Reporter of the Day

To give a context for this post, I thought it'd be neat to share a snapshot of the thinking involved "behind the scenes" of our teaching team! So here it goes...

Our Professional Provocation: How can we make technology meaningful for our students? 

In other words, how can we get them to take ownership of their journey by showcasing what they are learning, what is important to them, and giving them the opportunity to share with the class through the means of technology?

My DECE and I had many conversations around how this could be possible and perhaps steer the learning within our program in a new and exciting direction! We are fortunate to have several pieces of technology in our classroom which made it a little difficult to decide how we were planning to put this thinking into practice (e.g. iRover SmartBoard, iPads, desktop computer, digital camera). So we decided to narrow our focus and in doing so, we chose to utilize the iPads as means for this professional inquiry. 

So, we chose the iPads as our teaching and learning tool...

but the question remained with where to go from here? 

My DECE and I found ourselves talking about the difference between having the students just "using the iPads freely" versus getting them to "use the technology for a learning purpose." At first, one may see these new devices as being just a "quick fix" to engage students with the technology. However, this inquiry has helped us realize that there is potential within the technology for giving students the chance to make meaning behind it that is purposeful, authentic, and connected to a learning task.  

Our Learning Curve:

To start small, we decided to have our SK's be the guinea pigs for this professional learning curve since we as a teaching team plan to learn alongside them. We chose a wonderful app called Kids Journal to be the focus for our "new wave" of journal writing! This app gives students the opportunity to self-reflect on their day whether it be something they learned, felt, celebrated, shared, etc. It also gives them the option to post a photo in their journal and has plenty of room for lots of detail! Each of our SK's is beginning with an individual journal to which we facilitate through guided writing. We encourage our students to write their words in their Drawing and Writing Book to help them when typing in their digital journal. We have found that they are not only engaged, but eager to record the happenings throughout their day! Talk about motivation?

Our Class Journal & Reporter of the Day:

To often we dismiss the very important question: "What did you learn today?" So...as a way of celebrating this very question and our learning each day, we decided to create a class journal using the same app! Each day a student is selected to be the "Reporter of the Day." This special job means this student is responsible for reporting on one or two special moments from throughout the day that they witnessed or that another student shared with them at our class' final meeting! The thoughts shared and presented by our Reporter are documented in our class journal and their photo is taken alongside their entry. By the end of the year, we will have a daily record of all of the happenings and learning moments within our classroom! 

Our students immediately jumped on this learning opportunity and one student even asked if they could make a special "sign" for the Reporter to wear when it's their turn. Everyday upon entry, our students are already asking who the Reporter of the Day is and every day they continue to get excited to share their learning with us and most importantly each other. What more could we ask for as educators?

Some possible conclusions:

It's safe to say, that this use of technology has shown to not only be meaningful for our students but it is also meaningful for us as educators! Our open-mindedness as a teaching team as well as our courage to take a risk has led to some wonderful learning in our classroom and throughout our program! Our students have used this format as a backbone for exploring the iPads and we find them to be able to naturally connect pre-selected apps to learning tasks within the classroom. From Puppetpals and Sock Puppets to Pictello and more, our students are now capable of purposefully utilizing the technology in our room for their own thinking and as a way of capturing their learning. We plan to continue to explore other apps through our professional networking (e.g. consulting with other board staff - Angie Harrison and her blog, Heather Jelley and her blog to name a few) and our own exploration!

Stay tuned as we continue to document where this professional inquiry can take us! 

More posts to follow.