On Thursday my class and I made our first Video Conference Call to meet our ePals from Riverdale School. The previous week I had been forwarded an email from another teacher who was wanting to set up ePals (email Pen Pals) for her class. She has the same age children as me (Grade 3 and 4) “Why not?”. So drafts were written, questions composed, spelling checked and little fingers began to type. Then of course 80% of the class finished the typing on time while big teacher fingers had to take over because 20% of little fingers kept losing their work, deleting their work, or ignoring their work while they got in a bit of Kid Pix/Garageband/Poptropica while I wasn’t looking. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Anyway we got there in the end and the kids were thrilled to receive their replies. I then announced that we would be meeting our ePals on Thursday through a Video Conference call, confusion – “What’s that?”, “Are we going on a bus?”, “Will their Mums bring them?” hmmmm. I explained as best I could, “Well, it’s like talking to someone on a big TV”, “Oh, you mean like Skype?”, “Yes”, “Is that all? Why didn’t you just say so?”, “Mmmmmm …” We began our preparations by brainstorming for good questions to ask the other class, this of course was when it became my turn to be confused. The students had such a difficult time coming up with good open ended questions, in fact after further probing I realised that very few of them were able to formulate good questions that would maintain a focussed discussion. This realisation was further backed up by our VC call with the other class. Questions were asked and answers were given but there was no attempt to elaborate or probe for more information. If it wasn’t for the two teachers present who carried the conversation, it would of been a very brief VC Call indeed.
So many questions have sprouted from my grey matter since this experience. “Is it their age?”, “Was it first time jitters?”, then “Is it me?”, “Am I dominating conversations?”, “Should I keep quiet during discussion?” maybe not, because now that I think about it, most of our classroom discussions are heavily reliant on me prompting, questioning, scaffolding and drawing out their thoughts and ideas. This of course goes against my belief that I should be striving to put myself out of a job. I don’t want the kids to be reliant on me, I want them running their own focussed discussions.
What I do know is that the national trend for oral language proficiency is at a steady decline. In our school there has been a significant increase in referrals to the speech and language specialists. Our PAT testing at the beginning of the year has shown a significant gap in students vocabulary. Through my own casual observations, I have noticed that many of my students would not understand the books my parents read to me, they would not understand the vocabulary; goodbye Oliver Twist and Little House on the Prairie. Most irritating of all is when I hear fellow teachers saying statements like “You did good!”. Double Grrrrrrrr.
What to do?
Here’s my plan: Increase my formal oral language programme, explicitly teach questioning through the use of De Bono’s Thinking Hats, and, here’s the cool bit, use the VC equipment whenever possible. I see the Video Conferencing as an excellent tool for providing oral language opportunities. There is a significant difference between conversing with our peers and conversing with a stranger on the other side of the world. My kids understand this and if I can activate my students learning by allowing them to practise these skills through VC with real strangers, then hopefully I will be on my way to putting myself out of a job.
This sounds like a good focus for your teacher inquiry – children writing deeper, higher order questions. As you said, children will have to be deliberately taught how to write open and closed questions and it is typically at the Y3/Y4 age that this skill becomes paramount to be taught. We must remember that we cannot ignore Deliberate Acts of Teaching – children need to be taught specific skills. I look forward to seeing this progress.
Hey Marz, I agree with Regan as your topic is a great one to choose, especially with your expertise in that area and your willingness to give stuff like that a go and learning by trialling and errorring (Ha) I too look forward to seeing your progress along using Video Conferencing in the classroom and maybe I could take a leaf out of your book along the way. Ka Mau Ke Te Wehi my friend, you are a real talent and an inspiration to others in teaching in the 21st century!