Feb
6
More on Classroom Documentation
February 6, 2006 | |
Earlier in the week I wrote about a session I was preparing on the topic of using technology to enhance classroom documentation and portfolios. The session ended up being a big success — mostly due to some brilliant clarifying questions my co-presenter, Debra Jarjoura brought to the table. We also came up with the last-minute idea of running around to all of the Lower School (K-2) classrooms to collect examples of the various sorts of documentation teachers are already doing successfully in their classrooms. We found a huge range of examples, some very high-tech, some using no technology at all. Why is it that classroom teachers so rarely have opportunities to share the great work they are already doing with their colleagues?
But I think one of the biggest points we managed to drive home had to do with how teachers only typically provide parents with a tiny glimpse into their classrooms and the students’ learning process. The rare times parents come to the classroom to see student work it is for the final product — the PowerPoint speech, the Winter Concert, Spring Art Show, Portfolio Day, etc. Rarely are parents exposed to the process of learning, and rarely are students and teachers asked to reflect about what they are learning as they are learning it.
I used an example from my own life as the parent of preschool-aged twins. One of my sons brought home yet another painting from school several weeks ago. When he showed it to me, I thought “that’s nice, honey” and planned to add it to the growing pile of preschool art we already have.
Later in the week, however, the teacher stopped me in the hallway to tell me how excited my son had been about their recent experimentation with color mixing, and upon learning that blue+yellow=green and red+blue=purple, he asked “but how is black made?” The class proceeded to experiment with paints until they came up with black, and his artwork was the end result of the discussion. Suddenly that “nothing” painting became a treasure to me. A glimpse into his development.
A quick note on the back of the painting, a typed caption, or better yet, an audio recording or digital photos and transcription of the class discussion would have allowed parent, teacher and even student to understand the process of learning so much more deeply.
Comments
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In one sense I can’t blame teachers for finding it hard to squeeze in the time to SHARE with others in the profession - thankfully, weblogs, like yours, are starting to open the classroom door showing the advantages to the synergistic flow that occurs with such sharing. I’m waiting for the position of Schoolteacher Cheerleader to appear so that the great work being done gets out and those teachers their deserved ‘pat-on-backs’
I recently presented a workshop where we looked at how screencasting “opens the classroom door” to parents/family, to pre-service teachers, to other teachers. You can view the many examples I showed here: http://newmediaworkshops.com/2006/screencasts.htm but one particular example is worth viewing since it shows a rather fancy way how your child’s art could be shared - http://roepker.podomatic.com/enclosure/2006-01-07T18_29_24-08_00.wmv (3megs). This type of polished display is probably too much to ask on a regular basis from teachers…but for an open house or special webzine, perhaps!
In addition to your list above, information about pictures could also be shared through annotated images like those starting to appear on Flickr… for example: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/annotated/
Your posting also made me reflect to the girl in class today who shared with the rest of the class a quick tip for keeping Prefix, Root and Suffix straight - Oh, did I want to capture that audio and post it!!! For her, for the rest of the class and for other teachers… (Perhaps I will get another opportunity to do so!).
Lastly, you said,
“We found a huge range of examples, some very high-tech, some using no technology at all.”
I was wondering if you could share those examples?
Did the picture show your son’s art work? - it did not show up for me.
Great story here!
Sue
Sue,
I’ll start scanning the classifieds for all of those “schoolteacher cheerleader” jobs today!
I absolutely loved the sample movie you linked — as you said, the finished product is one of those “fancy” gourmet meals that a teacher wouldn’t necessarily put together all the time, but the audio really allows the children to tell the story behind the artwork. It’d be easy to put together that presentation using a number of tools (iMovie, Kid Pix slide show, PowerPoint, Keynote, etc.) and I’m wondering which tool you used.
I’ll try to post some examples of the sorts of documentation we found around our school later today for you to see — keep in mind that our interpretation of “very high-tech” are indeed pretty modest compared to the wonderful screencast examples I found at your site…
Hopefully the graphics on the site should now all be working correctly.
Thanks for the comments,
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
I’m glad you liked the link but I wanted to write back right away because the link I provided is not my own - I didn’t mean to imply so! I think I got complacent because in my own tiny world, I know that all my stuff is located under http://www.newmediaworkshop.com - I forgot others wouldn’t know that.
About the cute movie link - it’s from KINDERPOD - here - http://roepker.podomatic.com/ - The exact movie Blog posting can be found here: http://roepker.podomatic.com/entry/2006-01-07T18_29_24-08_00 . YES!!!! that’s kindergarten students podcasting!! I’m sorry for any confusion my non-descriptive link may have caused.
I have made videos like this, tho - I used windows moviemaker - a free program that easily allows importing images and adding audio. There are more complicated programs that will do it - but moviemaker is pretty easy, I found.
Sue