This year I am lucky enough to have support from Mark Maddren as part of the Manaiakalani Outreach programme. Today was our first session working with the children and the main focus was to introduce the children to the Kawa of Care.
The task for the session was to read critically the expectations for looking after their Chromebooks and how to use them correctly as a tool for their learning. The children needed to go through and highlight the different points using a three coloured code for order of importance. It was a great opportunity for the children to begin expressing their critical thinking and giving reasoning for their
decisions. After re-colour coding the children were required to select what they believe to be the three most important aspects of the Kawa of Care and create a DLO (Digital Learning Object) to explain their understanding of the expectation.
Mark and I spoke briefly about giving times limits on creation tasks and encouraging children to use Google Drawing and creating their own image as opposed to simply finding an image on line. These fits in nicely with two points I have been thinking about recently when dreaming up create activities for my reading lessons. In order for the task to be worthwhile I want it to be something the children will actually complete in a timely fashion, as well as, being meaningful and fit in with some of the higher levels of the SAMR model. A task that is not given to the children for the sake of creating but enhances and/or affirms their learning. I believe it is also making sure that the tasks doesn't take more time than the learning is worth or at the expense of other learning.
An example last week was trying to come up for a meaningful create activity about an article a group of children will read about motocross. For a similar activity in the past I got the children to design their own track but I wasn't entirely happy with the meaningfulness of this task. Simon (my work husband) suggested that the children make a track using dough and then make a video explaining why they have included different aspects of the track. By filming and explaining their creation the task itself is more meaningful and enters the transformation zone of the SAMR model. Plus at a guess the children will find this highly engaging!
Mark Maddren taught me a new wee saying today that was quite appealing to children was using Des and Troy when walking around with their chromebook. Des and Troy refer to your arm and more importantly how they should be used to support a chromebook while being carried. As part of the Kara of Care the children are expected to carry their chromebook with a closed lid and to use the crock of their elbow to support a corner of their device while crossing their other arm across the rest of the chromebook. Definitely my new favourite saying for the next few weeks to get our children back into this habit.
