Catriona Pene is head of curriculum for St Francis Xavier Catholic School, passionate about ICT and teacher of year 3.
We invited Catriona to put together the above video about her Room 10 blog as a great example of how to use this platform as a way of engaging stakeholders, parents, those who couldn’t experience the specific events first hand, plus its impact.
CORE Education loves to champion simple and effective examples of using new media technologies in and out of the classroom.
What do you think? Have you used blogging in other ways in your teaching? What else can be achieved using these platforms and an iPhone (and other non-Apple-related but smartphone goodies)?
Catriona Pene is head of curriculum for St Francis Xavier Catholic School, passionate about ICT and teacher of Year 3. Her class blog states: “We love ICT and sharing our work with our families and the world on our class blog.”

16 comments
A Blog, An iPhone, A School Visit And It’s Impact | The CORE Education Blog | The eLearning Site says:
March 18, 2012 at 10:28 pm (UTC 12)
[…] Via blog.core-ed.org […]
Tania Coutts says:
March 19, 2012 at 3:53 am (UTC 12)
AWESOME example of authentic blogging experiences Catriona — thank you for sharing. It was great to see the amount of comments left by children, parents and whānau on each of your posts. As you said — the perfect way to share the learning that was happening for the children on this occasion. I look forward to following your blog and the exciting learning that is happening for both you and the children.
Katarina says:
March 19, 2012 at 7:41 am (UTC 12)
Thank you Catriona for sharing your blogging experience. Very inspirational! I look forward to share your blog with my students. We are just setting up ours and are looking for ideas.
Catriona Pene says:
March 19, 2012 at 9:55 pm (UTC 12)
Hey Katarina, good lcuk with the blog, if you wnat any ideas just email me — always willing to share. : )
Ann Hatherly says:
March 19, 2012 at 8:02 am (UTC 12)
Hi Catriona This is an inspiring teacher story which will be added to my kete of resources to show ECE teachers and get them thinking of how they could do similar things. Thanks! Ann
Catriona Pene says:
March 19, 2012 at 9:56 pm (UTC 12)
Thanks Ann, would love to see some of the things your EDE teachers are doing.
Trish Robbins says:
March 19, 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC 12)
Catriona what a successful interactive learning opportunity that you provided for the tamariki and whanau of your class. The great thing is that this learning experience can be revisited many times over and a very effective way to build relationship with your parents and extended whanua .
Catriona says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:37 am (UTC 12)
Yes Trish I love the contact that my blog gives me with the parents and wider community. We often use our blog to revisit concepts and reinforce learning.
Jocelyn Wright says:
March 19, 2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC 12)
Kia ora Catriona. Thanks for sharing this — what a fantastic example of engaging parents/whanau in children’s learning. So many connections and opportunities to process learning were made for your children. As an interested grandmother I would love it if my mokopuna’s school did this!
Allanah King says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:04 am (UTC 12)
I gave the Blogger app a whirl in class today with the iPad today.
http://moturoa.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/don-let-pigeon-cross-road.html
I should of thought of using it before now. It was good apart from we put an apostrophe in the title and it looked odd when we posted it so I had to go back later on the iPad and edit it properly.
Catriona says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:35 am (UTC 12)
Yes it is scarily easy isn’t it! And I love how you can go back and tidy up your posts later. It’s just a matter of getting them on in the first place. : )
DK says:
March 20, 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC 12)
Looks fab — love how all this technology stuff makes it more human… an oxymoron but true nonetheless :-)
Catriona says:
March 20, 2012 at 6:39 am (UTC 12)
Thanks Jocelyn. You could come and be an honorary grandmother for my class…
Tracey Balks says:
March 21, 2012 at 9:18 pm (UTC 12)
Wow Mrs Pene — you are an amazing colleague and ICT role model for us all. Our students are very fortunate to have your expertise…look out world! Tracey
Karen Melhuish says:
March 26, 2012 at 12:58 am (UTC 12)
Thanks again for this story, Catriona. You’ll see that we have shared it in the Enabling e-Learning: Teaching community (the Ministry’s online hub for e-learning) — and it has generated some great discussion, as well as inspiring others to try it for themselves:-)
Moana Timoko says:
April 12, 2012 at 8:24 pm (UTC 12)
This is awesome — thanks for sharing!