Entries from November 2007 ↓

I’ve been browsing through the Edublog Awards nominees and one post in particular stick out to me as being useful.

The “How to Grow a Blog” planning sheets seem a good way to get learners thinking about what they are actualy trying to achieve.

I’ve  used writing frames in a similar way before, but this really gives a bit of structure and purpose.

Maybe I should have a regular Good Stuff / Bad Stuff spot.

Today’s good stuff

Several completed Key Skills, two in particular standing out for excellent use of the tools, even my current pet favourite Bubbl.

The words “I could do the blog from my home computer couldn’t I?” issuing from a learners mouth!

 Today’s not so good stuff

The ongoing battle with the recalcitrant and thirsty colour printer.  As a colleague pointed out seeing their work in glorious technicolour is motivational, and the other learners who see it also comment on how good it look.

Unfortunately”happy trainees” is a rather intangible thing to put a price tag on whereas the colour toner cartridges have a very definite and LARGE price tag!

The upshot

I’d love to go over to e-portfolios and forget the grief of endless printing altogether but in spite of enthusiasm for the idea from all trainers, that seems to recede further every time we discuss it.  The extra time it would take to experiment is hard to find, but maybe it’s time to return to the idea and try it out.

It’d need to be with one our our more confident learners as I feel that our less experienced learners need that concrete reassurance of seeing the physical results of their hard work.

I’m looking forward to our next verification visit to see what the ‘official’ word is on our using the blogs as projects. 

The latest group are keen to get stared, but as they’re a small group I’m holding off until the next large group starts so I only have to go through the paperwork once!

We started discussing the use of comments today.  The group all seemed pretty savvy about spam and risks from viruses etc which was pleasing.

They did decide to err on the side of caution and enforce moderation on their comments — I suspect I’m going to have to prod people to check their queued messages.

The are still adding content to the blogs.  More slowly than I’d like as I keep having to drag in the paperwork and construction of the Key Skills portfolios and an hour and a half jsut flies by.

I wish I could get them to use the blogs a bit more in the course of the normal trinaing day instead of only touching it during the designated sessions.

Attendance continues to be poor, this week being particularly bad as a lot of our learners have no childcare over the  half term.

We’re also a bit miffed that everyone is leaving early and not using the allocated self study time.  We’re considering making that non-optional, as we’re really going to struggle to get qualifcation completed on time with the current level of absence.

To add to our woes, the next blog session was scuppered entirely by the company internet connection collapsing on us, a new intake of learners of which two dropped out before even attending induction, and the dispiriting discovery that the only trainee showing any enthusiam for using my new favourite tool Bubbl, was also the only trainee on whose PC Flash Player hadn’t been installed properly!

These things are sent to try us…