I have been reading through the comments you have all been making on the software. It's really great to have your input - thank you all!
Gail left some good questions so I thought it migh be useful to answer them here in case a few people ave been wondering.
"Wow this has really developed since last we saw it. So stimulating and motivating for the kids. How often do we find they think they have nothing to say . . . Judy Martin's idea of a word bank would be a great way of to engage non english speaking background kids who suffer from a deprived language background. Are the kids talking about what they are doing with teacher and others as thy construct and collate using their fridge magnets? or do they work alone on their story. What is the audience? Just the teacher or other students? Stars are a good idea but only from teacher?? Feedback from peers is very powerful is this incorporated? Will continue to follow on both sites. Can't wait to read more."
- It's really important for the kids to discuss their ideas with each other and the teacher as they use the magnet, and before and after! Miss Collins has been doing a lot of planning work with them away from the computer.
- They write individual games but share ideas and feedback from each other.
- The audience for the games are other pupils plus teacher and maybe parents. The audience for the fridge magnets is mostly the pupil himself, although it will be useful for the teacher. If we had more time we would make a collaborative version of the magnets so kids could share ideas. I had a very good student project relating to this last year, but the physical constraints about equipment lead us to focus on a stand alone version in this project.
- The stars are now for the kid to mark his own favourite idea. We didn't do the teacher stars in the end.