What the Tech?

Working through questions about technology and education

Category: Development and Implementation of the Curriculum

Am I an Open Teacher?

April 18, 2020 / / 1 Comment

“opencontent” by jlori is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

So last week we read about privacy and keeping your data protected. This week, we are reading about putting it all out there. In their chapter, Designing for Open and Social Learning, Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt talk about learning through Open Courses, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), Open teachers, social media (2016). In We Need a Massive Surveillance Program, Maciej CegƂowski argues for throwing privacy concerns out the window for a good cause, namely tracking the spread of COVID-19 (2020).

How do I apply these readings to my practice as a Kindergarten teacher? First of all, Kindergarten is all about Social Learning but their experience needs to be primarily inside the classroom. They are learning about Copyright and intellectual property by learning about sharing, giving and taking credit for ideas, and not taking things that do not belong to them. As pre-readers, their internet searches are restricted to what they can access through icons and images provided by adults so copying and pasting off the internet is not really an issue yet.

Their Personal Learning Network is primarily within their family and the school community. They are not at all ready to pilot their own social media. It may be that some children have their own social media but these sites are overseen closely by adults. I am considering starting a class Twitter account. We would discuss together each Friday, what significant thing from the week do we think others might be interested in seeing. What is appropriate to show or say? Who do we want to follow or engage with through hashtags and mentions? I would shape their PLN’s with guests and experts from the community such as veterinarians, firefighters, or scientists. This would be an ideal way to model digital citizenship.

I have talked about FreshGrade before. This is a way to share student learning with families at home. While FreshGrade does have a student app so students can upload their own work, in kindergarten, it is not an easy thing to do so their uploads are in my hands. That said, because of COVID-19 remote learning, I have just given control of the students apps to the parents at home so they can share student work with me! I might continue this practice is post-pandemic kindergarten since many children exhibit significant learning at home.

What about open teaching? I would like to be an open teacher but at present it seems pretty impractical and time consuming. I do use open software such as Libreoffice and GIMP but I admit, that was not through some notion of being an open teacher. Not so long ago, our district began using open software in response to the contracting budgets of the former provincial government. After the district switched to Microsoft, I merely continued to use what I had become accustomed to.

Couros (2016)

Am I a networked teacher? Not really but I am getting better. Up until I started UVic courses last year, I kept a pretty low profile on social media.  I was a lurker on Twitter. I certainly did not blog about my professional learning. Even with family and friends on Facebook, I am not a prolific contributor. Mostly, I can never find the time.  Before COVID-19 remote learning, it was not uncommon for me to be puttering at school until 6 or 7 pm. 

I wish I could say that I use only open resources but I have found that it takes less time for me to make my own resources than sift through the sparse open resources I have found that apply to kindergarten. I do use free resources from sites like Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, and various teacher blog sites but I am not sure if they count as open resources as they are often meant to be teasers for other paid content.

What would be ideal is if all the content on the internet was considered open content. If creators want it to be copyright protected then they need to find a mechanism for keeping it private just like, if I want my student’s data to be private, I have to go the extra mile to protect it.

BIG DATA vs me

April 11, 2020 / / 1 Comment

“Who’s Watching Big Data?” by cogdogblog is licensed under CC0 1.0

This week, I read the paper, Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking (Regan & Jesse, 2019). I also read the blog post, We Need A Massive Surveillance Program. The Regan and Jesse paper talks about the ethical impact of educational technology and big data. They raise six privacy concerns: information privacy, anonymity, surveillance, autonomy, non-discrimination, and ownership of information. It is an alarming paper because it seems to confirm what I have long suspected, anyone who really wants my data can get it regardless of how I feel about it. For ordinary people like me, the only solace is believing that no one is likely to be all that interested in attaching my data to me personally. There are people who are so far advanced in their computer skills, it would be easier to get rid of my cell phone and go live off the grid in the woods than it would be to protect my data from those who want so badly to use it.

Thank goodness for people like Maciej CegƂowski, who defines himself as a privacy activist. These are the people with the knowledge to really battle big data. The best I can do for myself is read the privacy agreements on the apps I choose to use, be critical of what advertising or click-bait comes my way, and be wary of what I am putting out into the world. As an educator, however, it’s a different story.

