English is about words

A visit to the English Department yesterday was all about words - creative writing and essays. I started off in Mike O'Brien's class surrounded by words. Speaking to some of the boys the same message is repeated. I like writing on the computer, I write more, it's easier, I can find my work...
However, we are faced with students writing their exams so we need to keep the idea of "blended' learning' in front of us. However, their are many tasks that technology allows us all to do -collaborative docs, comments and feedback, forums, quick research etc. These are tasks that are only possible with BYOD. A change for the English Dept has been their Creative Writing tasks. Students can now do these in their classrooms without the hassle of booking in large chunks of the computer suites. Another change that I think is transformative is Teacher Dashboard.
But back to English... Off to Catherine Bell's delightful year 9 class who I helped last term with their
Google presentations on their novel. These were assessed in the last week as group presentations to the class. These were of a very high standard and showed real thought and empathy for the main character. This deep thinking was shown again as they discussed their essays in class. I asked the boys if knowing their assignment would be presented to the class, Ms Bell and me made them want to present assignments of a high standard. The general feeling was that this was a factor in their efforts. There were no computers in this lesson. A "pot of gold" handout on quotes, working through the question on the whiteboard and a workbook with essay questions and space to write the practice essay were all that was needed. And some good questioning of course. Sometimes a whiteboard pen
is mightier than the apple! I spoke to a group of boys from this class today at lunchtime. They told me that Ms Bell is an awesome teacher!
Period 6 I was in Chris Rayward's class who also had Laura there to help out. A combination of sharing essay beginnings, writing on the computer using a template, finding relevant quotes from a google doc and asking questions showed another way of teaching and learning using technology and writing essays.
Thank you so much English Department for allowing me to visit.