Creatively Challenged

It's been an intense couple of weeks. My class and I have been sprinting to keep our heads above water. New use of technology kind of went by the wayside, but it was still very much present in our lives. My favorite technology related moment this week came out of a pattern app we were using to practice patterns before our test. The children were in front of the room leading their classmates in pattern practice via Learning Patters app. It's nothing more than pattern flash cards but it gave my children a chance to practice without me being in front of them and freed up a few minutes for me to help other children one on one. As we were wrapping up math that day one student was very upset. I was worried someone had done something to anger him. When I asked him what he was upset about he said, "I just want to do patterns and that one's not on the kid iPads!" And he was right. I asked the entire class if they would like to have the pattern app on the kid iPads for them to use on their own and I had an overwhelming yes. Patterns are usually a pretty big hit with the kindergarten crowd, but it was cool to see them spend a lot of time practicing as a group and then not want to stop. I ended up paying $1.99 to get the full version with all of the patterns. When I told this little guy that I had planned to even purchas the hard patterns for him to try he could barely contain his excitement. He knows I'm pretty forgetful so he asked if he could write me a note. This is what I had waiting on my computer when school got out that day. 

 Translation: Mosier, Put the patterns (patt-er-ins is how he says it- and write it!) on the iPads. 
iypads. iPads. SAME THING!

I loved that he got to practice some great phonics while doing something that he found to be very important. And to be honest, I'm glad he wrote me the note because frazzled doesn't begin to explain my life right now, but I didn't forget to purchase the full version and add them to the kid iPads! Kid enthusiasm fuels my fire and I love it!


Creativity
I don't feel creative in the sense that I do lots of arts and crafts or that my house and/or classroom are coordinated and decorated just so. I am, however, creative in finding ways to get kids to learn as are are of the great teachers. That's what makes us great. But when I was asked how I help kids to be creative via technology, I didn't have an answer for that. Or I didn't have a GOOD answer.

When I attended the TechEdge conference last month at the University of Nebraka-Lincoln I got to attend a session on the maker space. The presenter was William Vann and he spoke about how he's able to provide materials, set some parameters and then allow children to explore, create, fail, revise, and maybe eventually succeed with an amazing amount of materials, some electronic and some not. I was so excited by the idea of giving kids time to explore and create and I've been thinking about how I could provide that for my students as well. 

For class this week we read Creativity in technology education: providing children with glimpses of their inventive potential by Theodore Lewis. Just in the first couple of pages I felt like, "this guy gets it!" He spoke about the importance of allowing creativity to allow students to discover a possibly hidden talent. He was speaking of using technology as a way for students to use their own creativity according to their own particular strengths and abilities. While I am not able to provide a true maker space for my students, I do allow them to make some of their own choices when it comes to independent practice on the iPads. At those times they are much more in control of their learning than I am, but it's not truly creative. I do have a few students who have taken to minecraft and are building their own worlds. I enjoy listening to what they're working on and what they've accomplished in their game, but I can't take any credit for that. I set no parameters. I am not assessing it in any way. I'm just not allowing children any creativity via technology based on curriculum goals. 

As I look down the road to the future and more iPads being available to us, I'd love to get kids writing via technology. I would love for students to be able to create their own character and print them on a 3D printer. I saw that Barnes and Noble has small da Vinci Jr. 3D printers for "only" $350. I think it would be phenomenal for students to create something in their 2D world on the ipad and then be able to print it out and have a real 3D object to hold, touch, show off, and take home. I want them to begin to understand that their ideas can become real. Of course I don't have that yet, nor do I see myself getting those things in the foreseeable future. I need to start bridging that gap for my students. 

My students are already used to taking pictures around the room and then I've been putting makeshift collages together and showing them on the projector. I think the next step to start getting tangable items out of work done via the ipad would be to allow them to make their own collages using Pic Collage and then printing it and displaying it. I really hate printing but students take pride in displayed work and this would just be the next level of awesome for them. I can see them loving posters around the room of the letters of the week with their collages of what they've found either online or around the school pertaining to those letters. For my students who are writing I could see allowing them to write a sentence in a fun font or illustrating it in any number of was and displaying them around the room to bring more excitement to our weekly (somewhat boring) sight words.

