What Have I learned about children's literature?

Matt Pelletier

Over the past several weeks while talking about children’s books in class I have learned how crucial children’s books are in the development of kids. In one of the ted talks we watched, they talked about the danger of a single story. A novelist by the name of Chimamanda Adichie, talks about the danger of a single story and how important it is to have more than one perspective on a person or a culture. As someone who grew up in Africa and came to the United States for university she talks about how many of the people she interacted with had already judged her based on the color of her skin and where she grew up. Her college roommate thought she didn’t know how to use simple things like a stove or a microwave. In classrooms it is important to add a wide variety of books that showcase different cultures and have different characters. With doing that will hopefully eliminate the danger of a single story. In several of the articles it also discusses different ways we can incorporate a wider genre of books in our classrooms or libraries. One of the discussions we had in class about the Asian-American author who growing up was afraid and ashamed to truly accept her heritage. At her school she didn’t have any books that she could and she could relate to. We should make it a goal in every classroom to try and have a variety of books that example different cultures and ethnicities so that every student can have a story to relate while avoiding the single perspective.

The importance of the images inside of the books have a big role in developing interest in these picture books. As we looked at different books in class and really observed why the author and illustrator chose some of the images for their respective books. Colors in the book play a big role in developing a certain mood interruption of the book.

From doing research of what books we do and don’t have in our libraries, I’ve realized it is important to always be adding books to a library collection or the collection of books in your classroom. Picture books offer lots of life lessons or in some cases they have some historical facts that are very interesting to learn about. For example, I found a great picture book on President Lincoln. The illustrations were fantastic and had a great overview of President Lincoln’s impact on the United States. Books like that are important for K-3 classrooms to learn about Lincoln, but to do so in a fun way.

From the overall discussions in class I’ve come to the realization of how important it is to find children’s books that add some value to the classroom. Weather the book is a autobiography or a book of fiction, we need to read the books that will leave a positive affect on the kids. The danger of a single story was something that really resonated with me and something I will focus on in selecting books for my future classroom.

For my tech tool share project my group decided to use the tool eSpark. In my placement school, Dirigo Elementary School, they are using eSpark in several of the classrooms. eSpark is a very intriguing app where kids are given quests from eSpark and their goal is to watch several videos and respond to video by answering different questions. eSpark is able to connect the students NWEA scores which is a very cool feature to the app. The app also is able to individualize the quests to the specific student. Many of the worksheets often ask the student how they are feeling about the topic which able to give the teacher good feedback on what aspects she needs to focus on for the class. The app fits the SMAR model and TPACK which is very important with tech tools in todays world of education to further our students learning. In past years many teaches would teach a lesson and then have the students to basic worksheet. eSpark challenges that by putting a video along with the worksheets they are doing. With the aspect of the quest with eSpark it really engages the students and they really seem to enjoy the way of learning. It's able to deepen our teaching practice because we are able to get that immediate feedback and help each student with their learning very quickly. One of the challenges with eSpark is that it is used best with 1 to 1 technology device to student in ratio in the classroom. In todays world it is hard for many schools to get that ratio and eSpark may not be the best for those schools. The app encourages student voice because it is difficult for a student to fall down in between the cracks because the teacher is able to see the work of all of her students have done. One thing that is also key is that based on the NWEA scores the app with personalize quests for the students. It makes it much easier for the teacher to be assured that all of her students are at the learning level they should be at. That being said, that specific feature is able to empower students and make them feel comfortable with their learning. When in the classroom sometimes kids who are behind in certain areas can really struggle and not ask for help and become very quiet which is not always good them as learners. When kids are at the correct levels it really gives them confidence which is crucial to their learning development. When the learning is a student driven process the kids are able to thrive, which is what happens when using the eSpark app. When the kids want to learn the sky is the limit for them, eSpark gives kids that feeling and they are really able to control their own learning when using the app. Overall, eSpark is a great learning tool and needs to be out in more classrooms. I believe strongly that when teachers find out about this app it will spread quickly through classrooms and everyone will be raving about it. Once we can create that positive learning environment students will succeed, and eSpark helps us do that.

