Term 1 has seen me set up with a new year level group of children. I have moved from a Junior Year 1 class to a Middle Year 3 & 4 class. Also we have set up a temporary classroom in the hall due to building renovations.
I am working on my plan to implement ePortfoilo's to improve writing engagement and home/school relationships and have started by having the students write holiday recounts and publish them to Class Dojo.
As students completed their writing they used Book Creator, typed their stories, voice recorded themselves reading it and illustrating to create a video that was uploaded to Class Dojo.
Immediately there have been children who have taken to the process quickly and have acted as tuakana teina to assist other students to upload their work. This is still a work in progress for some however to ensure they teach the task, not take it over.
There was complete buy-in from the students who were eager to get to the ipads to create their ebook and share it with family. I have been able to keep up to date with commenting on each published piece of work with regards to learning goals and specific feedback.
I gave the students a questionnaire to fill in regarding their attitude towards writing. As expected, those who were fluent writers stated that they enjoyed it, and those who struggled reported that they did not. All children were eager to continue to try new ways to publish their work and share it online.
Meet the Teacher night has been moved to week three, so initial consultation with the parents has not begun, in hindsight I should have had a newsletter ready to go on Day 1 to inform parents of my project. That being said, as children are publishing work I am noticing that parents are 'liking' the posts, with some commenting. I also saw that one parent commented how they enjoyed hearing all about the classwork at home, so evidence that learning discussions are taking place is great as this was one of my aims.
At this stage there are still three parents who have not connected to Class Dojo, despite invitations being sent via their email addresses. I have approached these people however they seem disinterested in signing up, nor do they make regular visits to the classroom. I had expected that the parents would unanimously be on board with entering into a positive home/school relationship, as the parents in my Year One class had been. This is something that will need to be considered as it could negatively affect these particular students as their parents appear to not be interested in their child's schoolwork. When I consider parent engagement, it leads me to wonder what the uptake might be in a school with a lower socio-economic demographic and how I would again need to alter my project to accommodate those who choose to not engage through digital means.
The approach I am taking with this project is pedagogical leadership. O'Sullivan (2009, p.76.) stated that pedagogical leaders use home/school relationships and their knowledge of the learning and developmental process to achieve desired outcomes. My aim is to raise achievement through increased engagement by dangling the carrot of digital publishing. With this comes increased communication between child and parent, and parent and school with regards to the learning journey of the children. Working together in partnership will improve the chances of these students becoming confident and successful writers.
O'Sullivan, J. (2009). Leaderships Skills in the Early Years: Making a Difference. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
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