As a teacher, I rely largely on the expertise of the information technology (IT) staff at the school district office. Even so, when they came along this week and said I cannot use Zoom for conferencing with my home-bound kindergarten class, I was irked. At first the reason appeared to be the threat of Zoombombing and I was convinced I had it licked when I figured out the safety settings from the Zoom website. Then it came down that the provincial government had purchased licences and I thought, surely now, I could have some face-to-face time with the littles. But, no. Our district claims they need to wait for actual access and then conduct their own analysis. Again, irked.

“Maple Leaf Forever.” by Just a Prairie Boy is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Along with the latest news also came the revelation that Zoom stores its data in the United States and the new licensed version would store our data in Canada. UGH…okaaaay. I have heard this argument before. When the district was pushing us toward FreshGrade, stored in Canada, rather than Seesaw, which is stored in the U.S., I was not happy. I found Seesaw to be a simpler tool than FreshGrade just as I see Zoom to be a simpler tool than Microsoft Teams, which the school district supports.

Then there’s Google. The district is apparently letting this one go because there is no alternative readily available. The district solution to possible privacy issues with Google was to make guardians of our students sign a permission form. That way, the liability lies with the adults responsible for their children. However, I doubt very much that many of these responsible adults have any idea what the possible issues are with exposing their children’s data. Parents place a lot of trust in the teacher’s knowledge when it comes to internet safety and privacy (Knauf, 2016). They do not know that I knew about as much as anyone up until a few months ago. Even now, while I have come to believe that I should do my best to protect my data and my students’ data, I am not sure I know what data is being collected and what is being used for. I am not sure guardians of my students should be trusting me when it comes to these things. It makes me wonder how much the IT staff really know. Is it worth the worry if data can be reidentified anyway? Is it enough to teach people how to protect themselves from criminal activity?

As an educator, my concern needs to lie with protecting children as well as I can and fostering the development of humans who are critical of the information that travels to and fro on the internet so at some point, the government will be overwhelmed by their demands for data protection. We need more people to become privacy activists. For my part, I will teach digital literacy to my students while taking care to maintain their privacy as well as possible. If I must publish their work, let it be on a password protected site storing its data in Canada. If students need to communicate over distance, let it be over district approved, data stored in Canada video conferencing site or email. I will do the best I can with what I know, even if it is irksome.

As for CegƂowski’s suggestion that the fight against COVID-19 would benefit from a massive surveillance program. If it saves lives, I am all for it. If it is true that the necessary data is already being collected then do it. That said, I would like to think that CegƂowski’s blog post is based in the U.S. and no such surveillance exists here in Canada though. I would like to think that Canada is the moral centre of the digital world and that all data is safe here. Wouldn’t that be nice?


References

CegƂowski, M. (2020, March 23). We Need A Massive Surveillance Program (Idle Words). https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance_program.htm

Knauf, H. (2016). Interlaced social worlds: Exploring the use of social media in the kindergarten. Early Years, 36(3), 254–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2016.1147424

Regan, P. M., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

Remote Kindergarten

April 5, 2020 / / 4 Comments

This week’s blog post is supposed to be about Makerspaces and fostering creativity with digital tools. I am not sure if I’ll get to that but I would like to talk about the realities of designing remote learning for Kindergarten. The BC Ministry of Education is asking kindergarten educators to provide one hour of educational opportunities per day. That sounds easy but before we can do it, we have to examine what our learners, and their families, really need.

We must first consider that the remote learning experience necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic is not like the distance learning programs organized by school districts. In Distance Learning, there is a home-facilitator who has thought about all the demands of home schooling and consciously made the decision to dedicate their time to educating their children. The facilitator and the learners, no doubt, have many innate qualities that make them suited to teaching and learning at home. The situation for parents and guardians suddenly dropped into the role may be quite different.

There are some parents that I spoke to this week that are thrilled to be forced to be at home with their children. They have been on homeschooling websites and Pinterest. They are building forts, skate ramps, collages, and paper machĂ© globes. Natural makers! They have bought commercially available workbooks because, “He loves that kind of work!” These children are hungry for learning and the families are happy to keep working along their own way. What they are hoping for are opportunities for their children to interact with their friends. Then there are the others.

For a start, every teacher of young children has seen that students behave drastically differently with family than with adults and children at school. Some children are much more likely to resist schooling at home than in a classroom where perceived authority, well-practiced routines, and peer pressure help to keep learners moving forward. This resistance may result in increased tensions in the home at what is already a stressful time for many families. These families are looking to us to provide something structured for their children to do. They are hoping that if they can say, “Your teacher says you have to do this,” the child will be more inclined to do it.

