Listen, Empower, Go Deep...

It was the second day of school in the Kindergarten classroom. Students were engaging in independent explorations and community building as teachers documented the student work. Five year old Luke was engrossed in the Lego building area where he had quickly and accurately put together an interesting construction. He held it up for the camera 'This is the Titanic, & this is the iceberg' he narrated. Teacher Aja, impressed with the ship and the articulate young boy's description of the voyage and disaster, spoke with him further about the shipwreck and made note of his fascination and adept construction.
The next day, Luke again created a version of the Titanic and this time in discussion with Ms. Aja asked if she could draw a picture of the ship for him. She instead encouraged him to draw his own picture. Luke's emerging small motor skills did not yet enable him to utilize a pincer grip to draw with the degree of control that he wanted, and he was not interested in a freehand drawing, so Ms. Aja encouraged him to trace his Lego creation as a means of drawing the ship. Once he had completed his tracing Luke described the elements of the drawing to his teacher so she could write out his comments

Over the next week, Ms. Aja and job-sharing colleague Ms. Katie made a series of important observations regarding Luke. First they observed that while Luke was very skilled constructing with Legos, his small motor control of pencils, pens, and crayons was extremely limited. This inhibited his ability and interest in writing and drawing. Second, Luke spent almost all of his free choice time in solitary or parallel constructive play. He was engrossed in personal constructions and did not appear to be as interested in social interactions. Third, he constructed some version of the Titanic out of Legos at almost every free play opportunity. Because of their practiced skill of comprehensive classroom documentation, the teachers recorded images of most of these constructions even before they had begun to notice a pattern. About a week into the school year the teachers approached me (Dr. Bailey, CLDC director) with their observations. Recalling the interactions on that second day of school, Ms. Aja shared her photos as well as her observations that Luke seemed to be focusing his free play time on the Titanic and producing memorable recreations of the ship in one form or another.

These creations were frequently using Legos that were accessible almost daily in the classroom. However Luke was also highly skilled in using a wide range of media to represent his ideas. Above you can see his work with Legos, play dough, magnetic blocks as well as clay. To the right is an impressive version of the Titanic at the dock with the passengers getting ready to board on that fateful day. As we observed Luke using these materials, it was obvious that something about this event was resonating with him and was being manifest in continually revisiting this ship. One approach might have been for the teachers to tell him that it was time to move on and create something that was not the Titanic; that it was time for him to get busy with his reading & writing, with exploring his world, and playing with others. However, the approach we took was quite different, viewing this instead as an opportunity for thematic integration. As a means of assisting Luke, we searched for some materials that could empower his learning. We located a book on the Titanic that included a CD ROM. This CD when used in the class iMac provided Luke with the opportunity to participate in a 3D virtual tour of the Titanic. This simple but powerful technology provided an important change in perspective. It moved him from being a third-person passive observer of the ship and events, to being on the bridge of the Titanic. It gave him access to her lifeboats, to her boiler rooms and swimming pool, and to the steerage and the cabins and everyplace else. This CD allowed him to experience the Titanic on a different cognitive and affective level: he was on the ship.

In order to be able to navigate to explore the various decks and rooms, Luke needed to be able to use the computer mouse. This was initially a challenge as his fine motor skills were still relatively emergent. However he was highly motivated to utilize this tool and his dexterity rapidly improved. Adding to his desire to investigate the subtleties of the ship was the excitement that was being exhibited by his peers. Luke was now the guide on an historical expedition into the virtual past and his friends and teachers came in clusters to experience this adventure with him. For the first few weeks there was a perpetual cluster around the monitor as his peers were watching for and pointing to interesting features. They listened as their insightful guide not only steered them through the ship, but would recount details with an affection and insight born out of his research. Sometimes they would take the mouse, and he would make comments and describe the rooms they were visiting. This opportunity to be interactive with his friends provided ongoing experiences that supported the development of his social skills. Everyone in the class came to have a better understanding not only of the Titanic, but of their friend as well.

Luke's experience with this multimedia tool also began to change the relationship that he had with the ship that he was coming to know and love. Rather than being on the outside as a third-person passive observer to the voyage. Luke engaged in a series of activities that transcended and personalized his previous play. One day he was building a series of complex gears and I thought, 'Ah, his play is beginning to extend beyond the Titanic'. As I asked him to describe what he was constructing he replied "Gears that will pump water out of the hull". Not long after this, I observed an object he was making out of paper. "Tell me about your construction" I inquired. "This is a mop to swab the water on the deck" he replied. Notice the more active role he was now taking in working to interact with the ship rather than simply recreate it. This was also the case in his dramatic play. Ms. Katie was able to capture one of these memorable role-playing scenarios in the form of a video. Luke was outside playing with the Blue Blocks and had created a replica of the Titanic for which he was captain, first mate, and also served as a passenger. Watch as he attempts to steer clear of the iceberg... Through his reading of the book we had provided, interaction with the CD, creation of tools for the ship, and dramatic play inside and out, Luke was coming to have not only an intimate knowledge for this ship and its sister ship, but for the design and functioning of ships in general. This insight was further supported by an unusual book I found that was an oversized collection of primary source materials: newspaper articles of the day. The cross-sections and descriptions of hull plates and questions about an ongoing fire in the coal bunker fueled his imagination as well as understanding of the operation of this ship.

