After joining the "Twitterverse" at the end of last year, I have been overwhelmed and completely inspired by the other educators who I have connected with. Not only does this type of social media represent a "digital staffroom" for those in education, but it is such a springboard to gain new insights, build connections, and share our learning around the world!

In particular, Angie Harrison, a Kindergarten teacher from Lake Simcoe Public School, had a brilliant idea on her blog that I thought our class could be a part of! She states, "Ever wonder what other teachers or children see when they look out their windows?" Her philosophy behind this question is to give our students an opportunity to gain an understanding of the world around them and broaden their perspectives that other children may see different things in their backyards. With this in mind, her Kindergarten class and teaching team created a digital book that illustrates and documents all that they see in their schoolyard.

So here's what we did! In order to get our students' "minds-on" to this notion of "what can we see out of our classroom window?," we decided to share Mrs. Harrison's Kindergarten Class' video and see if our students could make any connections to the similarities and differences between our schoolyard and theirs. Here is what they had to say:

"We don't have a pond or a farm in our schoolyard." - I.D.

"We have a soccer field but ours looks different." - J.S. (SK)

"We don't have bull rushes like Mrs. Harrison's class." - I.D.

"We have a basketball net!" - W.V.

"We see many trees in our park." - T.B.

"We have bushes too!" - V.D.

"We have trees." - A.M.

"We have a playground too." - R.L.

"We have a fence around our playground like they do." - W.F.

"We have lots of leaves on our trees too." - L.D.

"We can see a park." - R.F.

"We have a parking lot too with lots of cars." - L.D.

Our students' responses were amazing and their excitement and enthusiasm to create our own class book to show Mrs. Harrison's class was evident so we didn't waste any time getting them outside and calling out all that they saw! With cameras in hand, Ms. Theis and I took a ton of photographs to which we have compiled into our own digital class book! 

Our hope is to continue to connect with Mrs. Harrison's Kindergarten class and hopefully host some SKYPE sessions whereby our students can have the opportunity to talk about, listen, and learn from other students in another community. Who knows? Perhaps we can even make connections to another school from around the world? Stay tuned! 

Let's Play! Now Let's Document!

On Friday, I had the absolute pleasure of being invited to co-present at the ECOO 2012 Conference! This conference was being held from October 24-26th at the Parkway Sheraton Hotel and Conference Centre and over 1500 educators across the three days attended. This was a true celebration of learning since each session throughout the conference was dedicated to learning, teaching, creating, collaborating and sharing experiences and expertise!

The session that my mentor, Tania Sterling, and I presented on was entitled "Let's Play! Now Let's Document!" and its focus was around three big ideas and areas of professional inquiry:

How can we leverage technology to capture learning?

How can we use assessment data to inform practice?

How does technology support home-school connections?

In order to summarize our initial thinking when tackling the area of assessment in FDK and how we could best utilize technology to make it meaningful, we turned to the curriculum document. After pulling out the key words that we felt connected technology to support and enhance pedagogical documentation and student learning, we decided to make a Wordle to capture our thinking:

We were completely overwhelmed by the number of participants who came to our session and actively participated with insightful questions and thoughtful connections to their own classrooms. Moreover, we were excited to see that quite a few of our participants were not actually in an FDK classroom but were rather intrigued with how they can trickle technology upstream across the grades! This was an amazing learning moment for us, since we truly valued and appreciated the ideas being shared from different grade perspectives. We had incredible feedback after our session which assured us that we gave our audience the opportunity to leave our session "thinking" about their programs and how they can integrate technology to document authentic learning experiences in their classrooms. 

I was absolutely honoured to be a part of such an event and look forward to many more opportunities to share my learning in the future! Thank you to my Administrator, Greg Collins, for supporting me in this journey, to my mentor Tania for continuing to inspire me, and to my amazing DECE, Heidi Theis, for being a wonderful partner and staying open-minded to all technology we have been exploring in our classroom! 

A Very Big Thank You

Welcome to our classroom

Words cannot even begin to describe the overwhelming sense of support, celebration and appreciation during last night's Open House/Meet the Teacher Night. Both my DECE and I, as well as my fellow grade partners (@mel4education and her DECE), were ecstatic with how the evening unfolded. Mrs. Abalos (my wonderful and talented grade partner) sums it up nicely when saying, "the most precious gift that was given was the smiles on our students' faces and witnessing their sense of pride and accomplishment for their learning."

The Welcome table full of treats to start the evening and our
incredible Family Board with words of encouragement for
our students from their families!

From a scavenger hunt with Tim Horton's coffee and treats to a slideshow and Guest Book for parents to write a message in to our class, one of the most memorable events of the evening was watching our Family Board come to life. After seeing this wonderful idea in action during our dear friend Joanne Babalis' Open House last year, we knew we had to try it but design it in our own way. Thank you Joanne for the amazing idea and we give you full credit for what is an incredible way of celebrating our students' families within our classrooms.

Our new floating branch with student-created
leaf transparencies was an eye-catcher! 

Our class truly enjoyed reading all of the
thoughtful comments! Thank you!

Leafsnap was a hit! Students LOVED showing
their parents how to use it!

Our newly updated Art Gallery containing Cloud, Sunflower,
and Rain inspired works by our students! 

Students sharing their portfolios with their parents!

To our parents, colleagues and administration, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support with all that we do! Our students have helped make our classroom a beautiful place to learn and grow and we truly look forward to all that's in store throughout our journey!

Sincerely,

Ms. Schmidt & Ms. Theis