Gifted and Talented Blog

Long time no blog, I know. Well actually, I have been blogging, just somewhere else. I've been running an experimental after-school club for students identified as G&T in KS3 over the last half-term, and (of course) decided to plan and run the whole thing using a new blog (whose name may seem familiar) at www.sprqs.blogspot.com
As ever, it has been really convenient to have all my resources together, all the more so because I am running the club in parallel with a colleague, so it is very convenient to be able to put all our ideas and materials in one place.
Parental involvement (or at least liason) has been high on our list of priorities, so we have contacted everyone involved with the blog address and are trying to encourage them to follow the sessions (lesson plans are on the blog as well as materials) and have a go at some of the activities themselves. I'll find out next week how many had a go at "Einstein's problem" over Christmas.
So far we have looked at values, and logical and lateral thinking, and our next session will be Russian/Japanese tasters. After that I plan to get students establishing their own blogs, and practising how to use online networks and communities to further their interests and learning.

Virtual Exchange

Since September my Year 9 French class has been running a blog alongside a similar aged class in France. It's the first time I've done anything like this so we've kept it quite simple. Our aim was for both classes to complete and post a task on the blog each month, and then look at one another's work, comment and generally get to know and help one another. In September we decided each student would post a voki, introducing themselves in the Target Language. We had some great lessons recording ourselves, and then listening to partner students' introductions. In November we realised a task a month was a bit ambitious, and sent bears to one another for a Christmas exchange visit. Toffee (our Woldingham bear) and Francois and Jules (pictured left) enjoyed Christmas in their exchange country and posted slideshows (hosted by scribd and voicethread) to report on their experiences.

While we were using snail mail we also sent some handwritten letters to our partner class, which they then corrected, commented on and returned. In the meantime we have also posted individual photos, text, and the odd interactive game relating to work done in class.

We have had to overcome several challenges, such as restrictions using Blogger in school, and the reliability of equipment at times, but the students are having great fun, and I would definitely recommend it as a relatively simple (and really cheap!) way of getting your classes enthusiastic about the country and seeing a real purpose for the language.

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