and the process of engaging with a video tutorial: pausing, re-playing etc.  I suggested they needed to prepare well enough to be able to explain the entire concept of (sini/sinr) = n1/n2 etc…to someone else.  First impressions were positive,…..  so we shall see! Hopefully, inspired by Sal, they will move on to making their own video tutorials as an element of our co-construction process.

b) I showed my class my newly established hootsuite account.  They had not seen Twitter like this before (as I hadn’t until Alan November @globalearner showed me last week).  The idea of having multiple streams of information that you select yourself was a revelation.  Twitter is not all about chat and banter!  My goal is to set up a hashtag or group that will link us together – students and teacher – so we can share our research with each other.  (Diigo may come into this later….. but enough for now.) First, I want to get them on Twitter to recognise it as a tool for learning.

This blog is my way of dealing with my poor record as a completer-finisher!  I want to be held to account – I will deliver!!  More to follow.