This week we were given the opportunity to do an in-situ at Gordon Terrace Elementary!
The plan for the afternoon was for us to take a look at the makerspace, which is a space in the school that allows for exploring, creating, learning, and sharing using all kinds of things. The one at Gordon Terrace even had a green screen! We also got to hear from the principal, who provided us with some good insight into the need for technology in schools and how technological knowledge will help us in getting jobs in the future.
After exploring the makerspace, we got to enter a grade 1/2 classroom and work through Epic! Books with the students. Each of us chose a couple of students to work with and got them a laptop to share. I understood why sharing was necessary because of the limited numbers, but giving the students their own, I feel like would give them more opportunities to learn.
When it came to logging in, I accidentally just logged in for my students and later realized that it was important for them to learn how to do that, so I made sure to give them a lot of power with the rest of the tasks. Once we got on to the Epic! website, I explained to them what it was and allowed them to check it out and choose books. The students I was with seemed to really enjoy the animal-type books, so those were what we read. I had them take turns clicking the mouse to turn the pages. They loved that part!
We also explored the read-to-me books with headphones. It was interesting to see that they already knew how to plug them into the laptop. I was honestly surprised at how well my students did with sharing the laptop and taking turns with the headphones. To me, sharing and turn-taking are two very important life skills.
I really enjoyed this in situ. I felt like having the opportunity to work with only a couple of students was a really good starting point. Next time, I will be sure to not try and rush and log in for the students, but rather instruct them on how to do so.
Here is a photo of my students listening to a book about monkeys!
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