Miss MacKinnon When faced with a steam-rolling technology, you either become part of the technology or part of the road! 

Having previously used blogfolio as a form of assessment during my time during A level media studies. It was a very similar layout to the one used by the University of Northampton. As a public site, linking all students and as a forum for teachers to access, moderate and mark.

I like the idea of holding a class or school blog, if done through a school server and login to access I can’t see any downside to having a collaborative blog. This could be a valuable opportunity for schools to share with the wider world their strengths. If other schools can link to blogs, they can share abnd collaborate with the wider community the work that is being created. Schools can use this as evidence of work at parents evenings or to show potential students what kind of work they will be taking part in.

From a parents point of view it is a way of seeing their child’s work and getting involved in their learning. It can also be used to give access to family who perhaps live abroad, or for parents who don’t drop or collect their children from school to see what would be displayed in the classroom.

For example a trip could be documented in a blog, going from the planning stages, to preparation and then a photo collage or timetable of each day. Teachers could update from mobile technologies and children could create an ICT evaluation and reflection of the trip. parents could keep up to date with what their children were up to while away.

Class blogging is a  way for teachers and pupils to display the work that they are proud of, projects that span across the whole curriculum can be brought together online.

PREZI

Prezi is a website that was recently recommended to me, it is a way of presenting work or information in a fast free flowing style.
Registration for the basic features is free but for a fee you can get more advanced tools. The presentations can be shared between users, meaning both parties can edit and tweak a presentation ready for display. For teachers who are sharing a project or giving ideas to other this is ideal. With simple steps and ‘cheat sheets’ getting started is easy.

Presentations can be edited and updated, so during a class project that is cross curricular the staff or children can upload and add their own explanations and examples of work. This presentation could then be used in; an assembly at parents evening or as a reflection at the end of the project. After a school trip a Prezi picture presentation could be shown or emailed to long distance family.
This example is about recycling.

I would let children add their own opinions about different aspects of a project and decide on which pictures to add.
There is already a stockpile of pre-made presentations that can be accessed by anyone, so as the starter to a topic or an informative teaching tool Prezi is easy to access, suitable for the classroom and an alternative to powerpoint.

When working on a student led seminar, we chose to use Prezi as a form of presentation. We picked a simple and clear design and put simple bullet points to outline our understanding. By making ourself all administrators we could all edit our sections from home.