iPads supporting Student Agency in the Early Years

In Autumn term, the 5 Day Kindergarten children were working on their How The World Works unit of inquiry and explored the central idea of, "What Lies Beneath?" The children were horrified to discover that sea turtles are classified both as endangered, and at risk of extinction. As part of their unit exploration, Kindergarten teacher, Olivia Harnwell carefully guided the children's learning as a co-researcher and co-collaborator whilst they uncovered endangered sea turtle facts that they wanted to share with their parents and the wider community.

Previously, Olivia had added animations and voiceovers to PowerPoint presentations as a way for her students to make their learning visible with their parents.  This process of putting together the PowerPoint was collated by Olivia at home. This year, Olivia was keen to animate the sea turtles and add a voice recording of each child's understanding.  Olivia was eager to enhance student agency – where the children take control of the whole process, from start to finish.  The ELC iPads had all the tools needed to make the turtle animations come to life for the children.

Olivia was able to facilitate the children to manage the entire process themselves by observing each child and judging when to supply the technical information required. Using Keynote on their iPads, the Kindergarten children took photographs of their still life turtle portraits and wax resist coral reef backgrounds before adding an animated path for their turtles to travel.  Over the turtle animation, the children recorded their voiceover by sharing the key facts that they had learnt about sea turtles.

This unit of inquiry empowered the children and supported student agency by giving each child the opportunity to lead their own learning and take ownership on how they could showcase their learning.  The ELC iPads were the perfect tool to capture this understanding.  This link shares three examples demonstrating the rich learning and shows how much kindergarten students can achieve!

Mrs Amanda Ritchie

ILT Integration Specialist