Why My Six-Year-Olds Have Digital Portfolios

This article was originally posted on the Getting Smart blog.

From the first week of school, the six year olds in my classroom begin to create an online presence in the form of a digital portfolio. We use a blogging platform to do this, and include artifacts that show their progress in writing, reading, math, social studies and science.

I am frequently asked why I do this. Even more frequently, I can see in a colleague’s eyes that they are thinking “why”, even if they don’t verbalize their question. The way that those educators have always done portfolios has worked well for them. Their students are learning the things they need to learn and are building a paper portfolio as they do so. Why do I take the extra time to upload those artifacts?

Audience

For any writer or creator, it is all about the audience. Why would a student even want to write on a piece of paper for their teacher to see when they could write on their blog for the world to see?

Because a blog allows comments, the students’ thoughts and learning can be not only read, but responded to as well. Students relish the feedback a comment gives, whether it is from a classmate, a parent, or someone they have never met. The audience becomes part of the student’s learning.

Creating a Community of Ripples

Having a blog creates a community around our classroom. The articles, podcasts, images and video we post are like stones dropped into a pond.

The first ripple in our circle of community is the circle of parents. Parents can watch their child’s blog and observe their child’s progress first hand. They don’t have to wait until our student-led conferences to see what and how their child has been learning. The growth is obvious for them to see.

The next ripple is the circle of the child’s extended family, friends and our local community. They, too can watch, encourage and interact. Often, this circle includes students who have been in my classroom in the past and who come back to our blog to comment and encourage the younger students.

The largest circle is—well—the entire world. We have received comments from many places including many states in the USA, classrooms across Canada, India, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and New Zealand. And those are just this school year.

That is a very large community.

Digital Footprint

Even at a young age, it is important to begin to have an idea of the significance of a digital footprint, including what things are appropriate to post online, how to protect your identity and ways to interact with others in an online space. As my six-year-olds grow up, the world will become increasingly digital. Tools will change, but connectedness will continue to grow. Children need to learn early that it is important to present yourself well online and some of the ways that can be done.

Their Culture

We teach kids that have no concept of a world without the Internet. Technology is a ubiquitous part of their world. They want and expect to use it at home. For me to deny that technology and what it allows them to do would be like asking someone from an earlier generation to learn without a pen or pencil. It just wouldn’t make sense.

Student Conferences

When we have student-led conferences in my classroom, my students use what is posted on their blog as the starting point of our conversation with their parents. Their moms and dads are already familiar with what is posted, and the students are able to focus on sharing what their goals were, what they feel they are doing well and what they want to get better at.

Student Choice

Allowing students to have some choice in what they create/post is important on so many levels. It empowers the students and involves them in their own learning. We teach students who have a plethora of choices as to how they spend their time. In addition to the choices children previously had, they can choose from many types of gaming, hundreds of television channels or video on demand. It only makes sense to give them a sense of choice as to how they show their learning as well.

An online portfolio gives those choices. Students can choose which of the many tools available will best help them to show their learning. Paper is not always the best way to communicate your ideas.

Joy

I will never forget the delight in one of my student’s eyes who had just had a working computer in his home the night before for the first time that school year. “Mrs. Cassidy, I showed my blog to my parents last night. I showed them all my stuff! They liked it!”

That moment of joy was worth the few extra minutes it takes to post my student’s articles online. I know that, although I don’t always hear about it, that moment is repeated over and over in the homes of all of my students, as they are able to share their learning with their parents at home.

Joy is the best reason I use digital portfolios with my young students. We can all use a little more joy.

“I Guess We Really Like the iPads!”

Because I was fortunate enough to win a contest from Best Buy Canada, I got to go on a $20 000 shopping spree last week to purchase technology for my classroom. I chose to buy iPads. Being 1:1 with some sort of device has long been a dream of mine, a dream I was ecstatic to fulfill!

Day One of 1:1

Friday was the big day—the iPads finally arrived in our classroom. To say my students were excited would be a bit of an understatement, but then, so was their teacher.

