'We knew that the easiest entry point when introducing our students into using the iPad to enhance their learning was to start with apps that had the capability to record their voice along with a photo of a concrete work sample from the classroom environment. We chose Draw and Tell and Explain Everything. We experimented with both apps in our classrooms to discover their capabilities, and gain a better understanding of how our students were interacting with them. We were then able to compare and contrast which apps were more suited to our students' needs and our intentions. Explain Everything As we began working with Explain Everything, we discovered it was best to introduce it with students one on one or in very small groups as a motivating way to "share" their work in the classroom. This app allows students to import a picture of their work (or a sequence of photos of work) and record their voice. Students can also use a writing tool to draw on the photo of their work while they are speaking about it, or use a laser pointer that follows their finger while they point to different features and explain them. It also allows students to pause their recording, if necessary, and continue adding to it. This feature is valuable if any interruptions happen (as they often do in busy kindergarten classrooms!). As educators, we appreciated that there is an option for a "simple interface" that is easy to navigate for little kindergarten fingers (see below). We also see the benefit in it's ability to capture multiple slides with recordings in order to capture a process or developing story. Draw and Tell We introduced this student-friendly app in a similar was as we did with Explain Everything. Individual or small groups of students were shown the basics of this app, and they were very motivated to begin using it to share their learning. With Draw and Tell, students can either draw a picture or upload a photo of their work. They can add stickers or draw on top of their image, to add detail to it. When they are ready, students press the microphone button and record their voice. As students talk, they can touch the screen and see a blue highlighted circle follow their touch. When they are finished recording, students can listen to their recording and are motivated with applause upon finishing their play back. To save their work, students press the back arrow and upload it to the camera roll. Draw and Tell is a fun, engaging app, with bright colours, cute stickers and an easy to navigate interface. While there are many other uses for this app, we found it to be a useful tool for capturing students' oral descriptions of their work. We created a useful features comparison chart between Draw and Tell and Explain Everything. See below.
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After creating our Oral Communication and Thinking Skills in Kindergarten inventory, our next step was to compare our students to the overall expectations we identified as important.
We looked at all of the students in our 3 classrooms and have identified a small group of 16 students (5 girls and 11 boys) that scored a level 1 or 2 in many areas on the inventory. Thirteen students are in Senior Kindergarten, and 3 are in Junior Kindergarten. From there, we decided to capture an audio recording of our students' communication skills, using two apps; Draw and Tell and Explain Everything. To start our project, we began by discussing the needs of students in our classroom and the specific skills our students were missing. As we continued our learning throughout this TLC, we needed a way to measure the growth of our students' oral communication and critical thinking/problem-solving skills. Were there ready-to-use inventories to show what good communication looks like in Kindergarten? What about good problem-solving? We explored several scales such as the Kindergarten Oral Language Assessment Scale (Literacy Place for the Early Years - Kindergarten, Scholastic, 2011), the Overview of Oral Language Developmental Continuum (First Steps Oral Language Developmental Curriculum, 1994), and Critical and Creative Thinking Scale (Minds Wide Open). After learning about what was out there, we needed something that was more relevant and suited to our needs. We decided to build our own skill inventory based on the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum (2016). We used three overall expectations and several specific expectations within each overall to build our inventory. We added some examples where, in our opinion, an expectation covered a lot of different skills (e.g., 1.6). See below.
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We are a group of Kindergarten educators in Ontario, Canada. Archives
May 2017
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