Some adults have the added challenge of having their own jobs to do at home. Older caregivers simply do not have the energy to keep up. We are in week one and I have already spoken to three adults who are struggling with their children/grandchildren. High quality education is not the goal as much as keeping them busy.

Now add diversity and inclusion to the mix. Then, there are the scary things: children living in poverty, children living with abusive adults, and children without good nutrition. For some of these children, school is the safe place, where they are immersed in social connection.

And finally, there’s this email note from a parent:

We are not used to using technology in our house – it’s very limited, so, despite my awareness that it’s useful at this moment, I would love to maintain our guidelines at home. When work is provided, I’d love it to be…based on doing the activity (paper/pencil, hands-on, etc) with technology as a means of communication and supplemental learning resources, not the sole tool. I think what I’m trying to say is I don’t want anyone to become ‘used’ to using technology because of this ‘school at home’ phase we’re in. 

Now take all these considerations and put them in the hands of educators who are phenomenal at their classroom jobs but are terrified of technology. Don’t get me wrong, there are many tech-savvy teachers out there, but the ones that need help, need A LOT of help.

So what does all this mean for designing remote learning for Kindergarten? For us it means providing as many choices as we can. We design with some routine activities, ones that students can do independently because they have done them before. We design some open ended activities so they can get creative with those keen parents and siblings. We design with activities that can be printed out and activities that can be acted out. We design with some activities that can be completed online and some that can be done orally. We design some activities that use apps for the tech savvy, and some that use paper and pencil for the technophobic. We search out photos and videos and make our own photos and videos, and ask for them to send photos and videos. We design activities that can be done indoors, outdoors, and out the window. We create far more than one hour of activities per day. Then we tell our home facilitators that the social-emotional wellbeing of their family is the most important thing and they don’t have to do any of it if it causes any undue stress.

In the end, the most significant thing we can do is talk with them, connect as much as possible, and facilitate connections between them. I would like to video conference with them so they can all see each others’ faces, even if only for the few minutes their attention spans allow. Because nothing online is ever simple, we have to wait and see if our school district will permit us to use Zoom. Zoom could very well be the most import digital tool for my little learners. We could use Microsoft Teams but because we can only see four faces, it won’t be as engaging for the littles and I won’t see the quiet ones. I will stand in their driveways to see them if I have to, because while I may be a remote Kindergarten teacher at the moment, I refuse to let them be invisible.

Learning with Digital Tools in Kindergarten

March 28, 2020 / / 1 Comment

free images Hagerty Ryan

This week’s class, we looked into design thinking, open data, and citizen science. There was a lot going on and in reflecting on it, I found myself inspired for an activity to do with my kindergarten class should online classes go ahead. Normally, in Spring, our class would go for daily, morning walks in our neighbourhood. It is normally a highlight for the students as many of them do not seem to get outside enough. I was already thinking about the problem of how to get my students out into the neighbourhood, learning about nature and our community. Maybe it is not quite a wicked problem as it need not be a one-shot operation and I retain the right to make room for trial and error.

T. Westwood

 

When I saw the Project Noah Website, the wheels began to turn for an outdoor activity or set of outdoor activities for my students that would address the science, math, social studies curriculum that we usually approach each Spring. What if I gave my students a photo or video mission each week? Then I thought about the Padlet we used in class this week and thought that might be an easy way to share and sort our photos and videos. Perhaps a different mini-mission for each day of the week.

Because of social distancing, I would need to create a schedule for arriving at certain destinations so students are not clustering at any one place at any one time. Other potential problems would include: children cannot find an adult willing to take them out; children do not have access to digital tools; or the province goes into lockdown and children are not permitted to leave home. The third one would be likely be the biggest one, but being in the suburbs, many of our students have access to backyards. Perhaps, I could make missions accessible while staying in a car. Many of our students have access to back yards. Many of our students have access to technology at home. We may have to share the data of fewer children but it would still be fun to talk, draw, and write about.

Now the websites that we looked at this week were focused on citizen science and data collection. I would not be able to monitor the data collection of my students so we could not contribute to any public citizen science projects, but we certainly could look at the photos together, talk about whether they had photographed the same squirrel more than once, or if they had thoroughly searched an area for insects. We could analyze, sort, and graph our own data and talk about how accurate we think it is.

Anyway, I digress.

What kinds of digital tools promote and encourage critical thinking? 

