If in doubt, just ask.

I reflect on my reflection. And I ask myself the question.

What’s the right direction, to go? I don’t know. Bret McKenzie

I love learning. I love teaching. And I love technology. Being a specialist teacher, seeing more than three hundred and fifty students a week, I find that building technology into my classroom teaching is a challenge. Some might say I shouldn’t bother – I teach performing arts (music, dance and drama) which is obviously a more physical, tactile, creative subject. My students are aged three to six. So do they really need more technology in their day? Or am I just in the wrong job?!

I feel passionate about the use of technology in education for learning. I feel strongly that the use of iPads (and other devices) in schools can increase student motivation, increase their level of creativity, collaboration and innovation. But my guiding principle is that if it doesn’t enhance the learning, then it’s not worth doing. I don’t use technology ‘just for fun’ at school. I don’t suddenly get the students to use a cool new app I found just because I think they will love it. I look at the learning outcomes for the units I am working on and if I see a natural, authentic link to technology then, of course, I will utilize it. My time with the students is limited. At most I see the older classes for two forty minute periods every week. So if I am going to integrate technology into my classes it really has to be a solid, dynamic and worthwhile task. Fluff just doesn’t cut it.

When I attended the Learning 2.012 conference in Beijing (October 2012), a tiny seed was planted in my brain. That I was not connecting with the ‘tech’ staff at my school as much as I could be. I made a promise to myself that I would make an effort to collaborate with them more to ensure that technology-based learning engagements in my classroom provide the very best experiences for the students in my care.

Recently, I have been working on a unit with the Prep classes (five and six year olds). I’m completely transdisciplinary with the homeroom teachers. Meaning that I am using the same central idea and the same concepts as them. The unit is all about balance and motion. A perfect unit for me to focus on dance with. Best of all I get to team teach with an amazing dance teacher in the school – so it’s good for my own learning too!

At first glance this did not seem to be a unit that leant itself towards the use of technology. Until I remembered something I had read about on Twitter. Students using iPads as a reflection tool. So that got me thinking…

I see reflection as an extremely important part of the learning process and I feel that it is often the part that gets neglected most. If I could somehow engage the students in some powerful reflections through the use of iPads, surely that would be a worthwhile project to take on.

So I met with the Learning and Teaching Technologies Convenor at our school and discussed my idea with her. She was amazingly supportive and understood my dilemma. If I am a ‘performing arts’ teacher, should I be ‘teaching’ technology? Yet somehow the idea seemed to be worth pursuing… if I could find something that perhaps the homeroom teachers would find a useful tool to use with their students at a later date.

My initial concept was that students would use the iPads to take a photograph of their peers demonstrating something that they had learnt about balance and motion through dance. They would comment on the photograph which could then be shared with a wider audience including other Prep students and parents. My first thought was VoiceThread or Fotobabble. I had used the web version of VoiceThread successfully with the Reception and Prep students, but this time I wanted the students to have more ownership of the initial content that was to be commented on. Would the VoiceThread app be too complicated a process to take these younger students through? Would the juice be worth the squeeze? A great analogy once used by my principal.

I had heard (again on Twitter) of a number of success stories of Fotobabble being used in the Early Years classroom. I tried out Fotobabble in my classroom a couple of times and it was taking so long to upload that I gave up (perhaps the wireless connection was just not strong enough!). The LTTC and I decided that we would go and search for other tools that might be appropriate and in the meantime meet with the Prep team to propose my idea to them.

I am extremely fortunate to work with such a supportive teaching team. The incredibly busy Prep teachers made time in their schedule to meet with me and agreed with my concern about me taking time to teach the technology required to complete the task. One teacher suggested the Show Me app as a faster, more student-friendly, tool and said she had used it successfully with her class. It would have definitely been an option if we had been able to let other students comment on the final product. After some discussion it was decided that yes, it was fine for me to use the Prep iPads for the purpose of reflection and that I would collaborate with LTT staff as to how exactly I would do this. I found the SonicPics app. The students would be able to take the photo and comment on it immediately, saving it on the iPad as movie file. But then we would somehow have to get all those files somewhere online for other students to comment on. That sounded like a mammoth task (with one hundred and twenty Prep students). Finally we decided to go with VoiceThread.

Today I met with another member of the LTT team. We talked for over an hour. We went through the whole process, trouble-shooting as we went. We both had so many questions and it was amazing to work so collaboratively with the added bonus that it was actually also incredibly FUN! We played and experimented as if WE were the students – inquiry at its best. Our PYP coordinators would be proud!

In the end we seemed to have a pretty solid plan. Now we just need to ‘go for it’ and try it with the students and see what happens. It’s all going to happen next week in my classroom and I am really excited, a little bit nervous, and a whole lot relieved that I reached out and asked the ‘experts’ for their guidance and advice. No doubt I will be writing a reflection on how it all pans out! Watch this space.

Thank you @makkyfung and @vvnfung for your continued support. You are awesome! Image by Sarah Hodgson 

#iPads #Learning2012 #Thinking #Reflecting #EarlyYears #apps