The Co-Lab process has opened my eyes into the world of education and how we can always strive to create a better learning environment for the educators and students. The whole goal of the process was to find the gaps in the process of learning and make them more efficient for the teachers and help the students find new and potentially better ways of learning. We focused in on reading in the classroom and ways we can make sure that the students are practicing the material in the correct way and not practicing incorrectly. I truly believe as a class we succeeded in our goal and came up with new ideas that are going to help the teachers in their classroom if they chose to use them. Engaging in the process deepened my understanding of teaching. Being able to observe classes and being tasked to come up with different ways to help the process will be something that I will remember for my future classrooms. I think that the process was challenging at first because it was the first time for me personally being assigned a task like that. My group during the process came up with an awesome idea for using Flipgrid in the classroom. Flipgrid is a awesome tool where teachers can post assignments and kids can see them and respond to with videos. They can also post links to other videos that they would like their students to watch and give feedback on. We were then able to combine our idea with another group who came up with using technology as the second teacher in the classroom. Once we collaborated we were able to combine the two ideas into one that I think the classroom teachers will really love the idea and hopefully put it into action in their classrooms. The process was also great because it got the class to work together which as future educators is something that we going to have to do. At beginning it was hard for me to really be creative in the process, but in class as we learned more I became more comfortable with the task and my creativity improved as with my knowledge of educating students. It was also difficult for me personally because I’m used to working with kids who are older, but in this case we were working with kids in kindergarten and first grade. Although it was difficult at first for me to adjust, I believe it really helped deepen my understanding for educating kids for all ages. It changed how I thought about teaching because I had never really thought about how we can prevent our students from practicing the activities wrong if we aren’t beside them to help correct them. That was one of my biggest takeaways from the whole process, is realizing we aren’t with each kid every second of the day so how can we make sure they are practicing correctly on their own. As a math concentration, I really made the connection to how math was being practiced in schools and if we can find ways to help the students succeed when we can’t be their to help them. One of my bigger questions I have is, I wonder if educators throughout the world are doing processes like the one we did to really further the educations of our students? If so, that is really great because tasks like this really help with creating ideas and collaborating with our peers and colleagues which is crucial in the world education. As the future of education is slowly moving towards technology it’s important for us as future educators to really learn the different ways in which technology will really help our students. I believe the more we can do that it will really push us to become better teachers once we get in the field and it will help us for the rest of our career. The whole process is definitely going to impact for my future teaching because it really taught me to think outside the box and challenge what we do as educators. It also really helped me put the students first and make sure when they are practicing the material they are able to do so correctly and if they aren’t I can quickly help them figure out what they need help in. I believe strongly that this process will be something that I will take with me as long as I am a teacher because it is the foundation of my education career and really diving into helping solve the problems we may have in future classrooms.

Through our Technology class here at UMF last week we had the opportunity to go volunteer at Kingfield Elementary school in Kingfield, Maine. Kingfield Elementary is a K-8 school. Last week we went up and volunteered after school at their technology and coding night in their gymnasium. Our class broke up into several groups that brought different fun learning games that involve technology and coding. I was apart of the Osmo group. Some of the other groups included Scratch and Scratch Jr. ,Wonder Workshop: Dash and Dot, and Ozobot. All of the different activities and apps we brought were very fun, but they all added an education element to them and when they kids were playing they were also learning a lot. For my group, we brought up several different iPads with us and different games to play with the students. Some of the games we brought with us were Coding Jam, Tangrams, and Numbers. Osmo is a very fun accessory that goes with your iPad. It requires you to download several different apps. Osmo itself uses a base for the iPad and a reflective mirror that covers the camera so the iPad is able to detect when the students are moving materials around to complete different tasks with the games. It was really awesome to interact with the kids and help learn how to play new games. Most of the kids we worked with had never used the stuff we brought up and they really enjoyed it. Another cool part was they had a parent with them who was watching the kids play the game and they were really interested by Osmo because they had never seen anything like it. Some of the other teachers working their came up to our station and were asking questions about the game and seemed to be really excited about it which was awesome and that fact that we were the ones helping them learn about different ways to use technology in the classroom was really cool. One of the most interesting things for me that I learned from the experience was how kids learn using technology. During my practicum placement we used laptops, but it was interesting seeing how kids interact with new technology and how they learn using it. I had several kids who first saw the Osmo app and games who were hesitant to try the game, but once I showed them how easy it is for them to play it, they loved it and they couldn't get enough of it. As we have learned in class technology is offering so many different ways for these kids to learn so I thought it was really important to start showing kids different apps they can use so they can start to feel comfortable using technology and teachers can use it as an effective tool in the classroom and not just as an distraction for the kids to play games. It was an interesting experience working in an area that necessarily doesn't have a lot experience with some aspects of technology and I truly believe that volunteering at KES was a great experience and I would definitely do it again if I got the opportunity.