In Kindergarten, we encourage critical thinking through provocations. We could give them deep questions to explore, or we could start with their wonderings and help them formulate deep questions to explore. We could give them a solution and ask them to find out how to get there, or we can give them access to materials to create and invent. Children come into kindergarten at different stages. Some walk in with a well developed growth mindset, ready to experiment, explore, try, fail, and try again. On the other hand, some have never learned how to lose or fail, or to try something on their own, or to persist.

So what digital tools promote and encourage critical thinking? What digital tools act as provocations? The most significant tool we have handed children in kindergarten is a tablet such as iPad. A study by Couse and Chen (2010), found that not only can young children learn quickly how to use a tablet to represent their ideas and learning, but also that they were seldom frustrated with setbacks and persisted in their work. When you hand an iPad to child, they are happy to play with it. The brightly coloured little icons and tactile functions are easy to use independently. It seems that most children readily adopt a growth mindset when it comes to digital technology.

Of course, there are many ways a child can interact with an iPad that engage little critical thinking. But even games can leave space for critical thinking. I am not referring to educational software that would be characterized as review-and-drill games. Games for children that encourage critical thinking require players to create something and/or make decisions that contribute to the story; this could be as simple as creating your character or avatar (Ellison & Solomon, 2018).

In kindergarten, digital tools that enable children to express their thinking include speech to text technology, cameras, video recording, voice recording, and fun expression apps such as Draw and Tell, PuppetPals HD, and ChatterPix Kids. These tools, once they know the basics to use them, are engaging provocations. When it came to PuppetPals HD, all I did was point it out and show one child the basics. Soon there was a crowd of four and they were all playing, learning, and creating a story together. It is important to give them a chance to play with technology.

The tools that allow them to explain their thinking with their own voice recording eliminate the mechanical barrier of printing which, for developing writers, can be time consuming and interrupts the process of expressing their thinking. Tools that allow them to express their thoughts with pre-made images or stickers eliminate the mechanical barrier of drawing which, for children still developing fine motor skills, also affects the fluidity of expression (Arrowood & Overall, 2004).

So what tools  promote and encourage critical thinking in Kindergarten?  The best tools for kindergarten are the ones that spark curiosity and wonder, the ones that motivate and encourage persistence, and the ones that facilitate expression.

 

Bibliography

Arrowood, D., & Overall, T. (2004). Using Technology to Motivate Children to Write: Changing Attitudes in Children and Preservice Teachers. Proceedings of SITE 2004–Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (Pp. 4985-4987). Atlanta, GA, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)., 4985–4987.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511637

Couse, L. J., & Chen, D. W. (2010). A Tablet Computer for Young Children? Exploring its Viability for Early Childhood Education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(1), 75–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2010.10782562

Ellison, T. L., & Solomon, M. (2018). Digital Play as Purposeful Productive Literacies in African American Boys. The Reading Teacher, 71(4), 495–500. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1657

Rosling, H. (2006). The best stats you’ve ever seen. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

 

Crap Detection and Covid-19

March 22, 2020 / / 3 Comments

These are unprecedented times.  It is more important than ever to be skeptical about what we read on the internet.  This week, I decided to try out Powtoon for part of my post.

 

Crap Detection Powtoon

If you are going to spread collective intelligence, you should not do so without verifying the truth, especially if it counters what is generally believed to be true. On the other hand, if something pops up on the internet that is generally believed to be untrue, people are more willing to jump in to disprove it. This disturbing video of a killer whale attacking a man instantly set off my crap detectors and I was quickly able to ascertain that it was an edited version of a seal attack. Why was I on it so quickly? I believe it was because I really like killer whales and I did not want it to be true.

There are plenty of claims out there that I have less interest in and seem relatively harmless so I discount them without looking further. Sometimes, the certainty is not worth my time, especially if I have no desire to pass it along, like it, share it, or talk about it. Other times, if I think I might want to pass it along, I will run the claim through Snopes first. The only time I really check into sources by examining authors, web site owners, or triangulating is if it is an opinion someone might argue against me about or something academic.

Should we teach Gillmor’s Five Principles of Media Consumption in school (Rheingold, 2012)? In Kindergarten, I would absolutely start teaching students about reliable and safe websites. I would definitely talk to them about the being careful of what someone might be trying to sell you. These points are prescribed for Kindergarten and other grades in BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. Also, in the framework, is the notion of handling requests for private information. The more that children understand how their input affects the internet’s output, the better.

When exploring the internet, everyone would benefit from being skeptical of what they find, thoughtful in their judgement, open minded to opposing views, aware of their filter bubble, persistent in asking questions, and educated in ways to verify information and sources.

