Blown Away with Technology!

     Last week brought me two amazing experiences in regards to my classroom and technology. Currently in Social Studies, we are learning about Colorado Settler Groups. My class has been researching for sometime in order to become 'experts' on one of the settler groups. The research road was a bumpy one (as expected with 9 and 10 year olds). Some students nailed it, others missed the boat. The positive though was at the end of the 3 weeks they all did learn something about their group that they were able to communicate that knowledge in one of two ways. The first project I had them complete was very open ended. The only directions I gave were "it has to be on your settler group" and "it must involve technology." The project had to be done on their EEE in whatever medium they chose. Part of me was scared to give them this much freedom. I knew they would either rock it or ask a million questions and be terrified. To my pleasant surprise, they took the challenge and exceeded any and all expectations I had. Some students put together Powerpoint presentations (with images) on their settler group experimenting with backgrounds and creating their own outline of what the slides should include and in what format. Other students went a more daring route and used Lucid Chart to create timelines on their group. They even went so far as to include images, change the backgrounds, and even turned their points into little gold pieces for Miners. Some of my students are very artistic and wanted to create comics. I was supportive of this idea but wondered how they could do it with technology. One student suggested drawing the comic panels by hand, taking images of each panel with our Vado HD Camera, uploading them each onto the background of a slide in Powerpoint, and then including text box talk bubbles on top of the image for the words so it could be read more clearly. WOW! They ended up turning out great! I even had one student who typed a full made-up interview with a Colorado settler in Google Docs. This project proved how tech savvy they are, but more importantly it showed me how much choice can engage students in the right situation. It was that moment as a teacher where the "You Do" part of teaching goes well beyond what I could have taught them. There was so much personality in each project as well that it was fun to see each student in their work.
     Our second project was a Cover-It Live debate on Colorado Settlers on Friday. They had to take all the information they researched and put it together into a discussion. We had modeled Cover It Live the week before with an unrelated topic to get them used to the format. I think Dana and I can safely say it was a discussion for the ages. The students discussed buying brand names vs. buying generic. Dana even had to add her own questions into the discussion because they were headed in such an interesting, puzzling direction. Our Colorado Settler debate was wonderful. Each students really got into the discussion and had something important to say about their group. They made strong arguments and really realized that Colorado wouldn't be the same place if each and every group didn't exist together. I even video recorded some of the Fishbowl discussion so I could reflect on their work (since it wasn't documented in the Cover It Live discussion). It really pushed them to dig deep and look at each group in a different light. They are now requesting that we have more discussions on Cover It Live because they feel like everyone has a chance to shine and be heard (I agree).
     I had such a blast going through this with them. Technology can be a pain and challenge sometimes, but at this point in the year it really does show you that laying the right groundwork can produce amazing results in the end.