With some of our students well on their way to becoming proficient in using Chatterpix, we thought there may be a great learning opportunity in allowing these expert students to teach their peers how to use the app. We thought that peer-peer teaching might both motivate the 'learner' students to try Chatterpix (it was recommended by a friend, after all) and provide a way for the 'expert' students to continue to develop their oral communication and problem-solving skills, as well as their confidence! We did this in a variety of ways. Two classes made anchor charts to assist the students in learning and teaching Chatterpix, while another, provided verbal support while students taught their peers. One teacher developed her anchor chart with the expert students. While these students were beginning to teach their peers, one by one, how to use Chatterpix, they would sometimes seek out the anchor chart if they forgot a specific step. Specifically, we found that in Chatterpix, it is more difficult to find a photo to use that was taken earlier with the ipad camera, than to take a photo within the app. The students found the anchor chart useful for remembering how to import a photo taken earlier.
As with the other apps we have tried, when students in our classes saw the expert students independently using these tools, they were excited to learn how to use them too! The experts were made pretty busy! We were able to sit back and observe how the experts taught their peers, and noticed individual differences in the experts' ability to explain what their peers should do, versus just pressing the buttons for them. This provided us with teachable moments and great documentation! After broadening the number of students in our classes who used the app, we made some discoveries while watching various students try it out. We found that one type of student might find the fact that their recording is limited to one minute and counts down throughout the recording, stressful. This kind of student might rush through what he/she wanted to say, trying to make sure he/she gets to fit it all in. Another student may find that the timed recording motivates them to be more succinct in their explanations, as compared to a tool such as Explain Everything, that has a longer recording time and doesn't count down while you are recording. As our experts continue to teach their peers, we are excited to see how their explanations grow in detail, and to watch more learning take place!
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We are a group of Kindergarten educators in Ontario, Canada. Archives
May 2017
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