I don’t want the iPads to just change the way we do things in my classroom. I want them to be transformative. That is, I don’t want to use the iPads to just do things we could have done on paper. An app should not just be a glorified worksheet. I want them to allow us to connect and to work and learn differently. I hope that will happen more and more as time goes on.

Our First App

But for this first day, it was all about fun and about learning some of the possibilities of these new tools. For our first app, I chose Letter Reflex. Almost every child in my classroom is still struggling in their reading to consistently identify b’s and d’s. If you teach kindergarten or first grade, you know this is pretty common. The Letter Reflex app allows students to tilt the iPad to select a b,d, p or q, adding a kinesthetic aspect to learning letters. The students loved the game, and I hope they’ll go back to it often. With so many students trying the game at once, hearing the voice on the app proved to be difficult, so everyone ran to get their headphones. Success, engagement and learning—but no transformation yet.

Creating with the iPads

We next moved to Brushes, a drawing app that was recommended to me by Giulia Forsythe. It is more pricy than some other drawing apps that I could have chosen, but my students spend most of the year learning to read and write something that is readable to people who are not first grade teachers. They show their learning much more often through a drawing than through text. I wanted them to have a great tool that will allow them to show their learning effectively through drawing if that is their choice. The students used this tool to make (and to decorate) the number of their iPad. (I numbered them for organizational purposes.) I helped them to make a screenshot of their drawing, and to set these numbers as their wallpaper and home screen image. I saw this as a higher thinking skill—the students were creating rather than consuming—but not yet transformative.

While the students were not complaining about the restrictiveness of the activities we had done so far, they really wanted to explore on their own, so I let them do just that. Some of them gravitated to games that we had had on the two original iPads that were in our classroom. Others returned to Letter Reflex. Still others began to explore the other enticingly coloured squares they saw on their iPad. They were so engaged, that we all forgot to watch the clock for our gym time (a practically sacred time for my mostly male learners) and missed it entirely.

Taking Pictures–The Highlight

In the afternoon, we had a chat via Skype with a second grade class in Wisconsin about a project we are doing together called A View From the Window. Afterwards, the students and I talked about how we would show them our view. Would we make a movie…draw pictures…take pictures? The students felt that we needed to use a camera, not drawings, so we grabbed our iPads to figure out the camera app. This app is very intuitive, and the students only needed some support to tuck the cover into the back of our cases so that it would not block the camera.

This was their favorite part of the day. We agreed to wait until a sunny day to take pictures out the window for the project, but they joyously took picture after picture of the view from the window, objects in our classroom and each other taking pictures. It was amazing how many pictures some of them were able to take in a few short minutes. One student had dozens of pictures, including sixteen pictures of a computer mouse. Lots of fun, and then, it was time to teach them how to delete unwanted pictures. The student with the most pictures quietly admitted to me that he had taken “too many pictures” and I showed him how to delete them more quickly. The students kept only those photos that they really liked. Most of the students emptied their photo gallery. For them, the fun was in the taking—not yet in the sharing. Sharing pictures—now perhaps that will begin to be more transformative.

My favorite comment from the day was from one of the boys when we realized that our time in the gym had already evaporated while we were so engaged. “Mrs. Cassidy, I guess we really like the iPads”, he said.

I guess they do! We’ll keep on working to make this technology transformative as well as engaging.

Commenting With Pre and Emerging Writers

“For me? There’s a comment for me?” asked an eager five-year-old in my classroom, eyes aglow. I assured him that the comment was indeed for him and read it aloud to he and his classmates, pointing to each word on the Smartboard as I did so. He beamed as I read aloud, marveling at the fact that what he had posted on his blog was valuable enough to provoke a response from someone he had never met.

Ensuring All Students Receive Comments

When my students begin blogging each September, I ensure that they ALL begin getting comments as soon as possible. I hold a parent night and show the parents how to comment. I enlist the help of students who were in my classroom in previous years. Sometimes I have put out a plea on Twitter using the hashtag #comments4kids. I know how encouraging those comments can be, and I want all of my students to have that experience as soon as possible—to feel that rush of acknowledgement a first comment elicits.

