So far with NAL-E

[katieb]

The students have had some great ideas but we have struggled to get them off the ground. One that seems to be coming together is an initiative to raise awareness of the Zaidee Rainbow Foundation. This foundation encourages others to donate their organs in memory of Zaidee Turner who did this when she died. They sell rainbow shoelaces to raise funds. We had to scale it back from a whole school campaign to just for the Yr 9s. The laces are going to be handed over to students at an end of semester pool party themed 'colours of the rainbow' if everything goes according to plan. We hope to get local media to attend the event. Hopefully, next year, some students will take it to the whole school and we can make the laces part of our scool uniform. Some other local schools have already been able to do this.

Another project in development was inspired by the 25 days to make a difference campaign. Unfortunately the students in this haven't taken to posting on that site. However, they are organising to ask the students in our school what differences they would like to see in the world. They are going do this through homegroups and promote the challenge. They are then going to catalogue the responses and use some to create an artwork to display in our school grounds. I am hoping they will include the URL for 25 days to... in the design. I also hope they get it completed but, again, it is an idea that can be picked up by students coming into the subject next year.

I'm looking forward to getting my NAL-E (Yr 9 Applied Learning Elective) students to join up to WT2MD next year. Our school is organising to make permission for use of collaborative web tools become part of our enrolment package which means I should be able to get everybody rolling from early on in the piece - no excuses or apathy. I think there has been some resistance from the students because they are not used to using these forums in the school setting and many are savvy enough to realise it will make them more accountable in demonstrating productivity for the course.

There are so many inspiring activities taking place here. Every time I look at the site I think I want have a go at doing that and that and that... I can't wait to see next year's students hooking into it and getting excited about participating. I don't think they'll be able to help themselves.

[Angela]

"They are not used to using these forums in the school setting and many are savvy enough to realise it will make them more accountable in demonstrating productivity for the course."

You know, I can remember when Laura first started her 25 Days to Make a Difference blog...at first, it was shiny and new and there was a sort of magic about it. This motivated her. Soon, though, making a difference became real work, and blogging did as well. Making the decision to keep up with that for over a year was significant for her, and it taught her a lot. I can remember wondering at one point if it was fair to expect her to do this work if she didn't want to anymore. I began this conversation with many people--it was hard to know how to proceed around something that wasn't "required" for school.

A friend of ours who is involved with a good deal of service learning suggested that blogging and participating online brought with it a level of accountability and expectation that helped her remain committed to her goals and the work that she was doing to serve others. This was a powerful realization for all of us--the idea that publishing our plans and promises in these forums makes them that much more real and that much harder to simply give up on.

Perhaps your students will find themselves following through with their course work if they know that an audience is interested and engaged with the work that they are doing.

[katieb]

That is the plan. Being aware they have an audience beyond the classroom should become a positive for them. Some of my Year 10 students were discussing a personal blog set up by one of them this morning. They were distracted from their assignment work by it. This is something the student has done in his own time, completely unrelated to school. He said it is random musings about life according to him and he was ecstatic that 5,000 hits had been made to his site. He is going to set up a clusty map to document where the hits are from, he thinks they will pretty much be from our local area but I think he will pleased to find he has a worldwide audience. A number of students were so excited by it, running over to read it, adding comments, talking about growing the member numbers, discussing contact they have made with a person from Germany, etc.

I so want to see students getting this excited about reading and writing when it comes to their schoolwork. I think schools are making the right moves to establish it and I'm hoping we are beginning to win the battle to harness kids' energy and enthusiasm for connecting and communicating. If we can get them to apply the efforts they make so easily from a social perspective, and direct them to using it for their academic pursuits also, it can only be win-win for everyone.

Angela said:

"They are not used to using these forums in the school setting and many are savvy enough to realise it will make them more accountable in demonstrating productivity for the course."

You know, I can remember when Laura first started her 25 Days to Make a Difference blog...at first, it was shiny and new and there was a sort of magic about it. This motivated her. Soon, though, making a difference became real work, and blogging did as well. Making the decision to keep up with that for over a year was significant for her, and it taught her a lot. I can remember wondering at one point if it was fair to expect her to do this work if she didn't want to anymore. I began this conversation with many people--it was hard to know how to proceed around something that wasn't "required" for school.

A friend of ours who is involved with a good deal of service learning suggested that blogging and participating online brought with it a level of accountability and expectation that helped her remain committed to her goals and the work that she was doing to serve others. This was a powerful realization for all of us--the idea that publishing our plans and promises in these forums makes them that much more real and that much harder to simply give up on.

Perhaps your students will find themselves following through with their course work if they know that an audience is interested and engaged with the work that they are doing.

[Jenny Luca]

Katie, I can understand exactly where you are coming from. There is so much happening here right now and I would love to be getting more of the students from my school involved, but our reality is that we are hitting wind down. Like you, my hopes are that I can start moving some of the staff and students from my school here when we start our 2010 school year.
Everything you are doing is great; try and remember that the small steps are just as important as the big ones. They end up taking you somewhere. : )