How Far They've Come!

Where have the past two months gone?

Feels like forever since my last post. In eight weeks the landscape of the nation has been changed dramatically and the landscape of 1D is altered as well. Since we have returned from the Christmas vacation the students of 1D have made big learning leaps. Some differences in student performance are so subtle as to escape notice. Other changes in student are bold and sweeping. Attention must be paid!

There are several tectonic shifts that have taken place in our classroom. Each should be acknowledged, but I've only got so much time today to make a brief stab at one item in particular.

One really big leap is that we are all reading, every last one of us. When we arrived in September, we were all over the map in terms of our literacy skills. In 1D we spent the four months from September through December working on rhyming, word families, short vowels, lots and lots of reading in groups and individually, reading read-alouds, (you've read my thoughts on that subject in an earlier post) writing in journals, generating rhyming words... the list goes on and on. We continue to work on some of these activities; however, the shift in our literacy learning is that as of Friday, March 6th, we work (a lot) less on discrete skill-building and practice activities and concentrate our skills on projects.

Immediately upon returning to school after February vacation 1D went to the Library for our "Introduction to Podcasting" class. Our fabulous librarian, Ms. G-T, played digitally recorded voices of first graders from two years ago reading their personal book reviews.

Ms. G-T told the 1D students that in our Podcasts each student would choose a book, read it, and then write their own book review and record their voices on the computer; they would get to hear their voices, and their grandparents who live in California and Illinois would be able to go to the computer to hear them reading their book reviews! As 1D sat on the story-stage and listened to those other students telling about their chosen books, every child in 1D's face lit up, enthralled by the notion that he or she, too, could possibly be heard .... all over the world! Everybody jumped up and down with wild delight! They would get to pick their own music to play on their podcast! WOW!

1st Grade Podcasting began two years ago as a joint project between our Technology Integration Specialist at that time, Ms. Davis, Ms. G-T, our Librarian and me. As we begin the project we spend a lot of time in the Library, getting acquainted with the project, picking a "just-right" book from a group of pre-selected books. Ms. G-T and I made a decision to pre-select the books from which the students would pick for several reasons. The biggest reason to pre-select is that we want the students to be able to read and re-read the books within a relatively short amount of time; we do not want to take the chance that the book is too difficult or the vocabulary too unwieldy. We want all of the potential book choices to be completely accessible to the 1st graders.

The second and third sessions in the Library are spent looking over books, checking our options, making selections and book borrowing. We want the students to be excited about their book choices, since they will be wedded to the book for several weeks, or at least until they have recorded their review on the computer.

Days Four through Ten of Podcast Preparation are spent working on reading books and writing reviews. Many students write their reviews in one class session; others require two or three sessions to write and refine what they have written. We read our book reviews to each other. Sometimes once a student hears another student's review, he wants to go back and make changes to his writing. We practice reading our reviews during Morning Meeting, so that everyone can hear and benefit from the feedback I give the student readers.

When we read in groups we generally read silently, so we don't pay too much attention to speed. I remind the students to use their "Radio Announcer" voice; I model reading with exaggerated speed and a flat monotone voice, then ask the students for feedback. "Did anybody hear what I said?" "Could you understand me?" "What was wrong with the way I read that review?" Students quickly "get" the fact that they need to think about pacing as well as using pitch and intonation to make their reviews more interesting to listen to. They love being able to use dramatic, expressive and "big" announcer voices; it brings out the actors and actresses in them, and they love it.

We've begun to record our podcasts in the computer room with our Technology Integration Specialist, Ms. Murphy. I've reserved 30-45 minutes a day for two-three weeks in the computer lab for us to record; we may require more time, since only two students can complete recording in that amount of time. Ms. Murphy practices with the students before they record using the program "GarageBand" which allows her to record voices and the students' music choices.

The addition of music adds a kind of "public-radio" feel to the podcasts. GarageBand has pre-recorded thematic music clips available and the first graders really love listening to the clips and making choices. Yesterday Emily and Nathan recorded their book reviews and listened to their recorded reviews before choosing their music. Emily's review is about Commander Toad and the Intergalactic Spy by Jane Yolen. Because of its sci-fi subject, Ms. Murphy proposed that Emily listen to GarageBand's "Techno" and "Sci-Fi" clips, some of which were very New Age (read: atonal), most without any discernible melody. Emily listened carefully to some very challenging music, and finally decided upon a mysterious and ghostly techno-generated melody. Nathan was thrilled by his jazzy, bluesy choice.

I'm thrilled with the Podcasting project, for so many reasons. The students love it, parents love it, I love it because it represents the culmination of the students' many months of hard work. Podcasting requires a lot of planning and thinking together with my excellent, thoughtful colleagues. It represents an attempt to use technology to engage my first graders and I have to trumpet the fact that it works, it really works!

I'll exit here with a scene from the computer lab yesterday as Nathan finished recording his podcast. Nathan had listened to all of the sci-fi music with Emily after he'd made his pick. I could tell he was wavering in his musical choice; there were so many possibilities to choose from. We listened to his podcast music once more, and he finally agreed it was perfect for his review. As he left the computer lab, he reflected, to no one in particular, "Next year, if I read a sci-fi book, I'll pick one of those cool computer songs. This was the best school day of my life!"