Blog Post #7 How Do We All Become Learners?

In the video, Using iMovie and the Alabama Virtual Library in Kindergarten, Dr. Strange, Elizabeth Davis from Daphne Elementary School, and Michele Bennett from Gulf Shores Elementary School talk about the usefulness and rewards of teaching elementary students how to use iMovie and AVL. These are both very beneficial tools now in today's world, especially AVL. It's basically knowledge at their fingertips, whether they are at school or at home. It's very exciting technology and the kindergartners responded very enthusiastically to learning how to make book trailers on iMovie.

In We All Become Learners, Dr. Strange, Elizabeth Davis, and Michele Bennett discuss how that not only does everyone become a teacher in education, they become a learner. Educators have to be open to learning things from their students as well as teaching them. It's not a one-way street. For example, Mrs. Bennett wanted to show a kindergarten student how to use Padlet and they ended up showing her how to use the camera on her Macbook. It's very fascinating how far ahead children are in the learning race.

The first of the four videos that I picked was Career Day. In this video, the students were asked what do they want to be when they grow up? There were a couple police officers, a vet, doctor, and even a ballerina! All of them wore great costumes and came dressed up to school for career day. They gave very sweet answers because most of them were, "I want to help people when I grow up." Very good video!

Tammy Shirley sharing 1st Grade Students becoming Leaders of their Own Learning is the second video I picked. Ms. Shirley was preparing her 1st grade class for a new project and her students began starting their own research for it without being asked. They became leaders of their own learning when they took the initiative to be become better learners.

In the third video, Mrs. Shirley & Ms. Lauber's Students Collaborate, two students use an iPad to create a presentation about plants, pollen, and the many benefits from plants in our everyday life. This was a great way to incorporate technology so that these students could learn more about botany and eventually environmentalism.

I chose Sawyer's Story because it's a very sweet video that a student named Sawyer created on his own, using iMovie and the video clips he was given, so he could create a short video about how excited he was to be going to the 3rd grade. I was very impressed with his iMovie skills at such a young age!

After watching these videos, I realized that there is so much more to learn even when you become an educator. There are constantly changes and also unexpected (good) surprises like Mrs. Shirley's students becoming leaders of their own learning. I believe there is only so much we, as students in college, can prepare for our real world career as teachers. Experience is the best teacher. In the future, when I want to use project-based learning, I'll have to be prepared to use more technology into the classroom and all of the pro's and con's it brings with it. Many school districts have postponed the idea of iPads or Macbooks for students, because they believe the community isn't ready for that jump in responsibility. It's very expensive and the schools have to know if the equipment will be used productively and held up to their value. But I believe that project-based learning goes so well hand-in-hand with classroom technology, that I would take advantage of the opportunity to do both.