Month: September 2019

This week I had the pleasure of reviewing a MEd project written by my colleague and friend, Suzanne Agnew, Supporting Emergent Writers Through Digital Storytelling (2015, University of Victoria). When I first got my first teaching contract in the Sooke District, 6 years ago, Sue was very much a mentor to me and still is today. Over the years, Sue has saved class funds from year to year to purchase iPads for her classroom. This shows how much she values and embraces technology in her classroom. In Sue’s MEd project, she examined the research on Digital Storytelling (DS), discussed theoretical framework connected to DS, focused on implementing the Pictello App in her classroom and finally, created a professional development workshop for colleagues on DS. I very much enjoyed reading Sue’s paper and thought it was well organized. It has given me a glimpse of how my final project could look in the end. I also like the idea of creating a professional development workshop as part of my MEd project to share my learning with others in a practical way.

Here are some quotes from Sue’s MEd project that have stuck with me:

• “My emergent writing students flourished after learning how to use this app! Free of the limits of paper, their stories emerged. My students were so motivated to write, they spent their free time creating and sharing their unfinished and finished creations. The joy of writing had developed in many students who once saw writing as a daunting and onerous task. This excitement for digital storytelling was so explosive, it broke the walls of the classrooms as students eagerly shared their stories with adults and students outside of the classroom and of the school.” (after Sue began implementing the Pictello App)
• “Their digital stories were as expressive, engaging and creative as their oral stories. Calkin’s (1994) reminds us that it is “adults who have separated writing from art, song, and play; it is adults who have turned writing into an exercise on lined paper, into a matter of rules, lessons, and cautious behaviour” (p. 59).”
• “Students are constantly engaged and exposed to multimedia including texting or emailing friends, looking up information on the Internet, or creating virtual worlds, and yet many classrooms are not reflecting the value of bringing this into the classroom.”
• “I want them to see the benefits of expanding their views on writing to include technology. I share the view with Lucy Calkins that every child is a writer we just need to provide them with multiple ways to access their writing potential.”

Sue’s research reminds us that our teaching needs to reflect the ever-evolving world around us. She also highlights how we need to utilize technology to engage children and to help access their full story telling capabilities that simple pencil/paper can’t do.  Making connections from this MEd project to assignment 1, I wanted to learn more about the Pictello App. Here is a YouTube link that gave me some basic information on how to use Pictello:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM6fcBoP4I8

Through some more investigation, I discovered that Pictello is also a great app to use with students, with special needs. Here is a website that gave me more insight on how this app can be utilized further.

https://www.assistiveware.com/products/pictello

Moving forward, I sent an email to my admin team this week suggesting various schedules for how our 12 school iPads can be used this year in the primary classrooms. I am hoping that our iPads will be up and running soon so that I can start trying out Apps such as Pictello!

“iPad_children_hands” by lottech is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

It’s hard to know where to begin with such an open-ended assignment. Much like how we teach our students through the process of inquiry, as grad students, we are starting an inquiry process but are taking on the role of the student, instead of the more familiar role, the teacher. Feeling anxious about where to begin today, I simply started by googling ‘Technology in the Kindergarten classroom’.

This was one of the first links I clicked on today: https://www.weareteachers.com/6-hands-on-center-ideas-for-using-technology-in-pre-k-and-kindergarten/. The article immediately grabbed my attention through the introduction as it comments on how technology is a ‘fine line to walk’.  I can connect to this statement as I am unsure of where the balance is. How much tech do we need to have in the Kindergarten classroom? What is too much or too little? Is there a ‘right’ amount?

The article by Karen Nelson focuses on 6 hands-on center ideas for using tech in pre-K and in K. A new idea to me that was discussed in the article was about having technology in play centers to help teach children technology manners. For example, during play, putting the phone down to have a face-to-face conversation with someone, or during another play scenario, say that you need to get off your phone to go for some exercise. Modelling technology manners and tech etiquette through play is something I never thought about doing before and can start incorporating now. I notice so many adults talking to each other and/or to children while looking at their phones and believe it’s important for children to develop their social skills with technology early. Many adults could benefit from this as well!

