If children have trouble understanding or managing their feelings, expressing themselves, working with others, or dealing with setbacks, their education is affected. Negatively. All schools value the social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL), especially when behaviour and attendance are problematic.
How to help develop skills like empathy, collaboration, perseverance and self-expression? Technology is no substitute for drama groups or buddy schemes, but children often feel freer to connect with others online, within their school or across the region. And such first steps can lead to big journeys of discovery.
Merlin offers a safe environment for online play, chatting, blogging, messaging and teamwork. Merlin ‘Our Places’ are collaboration spaces where groups of users get together: you can share information and opinion in discussion forums; you can set up a chat-room; you can publish blogs and invite comment (with moderation and filtering too); you can make a wiki, where individual contributions create a body of knowledge; you can download dedicated SEAL teaching materials, and you can come together on interactive projects or learning games. All this group effort is virtually… actually… very little effort.