Gathering Ideas with Etherpad
Wow! I’m shocked… I’m stunned… and I’m completely gobsmacked. Just over an hour ago, I sent a tweet to Mandy Barrow asking if she had any good ideas for a WWII day that we’re running in school. She suggested setting up an Etherpad, inviting members of our Twitter networks to join and contribute ideas.
After a few minutes, we’ve built up 23 ideas, with more being added as I type this!
You can read the full Etherpad here, which has a number of ideas that were added since the above screenshots were taken. You can also read about Mandy’s experiences with Etherpad on the Kent ICT blog and on the Kent site.
This is an amazing site, and it’s going to be a great tool to use in the classroom. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who joined in the conversation and has helped to shape our WW2 day.
Update: Since writing this post a few days ago, the number of ideas has leapt up to 50! We had our World War 2 day, and the children thoroughly enjoyed it. The children asked if they could have days like that every day. I particularly remember one boy shouting ‘This has been the best day ever!’ as we were finishing our street party in the afternoon!
We tried many of the activities that were suggested via the Etherpad. We’re also going to use some of the other ideas as the term continues. The Etherpad document (here) will continue to stay online, so that others can benefit from the ideas. I’ve also copied / pasted it into a Google Doc (http://www.bit.ly/ww2etherpad) as a backup!
Thanks again to the Twitter friends who contributed. Our day would not have been as successful as it was, without your input.
I was stunned by etherpad. I had never used it before and found myself chomping at the bit to use it. I am going to try it out in guided writing with a group of very able boys, all level 5 writers, where we are going to focus in on the style of writing in explanatory texts. we are aiming for a more formal tone, use of the passive where approprite etc. These boys can talk about all of these things but need further support in getting them into their writing. I thought creating a collaborative text on etherpad might support them in doing this.
I know you are using it in your classroom with children. How did it go?
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Mark Warner Reply:
March 10th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Hope your work goes well. We used it today… two Etherpads on the go with a class of 30 Year 5s. It was really interesting, but it taught me a few things about using such a tool in the classroom. I’ll post my thoughts when I get another chance to write a blog post.
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