I have never had access to an iPad or iPads to use in my classrooms. I am hoping this year that our school will come up with a rotation so that each primary class will have access to 4 iPads weekly. There has been some talk, but no action yet. Nelson touches open the importance of using apps that help children build and create and mentions these apps that hopefully I can try out in the future: MOMA Art Labs and Imagi Box (kids can draw and write stories), and Kodable (a problem-solving app that teachers students the basics of computer programming).

The last idea I will mention from this article is about bringing the iPad outside to document learning. This is something that my Learning Pod and I have discussed this week so they may also be interested in clicking on the article link. Nelson comments on how iPads can make it easy for pre-literate children to document their observations and to create a field journal full of images. I think that this is a great idea, however, I believe that children can also still use markers, clipboards and papers to document learning in the forest.

As another component of my inquiry, I need to research academically written articles as well. Next, I went to the UVIC library database to further my search of ‘Technology in the Kindergarten Classroom’. I scanned a few articles and read some of the abstracts, feeling the familiar feeling of getting lost down the rabbit hole of finding the ‘right’ article. I decided I wanted to read something relatively recent and since I am focusing much of my teaching practice on play this year, I thought this would be the article that I would fully read today:

Observing and assessing young children’s digital play in the early years: Using the Digital Play Framework:

https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/doi/pdf/10.1177/1476718X15579746

The article by Edwards and Bird (2017) focused on a Digital Play Framework that is based on Vygotsky’s ideas about tool mediation to position technologies as tools that children learn to master according to Hutt’s conceptualization of epistemic and ludic play. I enjoyed the brief review of different types of play and the importance of observing play to help guide children on their learning journeys. However, the article didn’t really come up with any answers to my big question. What I will take from this article is remembering to let children explore/play with different types of technology before perhaps showing them how to use it.

I am hoping that the work I did today has put me one step in the right direction for this inquiry project. As with any research, we don’t always find our answers right away, but I think it’s a good idea to try to take away something from what we do find (through the investment of our time on a topic).

Greetings Everyone,

Here it goes, my first blog post! I am excited to embark on my first online course, EDCI 567, Interactive and Multimedia Learning Theories. However, I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed and intimidated by it all. As a learner, I have found that I learn best when working in person with peers and teachers. I am hoping with all the video chats that I can still feel engaged, motivated and develop new skills as a learner/educator.

I also have some questions about what this course is all about. Is it about how I can use technology as a teacher or is it also a combination of how my students will use technology in the classroom? As a kindergarten teacher, my students have limited access to technology. My school no longer has a computer lab and is currently deciding on how our primary students will access technology. There have been some discussions about possibly having 4 ipads in each classroom. With this proposal, we could use the ipads for literacy and/or numeracy stations, for example.

My classroom also has a projector, laptop and an elmo. I use this tech daily in my teaching practice to demonstrate things such as printing, art activities, movement breaks, short educational video clips on relevant topics and for class music. I also started using the FreshGrade app for the first time last year. I used it to share pictures and videos with families. It was a great way to give parents a sneak peak into the classroom. I did not use it for reporting. This is something I might want to explore more during the course. I have been a bit apprehensive to tackle FreshGrade as a reporting tool as I haven’t been sure if it will be worth all the effort. Or perhaps, it may change how I report learning outcomes all together and make my report card process easier? I am curious to explore current research and studies on different reporting apps such as FreshGrade.

Some of my personal learning goals for this course are to feel more confident (and open to) using new technology in a kindergarten setting, as well as, researching what current studies are being done in regards to 4 to 6 year olds using technology.  In my teaching experience, I notice that a lot of children are exposed to technology at home and may be over using it, hence, the whole moment of children having to re-learn how to play outside. I believe that kindergarten is such a foundational year for developing socially and emotionally. With that, what role should technology play in the kindergarten classroom? I hope to be able to answer this question through my course work.  I also believe it’s important for children to learn how to appropriately and safely use technology and as teachers we should be providing lessons on these topics. I look forward to my online learning journey!