As we sought to extend and support his learning in various ways. We encouraged him to write stories about the ship and its voyage from multiple perspectives, however he was not yet interested. He did seek to make more detailed drawings of the ship and his small motor skills had become refined enough to accomplish this task using a range of media. Below you can see a drawing that was done 3 months into the

school year and you can note the progress that Luke has made in his fine motor control, particularly when compared to the drawing he completed on the 2nd day of school. Even his labeling on this ship demonstrates his increasing literacy skills. At this point he was able to utilize the iPad and an app called Sago Mini Doodlecast to construct a number of narrated drawing of the ship. In the narration below you can hear the precision of the language that he uses and his facile knowledge of the different parts of the ship. This program allows an individual to start a recording that will capture all of the finger strokes used on the iPad as well as the audio during that construction. This was a fun tool for Luke but still did not fully resonate with him. He did not choose to use this without encouragement from teachers. Over the course of the next few months he continued to explore and experiment with elements of the Titanic in his play, but it was always separate from his writing work until a final technological element was introduced. Ms. Katie had seen a story about the auction of a letter that had been written just prior to the sinking of the ship. Esther Hart had written this letter while on the ship, and left a space at the bottom for her daughter Eva to add her own salutation. As the ship was going down, Eva's father offered his wife the fur coat he was wearing so she could stay warm on the lifeboat. Safely tucked into the pocket of that coat was the letter they had written. Eva and her mother made it safely to the Carpathia, Benjamin went down with the ship. Working with Ms. Rachel, Ms. Katie designed a center for the Kindergarten students to explore during writer's workshop that empowered them to write their own letters. When Luke heard that story he was significantly motivated to create his own version of the letter. This was a significant step in Luke's evolution as a writer and marked a transition to more engaged literacy work with his beloved ship. You can hear more about the writing and see Luke read the letter he wrote in the second video at the bottom of this page.

As

As the year approached its end, Luke entered a final phase of his project. He began to design his own ship: Luke's Grand Liner. For this ship he would build in designs that would benefit from the lessons learned from the Titanic: both mechanical engineering and social consciousness. The teachers provided him with longer paper, however he was interested in showing multiple decks in his drawing, so he used not one but three layers of paper, with the top sheets being translucent. In the images and videos below you can see the care he has taken to make the ship comfortable for all passengers, not just the wealthy ones. He has included a pool, piano, swivel chairs, a church, and safety elements throughout. In video 1 he adds, "I didn't want the poor people to feel like rats. In this case there are arrows pointing to where the exit is... so poor people can remember where the exit is." Emergency exits, signs to emergency exits, and on the bottom deck in the boiler rooms he notes that he will be giving the firemen breaks because "they are probably hot down there. Too hot, they would need lots of water, plus there is a water machine I am going to add down there." This final set of plans marked the end of a year long project that empowered Luke and fostered learning, and development in innumerable ways.

While this is a story about Luke, I would hope you do not simply focus on this meticulous boy and his creative work, but also recognize that it is a story of differentiation and accommodation. It is a classic example of a transmedia exploration of a topic. While the pedagogical approach used technology as a catalyst for transformative learning, this was not about the technology. It was a successful learning experience first and foremost because teachers listened to all the languages he was using: Legos, clay, magnetic blocks, wooden blocks, paper, gears, foam blocks and more. All spoke to his passionate examination of this ship and its demise. There was a careful and intentional selection of the digital materials that empowered him to explore, and that enabled new ways of learning: books, a CD ROM and computer, digital cameras, iPad and writing apps, and Web-based materials. The results of going deep into this immersive project were conceptual, physical, social, emotional and more. It was a year-long project that let him work through an important and motivating exploration. In the end, not only did this project assist him in meeting many of our kindergarten goals of viewing himself as an artist, a writer, an historian, and architect, and to be more skilled with letters, numbers, and learning tools, it also helped him feel that his ideas and projects were important, it helped him learn how to pursue an idea and persevere. This project facilitated the development of social skills, emotional empathy, and physical coordination. He has finished the year with a sense of agency, increased self-esteem, a continually developing sense of self, and a love of learning.
Technology is not the Sine Qua Non: not the most important thing in a classroom or in life. For young children learning should never be about the technology. Technology should be intentionally used to support, not supplant the work that children are doing. And where it provides new opportunities and empowers new ways of learning, then it can be appropriate.

I have attached a collection of Photos from across this project if you would like to view more than the few on this page. Please contact me if you have any questions about this page or project, or the amazing teachers who facilitated this work

http://fg.ed.pacificu.edu/cldc/ Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Images are sole property of the ELC and are not to be reproduced or duplicated without the written permission of the Early Learning Community Direct comments or questions to baileym@pacificu.edu Page last updated on Tuesday, December 11, 2018