Here's our presentation and thanks to Joanne Sweeney-Burke we have a video of our session too:
Although I have technology available
at my school, I do not have access to learn the way I do with my mom at home. I think digital access is really important
because when I was in the first grade, I was assigned a rainforest
animal project. The packet had a list of rainforest
animals to pick from and the instructions included a fill-in-the-blank page about the animal and
directions on how to draw the animal's habitat.
When I got home from school
that day, I said, “I don’t want to research an animal on this list.” Instead,
I asked, “Can I blog about it and can you tweet it out?” My blog post asked
readers to send facts about rainforest animals that they would want to research. I received a lot of comments and suggestions
and I must have researched over 20 different animals. It was
so exciting to learn about so many rainforest animals that I never knew existed
before my blog post. I learned about the
cloudrunner, also known as the cloud rat and the Okapi, Hyacinth Macaw, Jambu Fruit Dove, Aye-Aye and many more animals through comments on my blog and tweets back to my mom.
After researching all of the animals, I put them into
categories like my top 10, top 5, top 2, and then I knew the animal I wanted to
research for the project. When my mom
tweeted out my blog post, @digiforest from Manu, Peru responded and they
suggested I research the binturong. I
would never have known about the binturong without digital access at home.
The
binturong lives in Southeast Asia and is also called a bearcat. His tail is
like an extra hand which is called a prehensile tail. The binturong smells likes
buttered popcorn and spends most of their time in trees. They help play an important role in the rainforest by spreading the fig seeds they eat when they poop.
I wish the other students in my class could have blogged as part of this project, but we don’t
have access at school. I am now in the third grade and I still only get to learn with the world when I’m home. I want to make sure that students everywhere
have access both at school and home.
Just recently, I asked for a Twitter handle. My mom said I was too young since the age requirement is 13, so I asked if we could start a mother/son account. Our account is @CurranCentral and my mom wrote this post for FOSI, Like Mother Like Son: Modeling Digital Citizenship which highlights how we are learning about being safe, ethical and savvy together. This is how all students should learn and we need more adults in our lives to learn with us.
I've watched my mom moderate the #digcit chat lots of times and when William Jenkins started the #DigCitSummitUK thunderclap, I was a part of it. Since then, I’ve guest moderated two
chats on Twitter (#digcit and #NYEDChat) and I think it is a great way to bring student voice into the
conversation. If you want me to moderate any future chats, let me know.
The best part of #DigCitSummitUK was meeting so many people and live tweeting the different sessions. One of my favorite parts was seeing Timmy Sullivan represent Rosetta Stone. I take Spanish at school and hope to be able to present at #DigCitSummitSpain with Timmy and Maria Zabala. I like learning with the world and I want all students to have the same experiences I have at both school and home. As we said at our presentation:
— Derek Larson (@lars3eb) January 23, 2016
Curran, I was very impressed with your talk. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to speak to a large group. Your talk was informative and encouraging. Keep learning about our world and one day your impact will be great.
ReplyDeleteYour cousin, Ryan Dee