Back in 2003 I began working on a project with the Nesta funded "Writers for the Future" project at Nottingham Trent University to develop digital literacy in the classroom. My initial project (the first of two) was to be called 'Dragonsville', and feature a host of dragons who had been hiding from the world for centuries but were now ready to communicate with children. After a lot of development with pilot groups we finally launched the site in April 23rd 2004 - a whopping 6 years ago to the weekend!
The place for the grand worldwide launch of Dragonsville was a school in Nottingham - spookily the very same school that I am now teaching in! I've even found the blog posting I wrote about launch day - read it here.
I've also been tinkering with a project this weekend that I started many years ago in a previous school. Along with several other schools around the country I developed a collaborative writing website for children based around a sleepy coastal village. Bectan Sands was born, and I thought it was time it had a makeover this weekend. So, today I've redesigned the look and feel of the site.
Now it just needs more children to send in their work to be added to what is already there...