Superheroes and ICT

A couple of weeks ago, the superhero play at kindy has moved to an interesting direction. The children have gone beyond capes and masks. It's no longer about dressing up and running around. As the kindy has a culture of using the medium of art as the tool of exploration, we put out pens and paint, and also pictures and magazines of superheroes for children to represent their understanding of the superheroes.

When we looked up pictures of superheroes on the internet, the teachers noted that a few children have a lot of knowledge and interest in the ninjas of Lego's Ninjago. While the teachers are not familiar with this set of Lego toys or characters, so alongside with the children, the teachers have been actively researching on Ninjago on the computer. Through research, the teachers are able to draw the children's attention to the positive attributes of the Lego ninja. Instead of talking about fighting and battle, they discussed about what each character likes to do, what their weapons are and their means of transportation. The children filled each other up with the story plot, and their narrative is sophisticated and full of details. Thanks to Lego!

While we think we know something about the classic superheroes like Batman and Spiderman, we won't do any research about them when planning the learning experiences. Whereas we know nothing about the Lego ninja, so we are keen to read more about them from the internet. In the end, the children's learning is enriched with greater understanding of the lego ninjas. Their drawing is more complex; and the ninja heroes are depicted in action, and sometimes with their plane or motorbike at the background...

We love to see children moved beyond dressing up and chasing each other, and we let them play games on the computer as well. The more experienced children help the less experienced ones use the touch pad to scroll the screen; click and select and so on. A lot of peer tutoring is happening.

How amazing is ICT in supporting teaching and learning! I've been thinking if we did research about Spiderman and Batman, would the children's play be more complex? Recalling a child who used to dress up as a Spiderman and jump, crouch and climb around kindy, if I had used internet to research about Spiderman with the children, they might focus their attention on the languages of body movements and drama, which is a valuable means of communication in the early years.

However, for a much younger age group - infants, what does technological literacy mean? Check out what Anita of Victoria University, New Zealand has found out.

Blogging with Children 2

There are many reasons to get children involved in blogging. In the last post, I talked about it as a strategy to get families interested about the blog. All parents love to look at the photos and hear the voice of their child. When I bog with the children, I let them choose the photos and record what they say in their own words. Families will feel more connected to the teaching and learning happened at the kindergarten.

Equally important, children are contributing to their own assessment through blogging. I view children as competent learner, and they have opinions and views of their own. When they revisit their earlier work and related photos, they are able to make their own judgement about their achievements; and they are trusted with the decision of choosing what is recorded on the blog. It's also a way to gather data about children's learning from their perspective, which effectively helps the teachers develop relevant programme for individual children.

Moreover, blogging with young children empower them to be a competent and confident communicator. There are really a hundred languages to communicate; and in the digital age, which definitely include the web tools. To grow up as a responsible digital citizen, children need to have the opportunity to use the computer and internet responsibly at a young age.  Computer is not just for gaming and watching You Tube.

Just like today, I talked about the kindergarten gala and looked at the photos I have taken. With the photos, a child recreated what she was most excited about through the language of art/drawing. Her perspective of the BIG fire truck is vividly expressed through the dominating color of red, big ladder and many wheels it has. When she was choosing the photos of her drawing for posting on the blog, she noticed the missing siren, and then she added that bit on her drawing. So, the child was shifting her perspective from the artist of the drawing to the perspective of a viewer, and she made modification and improvement on her own. So, blogging is a tool for self-review or assessment for young children.

 Interested now? You may want to read more about early childhood and blogging in New Zealand.

Blogging with young children

My interest in blogging started when I set up a blog for my kindergarten earlier this year. From an ICT symposium facilitated by the Core Education,  I learnt that using ICT in the early childhood programme is the way to recognize and acknowledge the ICT experiences children are having at home. With an aim to 'make learning visible to our families ', the kindergarten decided to have its own blog. We are aware that some other kindergartens have great sucess in communicating learning with parents and their extended families overseas through blogging,  and similarly my kindergarten community reflects a diversity of cultures, probably the blog will become an effective forum for the teachers to share the learning happening at kindy; and equally important, families will be able to give us feedback, share their views, add a different perspectives, and enrich the teaching and learning experiences.

The path to launch the blog has not been smooth. We organized a parents' evening to explain the reasons to have a blog and how to read and make comments. Despite the turnout rate was low, the parents who participated gave use huge support, so we determined to go ahead. As parents are a bit concerned about opening up the blog, we agreed to have a closed blog, and the kindergarten will invite only families to our blog. As we have chosen to use Blogger, which requires a Gmail account to read the blog; the response from the parents has been disappointing. Even though it's free to open a Gmail account, few parents took the time to do it. We've launched our blog for over 10 months, and only 15% of our families are reading and commenting on our blog. Are the families really so busy that they don't bother to acquire a Gmail? So, recently, we relaunch the blog and switch to WordPress. See how it will go!

Another strategy I suggested is to put the child's voice on the blog. I will regularly compose a post with the children and then send a personal invitation to their parent to go to the blog. Hopefully, the parents will develop a habit of reading the blog. I'll talk about the value of blogging with children next time.

Programme Planning in partnership with Parents

In New Zealand, the Early Childhood Curriculum Document highlights the strong partnership with families. My kindergarten has always had a strong commitment to work closely with the parents. We regularly communicate about individual children's learning through learning stories and group's learning through wall display and blogging. 

When parents are aware of the current interests or learning experiences at kindy, they are able to give us feedback and ideas to further enhance learning happening at kindy. We believe in teachers and parents working together to extend the learning opportunities for children. When home and centre are in sync, the teachers are able to develop better plans to build complexity into children's learning experience.

All along the team knows we have been doing okay with planning for the dominant group. But we're not so sure about small groups. It seems all our energy are invested in planning and documentation for the dominant group, whereas the interests of the small groups are insufficiently supported. Just like currently a large number of children are making weapons and the play theme is about the superhero; and the learning experiences and outcomes are acknowledged, documented and communicated with parents. But superhero play does not appeal to everyone, and a few children are simply not interested in it. For example, while most children make weapons with ice pop sticks, a couple of children spent long periods of time to create 3D objects in intricate designs.

From Ann Pelo's workshop, we learn that Ann has supported and documented the interest of a group of five girls in learning cartwheel over a year. It was amazing and inspiring. The team thinks we should challenge ourself to devote time and efforts to extend the interests of small groups. Most important of all, we want to have parents'  input, so we decided to start a folder to document the experiences and interests of small groups. The folder will be updated weekly and displayed near the entrance where parents could have a quick look when dropping off or picking up their child. 

On the cover of the folder, we write: this folder encompasses how we at kindy are learning together. It's a collection of events, moments and thinking that is shaping our current quests with our learning community.