End of the Year ... Kindergarten Graduation

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity: a three-day international festival (grades K-5 integrated), our end of the year bash/pool party, grading and assessment, pulling student work from the walls and ceilings... not to mention finishing up my credentialing requirements.

Today, my co-teacher and I let the kids watch our Photo Slideshow that we created using Apple's iMovie and iDVD. The four minute movie is set to music, and contains pictures from the entire year (with some major chunks absent, when we both got lazy and forgot to photograph). More entertaining than the adorable pictures was watching the children see themselves on screen. "That's Alannah!" "That's Coach!" they yelled excitedly.

Of course, all this was teacher created, but it reminded me again how receptive students are to seeing themselves and their work as part of a bigger picture, paritcularly in terms of technology. They want to see, hear, and make movies, in part because these forms of output come across as very "grownup" or "professional" (thanks to cheap and user friendly technology).

If I can harness some of this enthusiasm for next year's classroom and allow the students to contruct and guide their learning with computers, I see it as only a matter of time before they totally surpass me on the tech front. Who knows? I could have the next Steve Jobs in my room....