Powerful Learning, Powerful Leadership Pt. 1

Powerful Learning, Powerful Leadership

Last week, I spoke with Sarah, the ELA/ELS teacher I am working with at Livingston, HS, about some ideas for how to better involve parents in what her 6 ESL students were doing and to help them. (In some cases, their parents are not in the country. I had just recently remembered reading a passage from "Early Learning and Educational Technology Brief" that struck me as interesting.

When I mentioned that she try something like this with her students because it would give them a chance to bring their home experience into their learning and make it more personal, there was a moment of silence and a strange look came over her face. Then she lit up and said she thought that just might work. 

It was clear Sarah had not imagined such a possibility, and I think when I mentioned it, she had to think about whether that was really possible and whether it would really be good for the students. I sensed that she was thinking about the risks it might involve, and whether or not the students and her had the time and energy to put a project like that together. It would mean more research and training for her in order to teach them how to do it.

I had not actually thought that much about it beyond the example I had come across. So I did a little more research online and came across several things, two of which were very useful.

https://www.learntechlib.org/p/40996/

https://www.techlearning.com/tl-advisor-blog/30-sites-and-apps-for-digital-storytelling

Storytelling is a great way for students to share their voice, to personalize learning, and it can help to involve their family in their learning. The technology itself is not, however, what's good about this approach. It's the storytelling that helps the student further development their language skills and personalize their experience. The technology in this case helps to facilitate and accelerate the process. As Couros (2015) proposes, "learners are drivers; technology is the accelerator" and "technology should personalize, not standardize." This use of technology reflects both of those important ideas.

Sarah didn't have time to look into it further, so when I sent her this information, she was interested. Still, there were many possible apps and that too would have been a lot to go through. As a facilitator, I'm now going to help her find the right app that will work with Chromebooks and will be simple and straightforward so it doesn't take a lot of time for the students to figure it out. She doesn't know if she can get the families outside the country involved, but if she can, it could potentially be a great assignment that the kids would really enjoy. (They, too, already have ideas about how they could use pics they already have of their families and homes). 


                                             Sarah and her team at LHS. They are the Livingston Lions.

I had also come across the idea that the students both in her ELA class and in her ESL classes could use Google Blogger and that the parents could get involved in the process. 

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-for-english-language-learners-rusul-alrubail

This is something that I used recently in my class as a way to get my college students thinking about style. They had to pretend they were a composer from the Renaissance and they were thrust into the future. In a blog post, they had to describe the kind of music they composed.

I thought this might be one way for students to work on their writing/language skills and potentially involve their families in the assignment in some way.

These are ways in which I have tried to provide further learning opportunities for Sarah and her students and to use technology to personalize the learning experience for her students.

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