Just imagine… it is September and you are a shy introverted seven years old. You are in a classroom with all new peers, teacher, and expectations. In the chaos of a new school year teachers often get to know the extroverts first because they are very comfortable sharing their ideas in large groups. The introverts take longer to open up as they are cautious to share orally.
Blended learning plays an important role for our young learners. Using tools such as Kidblog or D2L along with our classroom learning, gives shy students have an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas online. Whether at home or in the classroom these children can take the time to articulate their ideas in a way they are comfortable sharing and then post to the blog. These posts can later be shared by the teacher or responded to by other students individually. Without having to compete with the extroverts, these quieter students may be willing to share ideas sooner than they might have without the blog. The following is an excerpt from our classroom blog this year.
“Yesterday our grade 2 class went outside to clean up garbage. The class was divided into two groups one was brooming wood chips the other was cleaning up garbage. After some time people went for playing. I saw them playing. But I thought that my school should look clean so I stayed back to broom up woodchips. I can play later. I think this is example of Generosity.”
Julie Quennell @juliequennel is a grade two teacher at Tuscany School in the northwest. Julie is a lifelong learner who finished her masters in EdTech a couple years ago and has enjoyed PD opportunities such as ISTE in Atlanta and Future of Learning at Harvard University in the past two years.