Never fear, never quit.
- Sarah Hodgson
- Nov 15, 2012
- 5 min read
So today was the day that we got iPads back into my performing arts classroom. After planning the learning engagements with the LTT team, I thought we were pretty much on track for success.
Ho hum.
20 five and six year olds.
5 iPads (plus one connected to interactive white board for demonstration).
VoiceThread app.
3 adults in the room.
6 times over.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
We had decided to use VoiceThread as a reflection tool. The plan, in a nutshell, was for the students to take a photo within VoiceThread, so it attached to an existing thread, and then make a comment about the photo within the app. Sounds simple, right?
Well, today didn’t quite go as planned. We worked with three of the six classes today, and this is how they all went down…
The First Class
My first words were something like “today we are going to use iPads to help with our learning” and I was instantly met with a chorus of ooohs and ahhhhhs. Great start. Students excited and enthusiastic about using iPads as a tool in the classroom. I had prepared no less than seventeen A4 images, one for each tiny step of the way that we were hoping to navigate the students through the app. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it past step one as the wireless internet connection decided not to be friendly. VoiceThread would not work. Interestingly enough, the students already seemed to know what the ‘loading wheel’ meant and one even said “you just have to wait”. There is only so long you can wait when you only have forty minutes with the class and a bunch of wriggly students.
Once it was obvious that we were not going to establish a connection, we ditched VoiceThread. Our immediate back-up plan was to just take the photos using the iPad Camera. Then at least I could upload them to VoiceThread later… So, after a very quick run though of how to take a photo on the iPad, we put the devices in the students’ hands and they were set. This was not great for my nerves. Thankfully I have a carpet in my room, so asked the children to stay on that. The students were having a ball and seemed to thoroughly enjoy taking photos of each other. They had been asked to take pictures of each other balancing (as that is the current unit of inquiry), but some just wanted funny face shots.
Whilst not a complete failure, I was certainly not happy with how the first class had gone. Thankfully I had an hour or so before the next class were due. After a few emails to the IT department, one of the staff came to my room and ‘fixed’ the internet problem and promised me that VoiceThread would now work.
Enter Class Two
VoiceThread was working. All good. The class and I worked through the seventeen steps, with the Classroom Assistant dutifully displaying each step on the board as I went. My gut was telling my by Step Four or Five that this was too much. WHAT was I thinking? I persevered. I didn’t actually have to tell the students what to touch next – most of them they figured out by themselves.
Once again, devices were placed in the hands of the students. Five groups of four students with three adults did not work. We really needed one adult per group to guide them through the steps. It was too much for students to do without support. I was kicking myself. A lesson wasted. But was it a complete waste of time? The students were working collaboratively to problem solve when an adult wasn’t there. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but they were trying to work it out as a group.
Third Time Lucky?
Between the second and third class we were faced with a dilemma. Should we just forget the whole thing and give up? I am not one to quit early, so I took a step back and tried to refocus. What did I really want these students to gain from this learning engagement? What was the main purpose? Well, I wanted them to reflect on their learning. I wanted them to comment on photographs that showed different ways of balancing. The most important component of this for me was that the students were CREATING THEIR OWN CONTENT. I could have easily taken the photos during a class and put them onto VoiceThread for the students to comment on. But I wanted them to have ownership of the images. I believed that they would make better connections to the learning if they were the ones creating the images to be commented on. I realised that, in the end, it didn’t really matter who uploaded the images to VoiceThread.
So, for the third class I completely changed my focus.
Today we are using iPads. Yipppeee. We worked together as a class to figure out how to take the photo. One of the students already knew this, so SHE taught the others, demonstrating through the interactive white board. YES! THIS is more like what I was hoping for. Then I focused on how to actually compose the shot. Photography is a passion of mine so I was on a roll here! I demonstrated two really bad examples – one completely blurred and one with the student’s upper half cut off. Besides the students thinking my pictures were hilarious, I gave them the challenge of helping me. I asked them the questions: What had I done wrong? How could I make the photos better? This was the meaty bit, when the universe shifted and I knew everything was going to be OK! They figured it out. Without me telling them. First they decided that the picture was blurry because they had moved. So we tried again, with them sitting as still as statues and I failed (on purpose) again. One of them spotted that the camera had moved. BINGO! For the next shot they immediately decided that we shouldn’t cut someone’s head off!
The students came up with two tips to make a better photo:
hold the iPad still
try to have the whole person in the photograph
Now they had criteria for success. They knew exactly what they had to do and they had figured it out themselves. Unreal. The photographs that they took were amazing (see the VoiceThread below). THIS is why I love teaching. Moments like this that will never be repeated in exactly the same way, even if I follow the same formula with the classes four, five and six on Monday and Tuesday.
I realised something else today about myself as a learner and an educator. I really am a learner first, teacher second. I really do not fear the unknown anymore. I am a risk-taker. I am a problem solver. And I am definitely not a quitter.
I love that I can empower the students by giving them ownership of their learning. Today they were teaching each other. They were collaborating with each other to find creative solutions to REAL problems. They were creating content. GOOD content. And they are ‘only’ five years old. Pure magic.
Have you had similar failures and/or successes with young students and iPads? I would love to hear your stories.
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