The last day of the BLC conference was great. Two sessions really stood out for me.
1. Engaging Our Youngest Minds: Integrating the Internet in Primary Classrooms
There is no way I can capture the amazing anecdotes and philosophy that were shared in this session with Angela Maiers. Stories/examples of how young children can be deep, critical thinkers was the highlight. Just amazing!
A simple basal reader story about bridges (tall bridges, small bridges, etc.) is turned into a conversation about how can humans act as bridges. First the answers are literal, then they become more figurative. The class decides on a picture of a bridge and then is asked to come up with one word that can symbolize bridges in the way they just discussed. The kids tagged the photo, "Power." They realized that people helping people was like a bridge and it is one person giving power to another. If memory serves me right, these were kindergarten age students. AMAZING!
As you can see, it is difficult to capture what we heard in this session. I HIGHLY recommend bookmarking Angela's website. www.angelamaiers.com
2. Narrative Inquiry
This was a very useful session for two reasons. I learned how to do some things with my camera that I didn't know about and I learned how to help students use photography to tell stories. Presenters site: julialeong@me.com
a. My camera: I have always used "Auto" on my camera including autoflash. The first instructions when I walked in this session were to change the camera from "Auto" to "Program." Then, turn off the flash and turn on the "flower" to take close ups.
b. I learned that narrative inquiry is not about getting a kodak moment like some of the pretty pictures I took on my road trip. Those are great, but they don't tell a story. Narrative inquiry in the classroom might be sending kids out with their cameras to take a close up of something that reminds them of them, or a character in the book they are reading. Then they can tell the class about it and/or write about it. Another cool idea is to have three different views of the same object and discuss it. Lastly, a really great inquiry was showing a small part of a picture, then a little bit more, then the entire picture. Students can guess along the way as to what is happening. The most powerful example of this was when the presenter, Julia Leong, showed us a picture of a boy and asked us what was happening. Then she showed us the boy and a man holding him back from something. Then the entire picture is revealed and there is a coffin covered with a flag. We shared all these fun scenarios about what was going on until the entire picture was revealed to be very sad.
The session finished up with us going around the fourth floor for ten minutes trying to take pictures of the same thing from different perspectives. I also focused on something that reflected who I am, or my interests. The picture above is one that I took during this ten minutes. I think it is very cool looking and it reflects who I am. I love water and love the patterns that condensation causes. If it were zoomed in even more, you might not be able to tell what the object is. That would be cool too! I like narrative inquiry.
Great conference!
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