My e-Learning goal is to implement our class blog into our writing programme.

My initial idea was to get the students to publish their writing onto the blog.  http://kahikateaiwa.blogspot.co.nz/

The majority of my writers were at the beginning of the year, struggling writers and I became disheartened at the prospect of teaching them how to blog.  I also had not thought about the logistics of them posting straight to the blog, i.e., admin rights.  This idea was then put into the too hard basket with very little actually being posted.  Term 2 I decided to have students work published on the blog, which I would do the posting of, and also link suitable learning sites for them to access during our reading, writing and math programmes.   Simply teaching my students how to access and use these appropriately took a fair amount of time.  An offshoot of this however has been that some of my students are also accessing the site from home and continuing their learning outside the school setting – particularly with studyladder where they compete to achieve medals, certificates and trophies. http://www.studyladder.co.nz/.

This has unfortunately meant that I am doing most of the work with the blog but it has so far worked better for us.

My next step is to go back to my initial idea of getting students themselves to post straight to the blog.  My students in general have come a long way both with their writing and with their knowledge in the use of ICT.  I feel confident now that at least some of them will be able to post their writing (unedited), straight to the blog.  I have heard from my colleagues that publishing to their class blogs has been incredibly motivating for their students and helped to improve the quality of the writing being produced.  I look forward to seeing this happen with my own students writing.

I myself have learnt a fair amount both from the e-sharing I have participated in with my cluster, and from PD I have been fortunate to attend.  At the start of the year I knew precious little about blogging.  What little I had learnt, I had forgotten as I had not put it into practice.  A reluctant blogger, I have learnt (amongst other things)...

• How to post, add widgets, add links, and also how to use PiZap to jazz up photos.
• How to convert various file formats to various other file formats - fabulous for converting brainstorms, mind mapping, etc., in 'Word' or SmartBoard 'Notebook' into PNG formats which can be posted straight to the blog rather than linked to.
• Having the blog has also motivated me to find other 'cool sites' & 'cool tools'.  One in particular that I have found some wonderful ideas from is 'Web 2.0: Cool tools for schools'. Check it out.  Its well worth a look - http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

I know there is much more I could learn, and look forward to continuing this blogging journey.

Any ideas you might have for me and/or my students would be gratefully received.