Learning to Comment Ourselves

Soon after, I begin teaching my students how to leave comments themselves. With pre-readers and writers, this is a lengthy process! Sometimes we begin by going to the blog of someone who has just left a comment for us. Sometimes we begin by going to the blog of another classroom that is linked from our classroom blog. Wherever and whenever we begin, we always comment together as a group. (With pre readers and writers, this is not just good pedagodgy, it is a necessity!)

We start by talking about the comments we have received, how they made us feel and what was good about them. We want to be able to mimic the best of other people’s comments to us. Almost always, the students want to start by saying “I like your blog”. To help the students to stay on track, and to encourage them to think beyond this over-used phrase, we make an anchor chart to help us remember our discussion. (I first heard the term “anchor chart” from the Two Sisters. It refers to a chart that records a process or strategy and is created WITH the students in their own words. It is then posted in the classroom for the students to use as a reference.)

Commenting Together

To be honest, although this chart is made up by and with my grade one students each year, it does not change a lot from school year to school year. A good comment is still a good comment. Linda Yollis’ students have done some great work explaining how third graders comment, but for my pre and emerging writers, these steps seem to work best. Besides teaching them to comment, they reinforce other concepts my students are just learning.

Say something nice. What specifically did you like about the post? What made you smile?
Make a connection. What did it remind you of? Does it make you think of something you know or have done? Something you saw in a book or on a video? Understanding and making connections is a skill five and six year olds are just beginning to learn.
Ask a question. What do you wonder? What did the writer not include that you wish had been in the article? Understanding the difference between something you tell and something you ask is difficult for most six-year-olds. Including a question helps them to learn what a question is and how to think about someone’s ideas beyond their own.
Re-read your comment. This is a vital skill for commenters of any age. As the students realized how often they needed to change something we had written to make it better, we added this step at the end of our chart.

We follow this pattern pretty closely together for months as they learn the literacy skills necessary to comment on their own. The first independent student comments are often written from home. This year, the first student to comment on the blogs of his peers decided to be “fair” and left a comment for every other child in the class! I make a big deal about these comments, and as with every other comment we receive, we read them aloud together. After one or two students have written comments, the others start to want to do it as well!

Commenting Independently

It is usually near the end of our grade one year when I will actually officially ask all of the students to try making a comment on the blog of their choice. At first, I ask them to show me the comment before they click “submit”, but when they have shown me that they can do this independently, I let them comment on any of the blogs that are linked from our classroom blog, knowing that if there was ever anything inappropriate (to my knowledge there never has been), the teachers we are linked with would contact me. For students whose spelling skills are still developing, I stay close by and if necessary will write an editor’s note in brackets after their comment, in the same way I do with their blog postings.

Do they all follow the pattern that we have practiced together? No. It is a long journey. Learning to comment when you are an emerging writer does take a long time, but learning to read and to write also takes a long time. To me the result—a student who is beginning to understand how to interact with others in a social media situation—is worth the long journey.

Unplug’d 2012–It’s International!

Last summer I had the privilege of participating in Unplugd11, an experience unlike any other I have had. Unplugd11 was an opportunity for educators from across Canada to meet, to reflect and to write together, but it was more than that.

It was the people. Never before had I been in a place where every one of the people present were so passionate about education. Participants gave up their time and paid their own way, flying as far as 4300 km (2700 miles) to get there.

It was the location. We first met at a hotel in downtown Toronto and then travelled by train to a solar-powered experience at Northern Edge Algonquin. This retreat center is on a lake and surrounded by forest. Time seems to stand still there.

It was the fact that we all HAD to unplug. At the Edge, there is no internet access. No cell phone service. No contact with the outside world. There were only rich conversations.

It was the task. Going to Unplugd meant that you had to bring a piece of writing with you. Once there, we were divided into groups that worked on editing and bringing together all of the varied pieces of writing in a collaborative authorship experience.

And yes, it was the food. Mealtimes were a time of relaxed conversation and sharing over delicious organic and locally raised food.

This year, Unplugd is not just for Canadians. Unplugd12 will bring together people from around the world in an international education summit.

The best part is that I GET TO GO BACK! More meaningful conversations, more unspoiled wilderness, more writing and more great food.

If you are passionate about education and want to see change, apply to attend. I hope I see you there.

