Making Spaces

I have been working with a lot of teachers in setting up their rooms to make spaces and a more mobile environment. This involves bringing furniture such as cupboards and tables away from the walls and using it to make spaces within the room. I liked Stephen Heppell's idea about writeable surfaces and I have been encouraging teachers to paint whiteboard or blackboard paint over backs of cupboards and on top of old tables so that they can be used as surfaces for children to write on. Julie has started with this idea and the kids love using the whiteboard. Eventually they will use it for several purposes

• mindmapping
• publishing of work (take a photo when it is done)
• graffiti wall (words only i.e examples of compound words or homonyms)
• graffiti art wall (drawings only i.e. We are studying Communication, add a drawing that has something to do with communication and be able to explain what it has to do with communication when asked)
• maths races (who is the fastest multiplier etc)
• mural on our topic
• practise my spelling words
• do my maths working out
• messages

It is only limited by your own and your student's imaginations.

To add whiteboard paint or blackboard paint to a surface, there does need to be some preparation. Julie's caretaker, sanded it, then added 2 coats of primer. Julie painted it with one coat of pale blue paint and then two coats of whiteboard paint.

Online and Classroom Spaces

I worked with Dave and Steph at Somerville a couple of weeks ago and again Dave wowed me with the direction he is heading in with his online spaces. He has been the 'King' of wikis for a while and presented at L@S 2011 Web Tools For Schools

His class wiki worked extremely well last year and was a great source of resources for his students and a show case of student work. This year he has developed that wiki to be the 'portal' for his other wikis. He has developed separate wikis for numeracy, literacy and student Learning Journeys. I have asked him to make a Quicktime movie explaining how and why he uses so many wikis which he will add to his e-Learning page on our wiki.

Steph is new to our project but has been working on developing her classroom spaces. Like Dave she teaches intermediate children (ages 11-12). Like Dave her classroom does not look like a traditional classroom...there are comfy chairs and couches scattered around the room, she has removed most of her desks for tables and students use tote trays now. What impressed me about both rooms was that children were working in a variety of different ways, some were on laptops, others were working in exercise books, some were creating large posters, others were reading. In both rooms students were working collaboratively.
So, here are two intermediate classrooms successfully integrating their classroom and online spaces, visit their wiki pages on the e-Learning classroom wiki and then look at their own classroom blogs and wikis, it will be worth your time!

Online Spaces

It's been interesting talking to our two Intermediate members of the e-Learning cluster over the last few days. I have posted previously about Dave (Year 8) where we talked about Social Networking and Digital Citizenship. With Shaun (Year 8) we talked extensively about his online spaces. He felt the same as Dave that he wasn't really developing any spaces in his classroom but I was able to point out after visiting his classroom that he has great 'group' spaces.

He is also starting to develop Writing and Science areas. He has a couch right in the middle of the classroom and he uses this for when he is working with a group and needs to use the IWB.

I suggested to him (and also to Dave) that they explain what the spaces are about and get the students to design the spaces in the classroom.

Shaun has developed some wonderful working online spaces.
His class blog http://brs-year8.blogspot.com/ is a forum for students to post work (and they love comments, so please support Comments4Kids), Shaun also posts diary updates of what has been happening in the school and classroom.
He has managed to get some other teachers on board and they share a collaborative Wikispace http://brs-rimu.wikispaces.com/ This is used for Homework, links and resources for the different curriculum areas.
He embeds student activities in the wiki such as the example below




Shaun makes extensive use of Google Docs in his own planning and student work.
Have a look at his e-Learning page where he is documenting his journey week by week.
His personal blog http://shaunwoodictblog.blogspot.com/ is worth a look as he has chronicled his own teaching and learning experiences over the last few years. I look forward to see how his classroom develops this year and what changes it will make to his own teaching practice and students learning.

First Days

I have managed to visit a few classrooms over the last few days and I have seen some wonderful classroom environments evolving. Teachers are embracing the ideas of 'spaces' and secret spaces are the most creative.
In this classroom Lynne has made a 'Secret Garden'. There is a closed in area for students where they can go to be reflective.

She has also included a secret door which leads into a small enclosed area, just big enough for one student.

















Here is a guided tour of Lynne's classroom, photos taken by Lynne

Classroom spaces

View more documents from Jacqui Sharp.

Sara and Jan have gone with a nature theme as well.

And Kimberley has come up with this idea.













Shaun has created several spaces in his Year 8 Classroom.



Dave is concentrating on his 'online spaces' at the moment.

Everybody else are doing exciting things as well, which will be documented on their classroom pages on the e-Learning wiki.

The e-Learning Classroom

A few months ago @janedanielson sent me a link to Ewan McIntosh's presentation on 'Spaces in the Classroom'.

The Seven Spaces of Technology in School Environments from Ewan McIntosh on Vimeo.

Ewan's thoughts resonated with my own, this was the way I used to teach when I was still in the classroom.I called them areas and I became very creative in the way I used furniture and the space in the classroom and outside. When speaking with new teachers I always advise them to become best friends with the school caretaker because that is the person who will help you to find the equipment you need.
Towards the end of the year I was approached by 3 teachers from one school who said they were putting a proposal to their principal to set up an e-Learning cluster of 3 classrooms of different levels. At the same time another school approached me and said that they wanted to set up a 'Digital' classroom with 1-1 access. I have since put them on the e-Learning pathway. This is when I had the idea of these schools working together using a wiki as the lynch pin. Over the last four months several other teachers have discovered the project and asked to be involved. At last count there are 13 teachers from eight schools involved.
The expectations for these teachers is to be part of the e-Learning wiki, develop a community of sharing through participating in the discussions and publishing their successes and failures on their classroom page.
This blog's intention is to document the journey we make together.