Back to work and backchanneling

Categories: Coasts, s1 and s2, Advanced Higher
My Friday sick day has thrown my plans for tomorrow a little. I wanted to look at the s1 jotter work and put together something from the responses to the 'City of Men' clip. I can't do that now as the pile of jotters I had intended to take home over the weekend is still lying in class. The plan tomorrow is therefore to introduce the favela building team task, probably for Thursday. I'd like to show the students another side of living in the favela before we do this, and would love to try a bit of backchanneling if possible. Richard Byrne has suggested five sites where students can provide a constant stream of questions/comments while a classroom activity is ongoing. This really appeals to me because, as a teacher, it's sometimes easy to play off certain students all the time. This should give an open forum to the class and will hopefully keep students focused on the clip. The option I like best, todaysmeet, is unfortunately blocked in school, and edmodo is useable, but not on the browser that the class student laptops have (I'm thinking as its a period 1 class, I'd struggle to change accomodation at this stage). I'll need to see which ones bypass the hammer of websense before we can move with this one.
Advanced Higher has suffered from the not so unexpected spate of Christmas leavers. It was a blessing and a curse that several of the students who chose the option where high achievers in s5- a blessing because I was very intrigued by some of their folio topics, but a curse due to the lack of need for the qualification. Looks like I am losing three or four of my students. I will be sad to see them go- most of them, I have taught for 6 years- but also appreciate that some real life work experience is probably a better option for some of them. The one advantage I suppose this gives me is that I can devote more time to the other individuals and their folio, starting tomorrow.
s3 are revising for a NAB at the moment and we have been doing this through primary pad. I have spent the last hour looking over the pads. Some are more detailed than others and there is a noticeable difference in the level of contribution by some individuals. This is all part of the feedback I will give through edmodo, but tomorrow I plan to sit in the pad groups and give face to face feedback on how to improve the responses. NAB on Thursday, remember...