Documentation of learning is a tricky business.
Like so many teachers, the camera roll on my phone is full of photos and videos of learning in action.
How can those digital artefacts be used to tell a story?
I was intrigued by the 1 second day app and this past academic year committed myself to gathering a second of video footage each day.
What might snippets of daily 1 second videos show when stitched into a wider 3 minute narrative of the school year?
- Books, books, books -Reading books, talking about books, responding to books.
- Creativity in many forms – yes digital tools are present but so too are pens, pencils, paint, cardboard and glue guns!
- We take a lot of action Gender equality, presenting in front of staff, parents and other learners, even an end of term celebrations.
- We celebrate a lot. Hari Raya, Deepavali, Christmas, Lunar New Year, the children had an opportunity to take part in celebrations from the world’s major religions. There were also a lot of dress up days, music and dancing.
- We had a lot of visitors – both virtual and physical Over the year, we had immense number of visitors. Students from other year groups, teachers from other schools dropping in to learn from us, parents and members of our community sharing their expertise with our class. Collaboration isn’t limited to the people in our class or even in our school.
- We didn’t spend much time outside of school We went on camp and had a few trips to other PYP schools, but there weren’t many field trips this past year.
A tool for teacher self-reflection
As someone who takes a lot of photos, the selection of video was an important moment of self-reflection. What was happening that made this moment worthy of showcasing for this day? How does the learning change year on year? What might the video look like if recorded from the learners point of view?
A tool for learner reflection
At the end of each term, the class and I would take time to watch the video and reflect on important learning moments.While the learning moments were important, the kids also remarked on how much they physically changed over the year.
I also had the video projected during our learner-led conferences as a station for learners to share with their parents.
Even 1 second of sights, sounds and movement can provoke a memory of an important moment.
A ‘get to know you’ tool
At the start of the year this video could be a way to introduce myself to new parents and learners. What might learning look like in this class? The video of the previous year serves as an eye into potential learning for the year.
A ‘digital CV’
As I watched the finished video, I realised that the video had the ability to show more about me as a teacher than my resume. Press pause and ask me about that learning moment – tell me more about this snippet? What influenced you to create it? What was the impact of this moment on student learning?
What role does digital documentation play in your teaching practice?
What might the miniature show is trending in classroom learning?
Teaching the Teacher 
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