Kids having fun with Honeycomb in Herts

Kevin Sullivan and the children at Knutsford school in Watford have been having fun trialling Honeycomb this term. Here’s what Chris Carter, eDevelopments advisor at Hertfordshire CC, had to say about  their experiences.

Knutsford School, Herts

‘I recently had the pleasure of visiting Knutsford School in Watford where Year 6 have been trialling the use of Honeycomb. This school, which has the ICT Mark and a history of innovative ICT use, have previously explored the potential of pupil-created web pages, using the full blown professional application, Dreamweaver.

Whilst I think they did very well with their efforts with this program, the teacher told me how steep the learning curve had been for many of the pupils, and he was therefore particularly interested in the personal webpage tool in Honeycomb. This has a simple drag and drop interface that is simple to use, therefore leaving the time to concentrate on the content of the pages, rather than how to make them.

Parents were informed of the Honeycomb project and were provided with a link to the school’s Internet Acceptable Use policy. Preparation lessons included discussion of what should, and should not, be included in a personal web page as well as the appropriate use of the commenting facility that Honeycomb features. It therefore worked a little like a ‘simulation’ of the numerous personal space / networking tools that appear on the internet, but in the walled environment where their pages could only be accessed by their peers.

The enthusiasm of the youngsters was, needless to say, huge. It was interesting to walk along a row of children in the ICT suite and see a line of these media rich, colourful webpages featuring images, sound, video and widgets. Some parents had apparently commented that their children’s favourite thing at school was using Honeycomb! ‘

Praise indeed! And thank you to Kevin and all the children for making this such a success.