The article talked about students having "insufficient opportunity for open-ended pursuits that are joyful" (Lewis, p.3) and I completely agree. The balancing act is that we have a very prescribed curriculum and each classroom needs to teach with fidelity to ensure that all students are getting an equal education. Of course I enhance where I can but that takes creativity on my part. I'm not very good at creativity right now. Fall is an extremely busy time of year in my house and this year with my students. I'm just trying to keep my head above water but you can be certain that when I have more help with parenting duties and when plans are in place for my students I'll be able to explore and get some more great things up and running because I totally agree that creativity is absolutely necessary. This article really helped me to see my inefficiencies and allowed me some time to plan for the next step with my students. It's uncomfortable but I need a push to start moving forward. I think Theodore Lewis just gave me a virtual nudge. Thanks, Mr. Lewis.

Publishing and a New Man in my Life

I love new stuff and I love technology. It was natural that I added technology as soon as I possibly could. The problem is that I've settled in and haven't tried many new things lately because there's nobody pushing me to do so. This class has really forced me to think a bit harder about how I can use technology more without making it another thing to do. Technology has to be seamless for me to like it. I knew that writing was one place where I was horribly lacking in my technology but I haven't been very good about getting it going. Because I knew this I made publishing writing a goal of mine for class. This week I finally got in gear and gave it a try. I have one child who is a very good writer. Each day she is writing more than everyone else and is ready for more. I did a quick (2-3 minute) instructional session and sent her on her way. She wrote her story and we spent a few minutes stretching it out to three pages. Once we had the story laid out I had her illustrate. She chose to draw the pictures on paper and the next thing I knew she had taken it upon herself to take the picture of her illustration and had added it to her story. It was fun seeing her figure out the app on her own. The app I chose to used was Book Creator. It came recommended and I was pleased at how easy it was to use. I did end up paying a few dollar for it, but that's what I needed to push myself to add something new. I plan to get this app on a couple more iPads and let kids take turns publishing their work using book creator. I can see it being highly motivating for kids who may not be very enthusiastic writers. I can also see myself using it with the voice to text feature for my pre-writers. I could see them seeing their ideas on paper as very motivating as well as encouraging that they can be writers and that they're not far away.
When I told the first little girl that if she did a great story that I could put her story on youtube and send it to her mom her face lit up. She's a very sweet and hard working girl to begin with, but she's also very calm and even tempered. Seeing a child that usually needs no encouragement to be her best get excited about something new was motivating to me as well.

Here is her current progress. The plan for tomorrow is for her to record her voice reading her story and then upload it for her family to see and share. I love the invented spelling and approximated sounds. It's one of my favorite parts of kindergarten!

As soon as we get a final draft I'll take down these screen shots and replace it with the final product. 

I loved seeing Zaria get excited and dive in. I started with a child who was already hooked. I'm excited to try it with a child who is a reluctant writer next. I might try StoryBird next since the pictures are already there and they can write based on that. It doesn't exactly align with my curriculum but I'll find a way to match them up. It's worth it to get a kid feeling like a real author!



And friends, I have an announcement. I have a new man in my life and his name is OSMO!

 

Isn't he handsome?  ;-) 

Is that a group of kids happily working together to solve puzzles? Are those kids who are supporting others making connections between the tiles and the image to achieve a task? YES IT IS! Osmo is so awesome. Besides the fact that the kids think it's absolute magic that the iPad knows what's going on on the table, it has been a very good addition to my classroom. I've been the most impressed at the collaboration among the kids. There were actually only 2 kids who were assigned to the Osmo at the time this picture was taken but they were all working so well together that I just let it happen. (Don't worry, their work was done!) I've loaded their pictures and names into the Osmo Words app. Once I can make some reference cards with their names and pictures they'll get to work on building their names as well as their high frequency words and vocabulary words with the Osmo. I'm so excited to see what we can do with the Osmo. I'll have to post some video once I get it fully up and running. 

I still have a lot of things that I want to try this semester pertaining to technology. I'm hoping I can get them all squeezed in. If I do so, I'll write about it here. Thanks for reading!