How do you inspire writers?

I’ve been asked to run a workshop about how to inspire writers and help raise writing attainment across the primary-phase as part of a PD day at my school in a couple of weeks. I obviously have my own ideas, views and ways of doing so but I’m really interested to hear what others think. Particularly in relation to projects and using quality texts. Therefore, I would really appreciate any input or ideas you may have that

Visit The Land of Me… seriously

A world of creativity & learning for ages 2 and up (that includes you)… I recently discovered The Land of Me by the fantastic company Made in Me. It is quite simply one of the most charming pieces of educational software I have ever come across. The software is based around the idea of promoting children’s imagination and creativity. Hence the focus on ‘me’ and it being an epic journey through your imagination. The Land

Time for another Changing Horizon…

I have spent today completely re-designing this website. When I say re-designing I actually mean finding a decent template and then modifying it. It is something I have been meaning to do for a long time as I had become unhappy with the dark theme that I had installed previously. Most of the blogs that I enjoy reading have ‘light’ colour schemes and I decided that it was time my blog was themed in a

Friend/Inbox/Tweet Me – Perceived challenges and implications of Social Media

“Friend me on Facebook and I’ll totally confirm” (Dialogue from ‘Sorority Row’ – Hendler, 2009: [00:27:50]) The above dialogue demonstrates how online practices with social networks have become embedded in popular culture and media and how the boundaries of offline and online ties have become blurred (Ellison et al, 2007). As the result of their popularity, new social networks continue to be developed and used by different communities. The rise of social networking systems such

Why ‘Growing Greener Futures’ is important

I recently took up a new role in my school as creative learning coordinator, which includes coordinating our School of Creativity programme with Creative Partnerships. Over the past three years we have been engaged in work based on outdoor learning, living with the land and digital technologies. This has included redeveloping areas of our school grounds into new learning spaces and using a new blogging platform to begin to support writing, evaluation and reflection. Our

Productivity: The Notification Culture

The (very) long summer holidays have allowed me to reflect on what has been a very busy and productive year. However, when I think about productivity I feel that my actually productivity has taken a stumble over the past couple of years. While I appear to have had a high output in terms of work completed this year including developing projects at school, completing the first year of my MA and writing my first published

Social Media and other Web 2.0 jazz…

I’m currently in the process of researching various types of Social Media and Networks for my MA research. I hope to build on some of the work I have written up recently in relation to New Literacy Studies and @ClassroomTweets. It’s apparent from my classroom experience and reading that the simplicity of creating and updating content with Web 2.0 systems empowers readers to write – @ClassroomTweets has really made me realise this. But what the

Using Twitter in the Primary Classroom

My article about the use of Twitter in Orange Class (@ClassroomTweets) was recently published in English 4-11. I have changed some of the ways in which we use Twitter even within the short time between writing and publication of the article. I plan on writing another more up-to-date reflection on how we have been using Twitter soon but in the meantime hopefully this will provide you with the context in which our work is based.

Android and Me

After a year of using my HTC Hero, this post reflects on my use of Android and recommends apps that have become central to my life. Up until last year I was not a huge user of mobile phones. I actually dislike speaking on the phone and send very few text messages. My main communications go through either social media or email. I used these sporadically on my ‘buggy’ Nokia N82 with varying success for