 

References (Text and Video)

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2020, March 17). In the coronavirus pandemic, we’re making decisions without reliable data. STAT. https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

Maragakis. (2020). Coronavirus Disease 2019 vs. The Flu. John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

Rettner, R. (2020, March 17). How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu? Livescience.Com. https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

Rheingold, H. (2012). Crap Detection 101: How to Find What You Need to Know, and How to Decide If It’s True. In Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (pp. 76–109). The MIT Press. https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs047n/readings/rheingold-net-smart.pdf

 

Thoughts on BC’s Digital Literacy Framework

March 15, 2020 / / 5 Comments

This week, we had a chat with Dr. Tim Winklemans, Graduation Lead for Graduation, Skills and Distance Learning for the BC Government and one of the minds behind BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. According to Winklemans, just over ten years ago, then BC Premier, Christy Clark, made a promise to ensure every student would be digitally literate at an early age. In order to sort out exactly what that meant, a working group convened and consulted with educators, trustees, and other people in the school system. Through their process, they identified the National Education Technology Standards Framework, a set of standards set out by the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE. In exploring the framework, they found it to be comprehensive and suitable as a starting point for BC. They also liked that it included supporting resources for educators. With a few adjustments, they incorporated the standards into BC’s Digital Literacy Framework. Somewhere along the way, the group expanded the scope of the project to include students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, rather than just learners at “an early age”.  The final document also lists Common Sense Media’s K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum and European Commission’s Online Consultation on Experts’ Views on Digital Competence as sources. Without the funding to widely promote and support the implementation of BC’s then new framework, it was published on the BC Government’s website.

The failure of the BC government to get behind BC’s Digital Literacy Framework and fund its promotion is perhaps the reason I had never seen it before the last summer. I have asked many teachers in my school if they know it and they do not. Ten years after its creation, it is now in need of updating. On the current Digital Literacy website, they appear to have taken some time to tie in BC’s Core Competencies but the document itself is missing some important elements. As Dr. Winklemans pointed out himself, it does not address principles of learning and worldviews of indigenous peoples. Also, he admits it does not specifically address inclusion and diversity. It mentions communicating through email, instant messaging, and video conferencing, but does not address popular social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Bumble, and TikTok.

Doug Belshaw TEDx

After watching Doug Belshaw’s TEDx, I agree that there is a need to include a focus on students’ interests and the eight essential elements of digital literacies. With planned activities, appropriate cognitive, constructive, communicative, civic, creative, critical, confident, and cultural elements can be maximized. In Kindergarten and the primary grades, there will need to be room to learn the basic skills but then there needs to be plenty of time to play with technology. I am not talking about playing with educational games but they may play a role. I am talking about taking a photo and editing it with text and drawing tools, being silly on video, creating drawings with paint tools and stickers, animating play dough, telling stories, making puppet shows, taking pictures of clouds and adding audio or text about what they see, or goofing around in front of a green screen. If it is a job, children are nervous and shy, but if it is play, they can create great things! Play allows children to encounter the eight elements through exploration and experimentation which is certainly more intrinsically motivating than following a set of instructions to do a job for the teacher.

With regards to Belshaw’s criticism of linear frameworks, I can see a few points on the BC’s framework that can be introduced or modelled by the teacher earlier than the recommended grade. For example, a teacher can model increased accuracy in keyword searches; instead of having a video cued up and ready to show, the teacher can search for the video and show the children how to use details and the video filter. As another example, instead of reading a book about a subject, the teacher can search for and evaluate a variety of media in front of the class, explaining their thinking about which source to use. If we start talking about and modelling these skills in Kindergarten, they will be much less pixelated by the time they progress to grade three where the framework recommends they should be addressed.

I doubt anyone would deny that BC’s Digital Framework needs a refresh. The rapidly changing nature of technology demands that updates be more frequent than once in more than ten years. What would be more useful than a static document would be a more fluid resource in the form of a well maintained web page. But it seems that providing educators with a resource was not the goal so much as quietly voicing the opinion of the provincial government. Maybe someday, they will create an updated resource and back it up with some funding so that educators know it exists.

 

A Quick Blip About the Group Project

Our group includes Jeremy, Sean, Trevor, and me which puts us in the tricky position of trying to find a project that works for Kindergarten and high school woodshop and everything in between.  We decided to create a project centred around How-to videos.  Originally, we thought we would create a How-To How-To Video but with the spread of grade levels, we started talking about a web site or blog site.  We created a Trello page for the group and have been brainstorming in a Google Doc. We’ve talked about what it might look like at each of our respective levels but we have not filled the spaces in between. Our ideations look like a jumbled mess right now but I am looking forward to figuring it all out and making something useful.

