Notes from Millie D

Between snow days and vacation I was entering this Monday with a sense of skepticism and lack of focus/direction. The first day back from vacation is usually tough on students (like I need to tell you this). I decided to take a chance and let my students try out a new piece of software in the lab, Comic Life.

I made a conscience effort to only provide enough information to get people started because I wanted to let the students teach themselves and not listen to me. I showed students how to add a template, new page, add pictures, and how to add speech bubbles. After that I let the students go and they went. I knew in the first few minutes that they were going to be successful. A couple of minutes into their discovery time I heard, “Check this out!” My 4th graders figured out how to change the style of pictures, placeholder backgrounds/line style, and speech bubbles. Every couple of minutes I heard, “This is cool/How did you that?” By the end of the period I realized that children’s sense of discovery with new items is still precious and needs to be preserved. For myself, I rediscovered why I’m in this line of work.

I decided to be a risktaker with one of my more challenging groups and reintroduce a piece of software called Dinosaur World. The first time I introduced the software to this group it was a disaster. Their powers of discovery was so intense that their behaviors got in the way and I had considered shelving the software rather than dealing with their behaviors. Providing them second chance paid off and watching the children apply their classroom knowledge to their virtual environment was worth the risk. Children were correctly identifying the species of dinosaurs, the environment dinosaurs lived in, and some geographic concepts while exploring the game. Again children’s curiosity and power of discovery were validated and I knew that I had a great job.

The end of the day I went back and introduced Comic Life to other groups and their curiosity was peaked. The results were the same as the morning. I realized the common thread of the day was the fact that students were engaged, active, cooperating, risk-taking, and enjoying what they were learning. I needed to be reminded of that fact to help refocus my work.

Thank you to my students for making today a special teaching day! Tomorrow, establishing the foundation for “Doodles 4 Google“.

tags technorati : comiclife dinosaurworld teaching engagement inquiry discovery

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