Interactive Decisions

     This was a great day at preschool. Today is the day students interact with the ipads. One day of the week, they can interact with technology. English class is connected to the computing class and they can combine their learning with the use of technology, reinforcing and practicing the information they are acquiring in their English class. 

    Some of my work partners ask me sometimes: Do the students understand this? But they can clearly see that they follow instructions. It makes me think of another question: Are my instructions clear and understood? And sometimes, few of my students are not able to follow the instructions, but they ask if they have doubts or some of their partners tells them what they´re supposed to do. 

     Sometimes, I think: Is this too difficult for the students? I believe that when occasionally they are not able to understand the activity is because maybe there is a distractor or maybe they can't remember some of the last English class. But at the end of the class, they complete the requested activity with few mistakes or without mistakes.  

     Other question about this activity could be: Do students have the vocabulary they need in order to do this task? And the answer is YES. Why did I answer this with a big yes? Well, this is because we study the same content of the last English class. I asked my students to open the Paint Sparkles App in the ipad (that was the first instruction), and then, I asked them to draw the items that we studied in the last class (Christmas decoration for Preschool 3) in order as I requested them to be drawn to see if they could remember the vocabulary (Drawing dictation). 

     Talking about the types of decisions, I try to motivate my students all the time and involve them in all the activities, their language skills are few, but they are able to remember the vocabulary, they are able to say short sentences and also are able to understand what I ask them to do in the activity, with a little help of the other students and the class main teacher, who stays and support the kids who can't accomplish the  tasks. This is preschool level, I am a caring teacher, I try to fill my students' affective needs. It is imposible to know when a child is not working because he/she does not understand or because they are not feeling well or just need a hug or nice words to encourage them to do the activities. I worked at secondary school and some of the students really need to talk sometimes about all that they are carriying from home.  

     Trying to be positive all the time and see what are the pros and cons of the activities wearing a yellow hat; wearing a blue hat at the moment to provide my students the ipad they are going to work with and being in charge of the activity, they have to use the requested App and follow instructions; also wearing a white hat at the mometn to asses the students, asking them during and at the end of the class and see if they really are learning, who is a little bit advanced and who is getting behind. 

     Now, some pics of the ipads activity: 

Very attentive to the instructions. 

Looking for the requested App to start with the activity 

      

An example of the drawings they were asked to do.

If they finish the activity, they can paint something that is already drawn in the App