Nintendo DS: An Assessment Tool?

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about our first BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) day. When I saw the students’ enthusiasm, and what we were able to do with their Nintendo DS at school, I knew that we would have to do it again. And this week we did!

Between half and two-thirds of my students own a Nintendo DS of some kind, which they all brought to school. Interestingly, a student who had brought his Nintendo 3DS last time left it at home in favour of his younger brother’s regular DS so that he would be able to access the Pictochat feature, which he knew we would be using.

There was nothing earth shatteringly new this time.There was more wonderful oral language as the students talked about their games–something that they were truly interested in sharing with their friends. There was more engagement and more sharing of devices.

Using the DS for Assessment

The best usage of the DS for the day, though, was when we used the devices to help us with spelling. We were working on the long a sound, and ai in particular. In the past, I would say a word such as ”rain” and ask the students to “sound it out” and write it on an individually-sized whiteboard, or on our whiteboard-topped tables. Then I would run around checking their words. With the six DS units that I already have in my classroom and the ones that the students themselves brought, every student was able to use a device instead.

They all logged into the same chat room in Pictochat and wrote each word as I said it, but didn’t click on the send button until we counted “1, 2, 3, send”. Although I meandered through the students as they sat on the carpet, checking for students that needed support, watching one of the DS as the chats flew by was a much better way to assess the students’ understanding. Within ten seconds I knew exactly who needed help and with what.

The students helped assess each other as well. “Hey, some people are putting nines instead of p’s”, said one student. I modeled a correct p and that didn’t happen again. “He forgot the i”, commented another. We talked briefly again about how to make the long a sound, and no one forgot to include the i the next time. Because of all the correct answers flying by, students could instantly self-assess as well. Most did not need to have their peers point out their errors–they could see the mistakes for themselves. This held true when we later wrote number sentences to go with number stories.

This is the kind of assessment I want to have a lot of in my classrooms–timely, focused and done by peers and the students themselves. I guess I just have to figure out how to have a class set of Nintendo DS!

Kids Teaching Kids

For a long time, I’ve known that kids learn best from other kids, and I’ve tried to incorporate this into what we do in my classroom.

Last year, I taught what I thought were some great lessons about the difference between needs and wants. At the end of the unit, I asked the students to use a Common Craft-style video to show the difference between the two. They all got to work and took turns video-taping each other.

When I reviewed the videos, it was clear to me that despite my brilliant teaching, three of my students obviously did not yet understand the concept. Instead of re-teaching the needs and wants unit, I instead chose to show these three students some of the completed videos from the students who HAD understood the concept.

It was like the lights came on.

In no time, those three students were able to create a new video that showed me that they, too, understood what the difference was between the two ideas. Just by seeing and hearing their peers explain it.

Teaching in Flu Season

Last week flu season hit my classroom in a big way. That, combined with extreme windchills of -43C (-45F) meant very few children at school. One day I had only eight students in the morning and sent two of those home ill through the day. Starting anything new seemed ridiculous, so among other things, we spent some time reviewing silent e at the end of a word.

I asked those students who were present to be the teachers for those who couldn’t be there. Each of my students made a video (again using a Common Craft style—it works SO well for young children) to show how a silent e changes a word.

The students were all motivated by the idea of being the instructors. They worked hard on their “props” and even harder to get their images in the right place for the video. (We finally had to put strips of masking tape on the tabletop to indicate where the camera would be recording.)

Hopefully, most of my students will be back next week. Their peers are eager to let their videos help to teach. And kids can once again learn from other kids. I know it works.

BYOD For Six-Year-Olds

I have long been fascinated with the idea of “bring your own device” (BYOD). Most schools cannot afford to provide laptops, iPads or any other device for every student. Allowing students to bring whatever they have–whether laptop, cellphone or whatever–to school to add to the “connectedness” in the classroom is something I’ve supported. I’ve just never done it in my grade one classroom.

My students do not have laptops. They don’t have cell phones or iPads. But they do have Nintendo DS (well, most of them do). I have toyed with the idea of having a BYOD day. Last year I even contacted the parents to say “would this be possible”? No one responded, so I took this to mean they said “no”.

