An e-Learning Journey!

Yesterday, we held our third Editor’s Board meeting of Sherwood Schools Blogspot and with Martin Macgillivray, Manager of the eLearning Centres to guide us, we certainly learnt a lot together!

First of all we learnt the difference between a website and a blogsite – (you can comment on the posts on a blogsite) so we had a go at posting our comments.

Then we had a discussion about what ‘tabs’ we would like at top of the Home page of the blogsite and Martin put these on for us. We decided that all pieces of excellent writing would go on the blog first as a ‘post’ and then at Editors Board Meetings we would decide which ones to showcase  in the “Top Stories” or “Poetry Corner” tabs.

Some of us cannot make the videos play so Martin is going to investigate this and then these can go in the “Video Showcase” tab.

Next we talked about re-designing the banner or watermark at the top of the Home page to feature staff and pupils from Sherwood EIP. From this, we learnt about copyright laws and how we can choose pictures etc. from ‘creative commons’ –stuff on certain websites which anyone can use (within certain restrictions).

We agreed that people would post on the site their ideas and photos for the banner design, or email them to Martin. This led us on to talking about e-safety – very important!  - and how it is essential to get permission from the person or children’s parent/carers before using any photos or videos of them. Everyone will check this before posting.

We also noticed that we need to change the name of the blogsite to something like “Sherwood Education Improvement Partnership Blogsite” . We’ll have to talk about this again next time!

So… as well as the children having somewhere to showcase their excellent work and tell their school news, they are learning lots about how to set up and use a blogsite -and its teething problems!- and about all the decisions that have to be made along the way.  It is a great e-learning journey!

We are meeting again on Monday, May 23^rd at 1-3 p.m. at Henry Whipple Primary School.

In the meantime, please post your comments and let me know how YOU think things are going with the blogsite. What is going well? What have you enjoyed? What do we need to do next?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Linda Chambers – Sherwood EIP Manager.