Some of you may remember Michel le Voyageur who had many adventures around Europe though an eTwinning project last year. He was French and had a wiki that was updated as he travelled round Europe. Upon arrival back home in Billingham, he sat in my classroom and was admired by all who gazed upon him.
I feared that Michael was getting bored by February as my classroom isn't always the most stimulating place to be all day everyday, as the worksheets come out :)
One day, my lovely Year 10s gave me an idea. Some of them were heading to Iceland on a Science trip at half term. They asked whether Michel could accompany them. He did and had a great time going to glaciers, causing trouble and even gaining a companion in the shape of a (cuddly) puffin! Upon his return from Iceland, Michel seemed restless and told me he needed a change so, I kindly obliged.
He has had a (small) name change and is now known as Michael der Reisende and he has a blog. This blog, however is not written by me, it is written by members of my Y8 German class. Each week, one of them will take Michael home and blog about what he has done. I hope that this will help improve their writing skills and also keep them interested in German. It also gives them the opportunity to have a real audience for their writing in German - normally only I get to see it...and SLT when they do work scrutiny.
Posterous is brilliant for class blogging, as you can set up the account so that anyone can email a post in and you just have to approve it. No logging in, no passwords to forget, just an email address to send to. The class seem really interested in the project and he has already had one blog post written, with many comments. I'm looking forward to reading about what else he does.
What's also nice is that he seems to be gaining a network of other cuddly travellers along the way as well.
Do you have a mascot that blogs in a foreign language or goes home with pupils? If so let me know and I'll share with Y8, they would love to see what other classes are doing.