Bringing Our Games to School

In hindsight, I’m not sure that it did mean “no”. This year, as we began our relationships, rules and responsibilities unit using gaming, I decided to give it another try. I really wanted the students to be able to share the games they loved so well with their classmates. This time, I first talked to the students. Would they like to bring their DS to school? Yes! (Using their games is something they are passionate about.) What were some rules we should make to ensure that their DS were safe? The students came up with the rules, the chief of which was that they would keep their DS in their backpack while on the bus, while on the playground and while in the classroom until the appropriate time.

I emailed the parents to ask them to send the Nintendo DS with the student’s favourite game to school for “sharing” time. If the students did not have a DS, I asked them to send any other game that the students enjoyed playing. Those who could not bring a game to show us could simply tell us about a game they liked to play.

About half of the students brought a DS to school on the appointed day. A couple of students forgot and one parent did not want the DS to come to school. Two students brought a different game to show us.

We used the document camera to show the games as the students explained how to play. I was thrilled with the oral language that came from this sharing. Students who are normally very reticent to talk were eloquent in describing their game, whether a DS game or otherwise.

Using PictoChat

One of the interesting features of the DS and the DSi is called PictoChat. PictoChat allows you to chat with other Nintendo DS machines through its own wireless connection. I have a few DS at school, so the students all shared machines, and began sending messages to each other. We have used this feature many times in the past with the DS we have at school, but never before had we had so many devices sending messages at once. There were squeals of delight!

At first, they sent pictures or word messages. Then we practiced spelling some sight words we had been working. We’ve been working on telling and writing math number stories, so later I told some math stories and asked them to write the number story to go with it. The students liked that they could “see everybody’s answer to see if we’re right”. Fun, fun, fun.

Passion and purpose worked hand-in-hand. An unqualified success. And, yes, we’ll do it again.

The Big Move–Why Am I Here?

We're Excited!

If you are reading this, you are at my shiny, new space. For almost four years, I have been blogging on a WordPress blog, also called Primary Preoccupation. (I’m partial to that name, so I brought it with me.) Thanks to some stress-filled evenings and lots of support from my new hosts, all of the content from my old blog is now here. (Why, oh why, didn’t I properly tag and categorize my posts when I first began blogging?)

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about trying to get more of my online “stuff” into one place. A couple of years ago I set up a Yolasite to begin collecting links. That was a good step, but I wanted my writing to be in the same place as the rest of what I share. After much thought, and looking at what countless others have done, this is what I have come up with. I know it will change over time–that is a good thing, I think.

Suggestions to improve this space are more than welcome. I have some ideas, but I’m willing to bet that others have better ones. I’d love to hear them.

So here I am. New space. A clean slate. More room to grow. And still preoccupied with teaching primary students.

Making Up the Rules

Using the Nintendo DS

This year, I have been using PBL (passion or project-based learning) in my classroom. Although language arts and math have certainly been involved, I have mainly been using the outcomes of my science, social studies and health curriculum as the focal point of my backwards by design planning. Instead of focusing on outcomes one at a time, I have grouped them into areas roughly approximating themes. Some of these themes have outcomes from only one curriculum and some have outcomes from two or even three subject areas. The overall themes we have completed so far this year have only involved science and health. This means that we have not yet learned any of the social studies outcomes.

Can It Work?

To be honest, I have dreaded the social studies outcomes. Science and health lend themselves easily to PBL in my mind. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it work.

Our next unit or theme is based around relationships, rules and responsibilities. (I didn’t come up with that title myself.) It covers some social studies and some health outcomes. As with all PBL, I want this to be based on what the students are interested in. There really is nothing about the words “relationships”, “rules” and “responsibilities” that has the ability to inspire passion in most six year olds.

Playing Nintendogs

One thing my students ARE passionate about is gaming. They love to play games on the computers in our classroom and an incredible number of them have a Nintendo DS of their own. I have been looking for a more ways to integrate gaming and into our days—could this be the time? Gaming certainly involves rules and relationship work is vital to make the six DS machines we have in our classroom work in a class of eighteen children.

