How can Wynchcote Webmags help students learn?

Here we outline what we consider to be some of the benefits of using Wynchcote Webmags in an educational setting.

Motivation

Assessment

Teamwork

Work-related Learning

Personalised Learning

Evaluation

Safety and Security

Do webmags mean extra work for the teacher?

Do you need to create a webmag from scratch?

Do students and teachers have to be trained?

What would teachers need to know?

What would teachers and their students NOT need to know? 

Would students be able to incorporate existing learning materials?  

Are there opportunities for older students to facilitate younger student learning? 

Student Voice

The Enterprise Initiative

Active Citizenship

Global Outreach

Motivation

If you are reading this as a teacher then you may want to consider how powerful a motivator this kind of webmag could be for a group of students.

Whatever subject you teach you may have in the past set a group assignment for completion over the course of a number of weeks. This might have involved the delivery of a PowerPoint presentation at the end of the assignment.

Why stop at a presentation in front of an audience when your students can collaboratively create an online magazine, or even a radio / TV station using one of our webmags?

Assessment

You may wish to assess each student’s contribution to the project.

The difficulty with group work however, is identifying and assessing each individual's contribution to the whole. This problem can be overcome through the production of a webmag.

How? The name of each 'reporter' is automatically added to their individual contribution to the team effort when they upload their contribution (Model 1).

Teamwork

Producing a webmag is a demanding task and one that will really stretch the team-working skills of your students. They will have to plan and monitor their progress if they are to remain in control and achieve their common goals.

We would suggest a webmag is an excellent project to engage the energies of a group of gifted and talented pupils.

Work-related Learning  

Team working, problem-solving, communicating, planning, monitoring, evaluating, being flexible, co-operating, supporting ... these are all key skills vital for success in the modern workplace.
Each and every student contributing to a webmag project will develop them all.

Personalised Learning

There is a real opportunity through the production of a small webmag, or part of a larger webmag, for students to take on responsibility.

And the project launched in class need not stop at the end of the assessment period.

Some students may wish to launch a more ambitious extra-curricular project, promoting your subject and school along the way!  

Evaluation

Through the incorporation of relevant interactive forms (with Wynchcote support) your students could engage in peer-assessment and self-assessment.

The students could even ask readers of their webmag to add comments and provide constructive feedback, through the incorporation of interactive comment forms.

If you prefer you could restrict use of this facility for teacher feedback only.

Safety and Security  

No-one other than the students and teacher need ever see the magazine, at least not until you collectively decide to publish the content, either on your organisation's intranet or the web itself.

Aware of the importance of safety and security on the web, we set out a comparison of two different models of the webmag elsewhere in this pamphlet.

Do webmags mean extra work for the teacher?

Vetting content before publication sounds like extra work. But is it? When the teacher reviews a student's contribution, s/he has the opportunity to provide feedback – praise and assessment!

Do you need to create a Webmag from scratch?

No. The structure of a Wynchcote webmag is provided, as it were, 'out of the box'.

Teachers may use an existing ready-made webmag installation or request a webmag to be customised by Wynchcote to meet their specific requirements.

For small group webmags we suggest a ready-made format.

For 'subject-wide webmags' or 'whole school webmags' you may prefer to request a customised format instead.

Having chosen a particular style, your group of students may easily incorporate their own logo. They may also request that certain features be turned on or off and re-design the structure of content within the webmag.

You are assured of our continued support as and when you are faced with such requests. Our workshops and online support – www.wynchcote.net - are all part of the service.

Do students and teachers have to be trained?

It is desirable that teachers supervising students using a Wynchcote Webmag do receive some training.

Students would not necessarily require instruction from Wynchcote. We can provide workshops for students, but most teachers should be sufficiently confident after attending a one-day workshop, to supervise their students using a webmag.

There would of course be a need for teachers to incorporate in their schemes of work a number of sessions to enable their students to practise adding content to the webmag.

If published on the web and Internet access is available from home then much of the preparation time could be spent outside the classroom.

If your school really likes the idea of webmags then training could be incorporated in the curriculum at an appropriate time of year. The skills learned would after all be transferable across all subjects!

Wynchcote Webmag Workshops can be hosted in the school/college or in a convenient location should teachers taking part come from different schools.

What would teachers need to know?

Teachers would need to know how to:

1) add, organise and delete webmag articles contributed by students;
2) publish and unpublish articles;
3) link menu items and content together (webmag navigation);
4) insert images and other media (audio and video) to the webmag;
5) link content to external sources;
6) create, manage and delete webmag users.

What would teachers and their students NOT need to know?

There is no need to learn about web design or database management. If you are interested then you may like to find out more about dynamic websites and how they are built.
Wynchcote can indeed provide workshops for students to learn how to build a dynamic webmag like this from the ground up if this kind of course would be of interest to older students.

Most users will however be content with having the power to drive their project forward through the familiar interface of the excellent WYSIWYG editor incorporated with the webmag installation.

Would students be able to incorporate existing learning materials?

Yes. Anything teachers use that is digital in format, or can be digitised (through for example the use of a scanner) can be used by students.

You may for example want to provide some groups with ready-made materials that they then choose from and build upon in their magazine.

You might even have added base content to the webmag to give the students a head start, depending upon their levels of ability and need for support.



Are there opportunities for older students to facilitate younger student learning?

Most definitely! Our experience tells us that sixth formers working with Year 10s (aspiring to be sixth formers) is a good mix.

Year 10s working with Year 7s also works very well.

Sixth Formers working with Year 5 and 6 pupils has also been seen to help ease the transition from primary to secondary school.

The webmag is a great vehicle through which secondary schools can reach out to their partner primaries and the wider community - so helping them to fulfil their mission as a ‘specialist college’.

Student Voice

A Wynchcote webmag is a great way for a school student council to increase its profile within a school, engaging the attention of the whole student body.

The Enterprise Initiative

What could be more enterprising than forming a Webmag Team and creating a magazine?

Why stop at one. Many schools have several after school clubs running – each one would benefit from having its own webmag (or perhaps sharing one with other similar clubs).

Membership of a trampolining club may not at first seem to be enterprising – but the contribution of club members to the creation and running of a webmag would be.

Active Citizenship

Webmags will ensure that students are actively engaged in taking greater responsibility – the best way to prepare for adult life.

There are a number of government initiatives that would benefit from student participation in such a way – Healthy Schools and Eco Schools to name but two.

Global Outreach

The forging of closer working relationships between students from across the world can be enhanced through webmag collaboration.