Primary Digital Creating and Reflecting

Last week after listening to a webinar presented by Franki on Tech Savvy Teaching, I set a goal to use some of the tools she shared in a new way.  As she spoke about digital reading and how digital reading can be a place for kids to deepen their learning, I thought about creating some places that my students could learn more about owls after our  local Metro Park Naturalist shared a ton of cool information and games with our first graders.  

So I set up a symbaloo on our class website with links to owl learning sites I thought would engage them. Here is what I came up with:

I found a page about how to draw an owl (knowing they would enjoy creating digitally on pixie), I found a site featuring virtual owl pellets that the kids could take apart and them puzzle back together the bones of what was inside.  I also found a video at National Geographic Kids the students could listen and learn from and an owl cam we have been checking of some live owl boxes in Colorado. I decided to just let the kids go for 2 days exploring and later ask them to create digitally about what they learned.  Most kids chose to create in pixie and I taught them how to upload these into the blog so we could see everyones creations.

  

I think the most powerful part of their reading, creating and sharing was the reflection of what they can do as digital creators. As we finished up on the second day (we often go upstairs to our computer lab...though I am really wanting to have more tech in my room for more just everyday creating alongside of traditional work we are doing). They came back thinking about their learning as digital creators and we compiled this list.

I only had about half the class ready to respond with what they were learning but the range of their abilities were fascinating.  Ruby feels stronger using the little camera that comes up when taking a screen shot. Thanish has a better understanding for how to put a picture in kidblog and Jude realized that he can see whatever he publishes on kidblog anytime. The kids have been blogging since November but need time to practice, digest and understand the capability they have as digital creators.