I have used the DS in my classroom a variety of ways for several years. I know how to set things up so that our day flows smoothly and successfully with them. Using what I had learned to help was not my purpose this time, though.

Let’s Try It

Without any preamble, I brought out the DS that I have in my classroom and said that we would spend the next period using them to play the game Nintendogs. They all cheered. “Go for it,” I said, and moved aside. They eagerly reached for the games.

What happened next was a study in human nature.

The children who got a DS in their hands eagerly moved to a table and began to use them. A couple of children sat down beside them to watch. Five children all hovered over the shoulder of one child. Unbeknownst to me, one child had one in his backpack, which he promptly took out and began to use. Several children all clustered around me expectantly. (Clearly, I was supposed to solve their problem–they didn’t have one to use.) Their eyes kept darting to the counter where the DS had been, expecting more would appear. Despite the fact that we have used these machines many times this year and they all know exactly how many there are, one child even moved some of the items on the counter to see if more might be hiding behind something. One student asked if they could use something else—an iPad or a computer. (This is often what happens in our classroom.) I cheerfully told the children that we were using only the DS for this, and moved to another part of the classroom. I could hear a lot of grumbling and there were some very disappointed faces.

I wanted to be sure to stop what was happening before there were any tears, so after a few minutes I brought them back to our carpet and asked them about what had happened. We talked about how they had felt and how they could solve the difficulties.

Sharing the Nintendo DS

One of the students suggested that people could share with a partner. They moved around to find a partner and discovered that some students still would not have a DS. Another student suggested having three in a group. They tried it out and decided this was a “fair” way. Some arguing ensued as they all jockeyed to be first to play, and I asked them if they needed some rules. They eagerly agreed. (Being six is all about being fair.) Together they made five rules. (One was that it’s Mrs. Cassidy’s job to decide who is first and to keep track of the time to make it fair.) The rules were all their idea–I only asked questions and wrote them down.

Success At Last

Finally they felt they had it right and went to try their new rules. The classroom was not instantly peaceful, but when we met again at the end of the day, almost everyone was content. They had all had a turn to play Nintendogs and had had fun doing it.

And I think they’re beginning to understand the importance of rules. Maybe using PBL with social studies can work after all.

Construction Day

Some of the Materials for Construction

“It’s construction day!” buzzed the students to each other as they came into my classroom. This day had been eagerly anticipated as the pile of construction materials in our classroom had grown.

This year I have several new curriculum guides. I have divided the outcomes in my health, science and social studies curricula into topics that will (I hope) allow me to pursue project-based learning in inter-disciplinary units. Two of the outcomes in my new science curriculum stood by themselves and didn’t really fit with any others. They were:

Investigate observable characteristics and uses of natural and constructed objects and materials and
Examine methods of altering and combining materials to create objects

Because Christmas was approaching and I wanted to be sure to finish whatever I started before then, I decided to tackle just those two outcomes in a PBL way.

To start the unit, I showed my students three videos that showed people using things in surprising ways to create something different. I showed them a video of sheep being used to make pictures on a hillside, an artist creating Darth Vader with salt and dominos used to create the Mona Lisa. They “oo”-ed and “ah”-ed and were intrigued by the idea of making unexpected things. They all wondered aloud about creating something and wrote it on a card which was placed on our wonder wall.

"For Breathing Underwater"

The next day, I told them it was their turn to try it. They could use anything they found in our classroom to create something. It was interesting to watch some of the students dive in and begin creating, while others struggled to find an idea. Several tried to make a Mona Lisa. One child used the snap cubes in our classroom to make a transformer that actually transformed from a robot into a flying airbus.

As a class, we made some picture frames out of tongue depressors and puzzle pieces.

And then we began collecting stuff. As the pile grew, so did the anticipation. Finally the day arrived. We talked briefly about the rubric I would be using to evaluate and then they madly dove into constructing.

Some of my Student's Creations

The pile of materials dwindled as the students explored their own ideas. It was passion-based learning as I always wanted it to be in my classroom. The students were all engaged. They were all creating something that interested them.

And I had the evidence that two science outcomes were clearly understood by all of the students.

Primary Preoccupation

A grade one teacher inviting the world into her classroom