The Ground Floor

March 9, 2020 / / 1 Comment

This week marks the beginning of a new course in my Master’s journey, EDCI 572, Development and Implementation of Curriculum.  The task at hand is to reflect on my own perspectives and experiences of digital storytelling. My own personal experience with digital storytelling has mostly been as a receiver not as a creator.  Before starting this Master’s program, the closest I got to creating would likely be word processing and email.  As I attempted to video record myself for this blog post, I discovered how much anxiety recording my face and my voice gives me.  So I fell back into a text blog.  In type, I have nothing I feel compelled to hide.

At the present, as a Kindergarten teacher, I use FreshGrade to document student learning, usually through my iPad or iPhone. We use photos with voice over or video to capture their thoughts, not mine. In most cases, I am the one behind the camera. Most are happy to have their photo taken but when it comes to video, many need encouragement and prompts or questions to talk about. They need reminders to speak loudly enough or to face the direction of the recording device so their voices are not lost. Quality control is minimal. If I can get one take that has the elements we need covered in it, it’s time to move on. They are usually happy with anything they do at this age and they really don’t want to spend time doing retakes because playtime awaits! To be honest, I don’t have a lot of time either. There’s only so much attention I can give to it when there are up to 19 other little people running around.

I consider my students to be on the ground floor in using digital technology. We don’t know exactly what the kids have learned to do at home so far. Maybe they’ve never picked up a digital tool before, maybe they video call Grandma every week, maybe they make regular contributions to YouTube, who knows? Maybe they have some bad habits. Maybe they need to learn about privacy. Maybe their parents are so concerned about privacy, they’re not allowed on the internet at all. Some of these kids aren’t even allowed to watch tv.

While we do have access to desktop computers, I choose not to use them because iPads are so much more accessible for little learners.  Also, it takes 4 and 5 year olds almost the entire block of computer lab time to get logged in because they are still struggling with letters and numbers.  When they each have an iPad in hand, there are no passwords and they are generally all engaged with the tool, which is great!  I have learned that is important to give these young learners lots of time to explore and play with an app before attempting anything with a specific goal in mind.  Even then, there is a strong possibility that they will need frequent reminders about what those goals are.  I am often too busy troubleshooting to stop and view their video right away, so I quickly Airdrop everything they give me to my device  because the school iPads must be erased after use. I don’t know until later if any goals were actually met.

Other than the built in photo and video capabilities, we use easy, fun apps such as Draw and Tell and ChatterPix Kids. These apps allow students to express themselves through pictures and have a microphone to enable voice overs so they can talk about their drawings and photos.  I am just starting to explore the PuppetPals HD app that allows groups of children to collaborate on a puppet show using preloaded graphics and backgrounds. Through multitouch capabilities, the app allows students to each operate their own puppet(s) simultaneously while their voices are recorded.

In one of this week’s readings, the Learning Design Tools of Rocky View School, the presentation called How to Make Pro Videos on a Mobile Device highlights steadying the device, using a microphone, using natural light from a window, framing the subject at eye level, editing the video using editing software. As part of various lessons, I have talked about technical points like getting permission to take someone’s photo, finding a quiet place to record voice overs, making sure they get in close so they do not record anyone extra, noticing when it is too dark, and holding the device steady. I have not attempted anything official with photo editing yet but I think they probably would find cropping, resizing, and experimenting with drawing on photos a lot of fun. I definitely see video editing as beyond their reach, next level.

Up until the end of second term, most of what they have done is draw a single picture or create a thing and talk about it. In the Spring, we start talking about more detailed storytelling. They draw three pictures in their story, a beginning, middle and end and then I record the video as they share their story with the class. I have never really thought about it as such but this could be the ground floor in storyboarding.

The recurring story with most teachers I’ve met is, “I don’t have the time.” I think the problem with teaching about technology and digital literacy is that teachers think it is their job to teach the whole of everything and maybe they don’t know how to do everything so they quit before they start. We all need reminders that we need to leave something for next year. And then next year’s teacher needs to know what they learned last year so they aren’t doubling up too much this year. Wouldn’t it be useful if there was a year by year framework for scaffolding specific digital skills as well as digital literacies? Maybe there’s a project in that.

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