No more Instant Everything
During a time when the phrase 21st Century Learner is so over used we are left wondering what it all means. Taking a long hard look at education today we are forced to acknowledge that while the world has changed at a record pace; businesses are forced to retool and rethink; our classroom have remain very much the same. We do many things well in education: We teach children how to memorize, we do a fair job in helping them research and report but what we are lacking in, is challenging them to think, create, rethink and problem solve. Let’s face it- they are used to being spoon fed and everything in their life, is delivered in an instant!.
Enter brand new Web Cam’s. With no regard for directions my 8th grade digital natives plug them in and are surprised when they don’t work. “What have you tried?” I ask.
“I plugged it in and it didn’t come on. This thing is junk!” replies the teenager who is accustomed to instant everything.
“Perhaps you need to read the directions, install the software?” I offer as advice.
Before the sentence is completed they are putting the software in and amazed when it doesn’t auto install. After asking them what drive the disk was put in, inquiring as to how they could access that drive, , and finally asking them which icon did they think would install the software (The Install icon). They are finally off and running. Now I fully realize it would have been far easier to install the software for the Web Cam’s myself. The kids would have been happier, my lesson would have proceeded quicker-BUT…what would they do next time they encountered a problem? Too often we do things for the children instead of allowing them to struggle and then succeed. Now I am not advocating for letting them sit there frustrated. I am advocating not doing everything for them-instead asking them questions that make them think, and make connections that will serve them far better in the future, than any project I ever teach.
How many times have students visited a website and before the page is done loading -their hand is in the air asking what to do next? There are days I cannot finish two sentences without hearing students blurt out…”What if…?” Too often we simply give them the quick answer- we want to move on.( My gosh they are only here for 40 short minutes.) I am here to advocate for processing time. Time to think! Thinking is a good thing! Embrace a few moments of silence. I call it power thinling with my 1st-4th graders.
The rule in my room is read, try, check with your neighbor and then raise your hand for help. By using this system, by the time I managed to starting moving around from workstation to work station, half the hands go down and I am left with a much more manageable 10-12 kids to help. I praise, the kids who take chances and try, instead of waiting for their individual, private, personal help! It takes me a good couple of months in the computer lab to turn their thinking on (I only see them twice a week). It takes even longer to get them to actually read the information on the website. But the effort is worth it because I do not spend so much time pointing to icons they need to click, walking over an pointing at the directions and restating the same directions over and over again!
How do I put it all together???
Here is an example of 2nd Grade Mixing the World of Digital Storytelling with Writing –stir twice for good measure-screen capture and print. The children created a story on Shidonni drawing the character, setting (background), and the animal animates. (They especially love drawing the food that the animal later eats.) I encourage them to talk-walk around and ask each other questions about what their animal is doing. The last ten minutes of class the 6th graders arrive. They type the stories the children dictate. If the second grader is stuck-the 6th grader asks them questions to get them thinking. While this processing is going on I run around and use Cam Studio to capture their animated movie. The result- An Animated movie that teaches character, setting and plot, and a written account of their movie which we lovingly call the script! The bonus…that would be the 6th graders having to ask questions in order to get the 2nd graders to put together a story.
Now about those Web Cam’s?????
