Reflections on Technology in the Second Grade
by Tom Cole
The move I made from fourth grade to
second grade was in many respects the biggest move I've made in my
career. Granted that I've worked at three schools in Howard
County (four schools altogether), and each school has its own unique
way of doing things, its own culture. But I was always an
intermediate teacher. There really is a large gap between what we do in
third and fourth grades and what is done in second grade. There
is a significant difference in the students. Even after working
with these students for close to ten months, I have to remind myself
that they are only second graders. It takes more patience, more
energy, more silliness to be a primary teacher. I've made it a
habit to go to bed at nine-thirty on a school night.I've learned a lot this year about second graders and how they can use technology as a tool for learning. And I still have much to learn. I've learned that second graders can learn complex skills in small incremental steps. I've learned that repetition is important. I've learned that if I take too big of a step at a time, I will lose them, frustrate them, and frustrate myself. I need to focus on small, concise, directed skills. I need to repeat those skills numerous times. Then, once those skills become habit, I can build on them. This applies to techonology but it also applies to all learning.
I've also learned that students are a great resource in training other students. When you mix younger children with technology, you often get 20 hands up asking for assistance NOW. They are excited about this learning process. They are excited about technology and they are impatient to gain your assistance and clarify the matter. Yet physics demands that you can only be in one place at one time. That's where your trained assistances can help. There will always be children who have an aptitude for technology. It is natural for them. They catch on quickly and can often explain it in a manner that other children "get". I've discovered that life becomes so much easier when I use this resource. Using children as mentors to help other children. Once again, this is a concept that applies to all aspects of education and not just technology.
What do I still need to learn involving technology and the primary student? There is so much. I too am an incremental learner who has taken a few baby steps but sees so much more out there I need to discover. I think that the second grade can learn to design web pages, make movies, do slide shows, and create podcasts. This year, I did much of it myself. I took their work and placed it in a multimedia format. This was exciting for many of the students. It motivated them in their writing and their learning. But I was still the one who did the mechanics.
The nice thing about much of multimedia production is that one doesn't have to be an expert at word processing to do that. The second grader is for the most part pre-keyboard. He hasn't yet been trained on how to type. Some of the kids are very fast at hunting and pecking but they do it in a haphazard manner. Yet, skills like scanning, photography, filming, editing, and recording can all be done without that essential keyboarding skill. Multimedia is ideal for the pre-keyboard, seven year old techie. I would like to do more training of students on how to use multimedia as a means to demonstrate the mastery of key concepts.
So in conclusion, I've learned much this year. I've discovered that the second grade student can be taught to utilize technology is sophisticated ways. As long as that learner is taught, in small pieces, with much repetition, the pieces will fit together and make an impressive whole. Technology is a motivator and a tool that greatly enhances the learning experience for even the youngest student. In fact, it could be argued that the younger and more wiggley a child is, the more ideal this technological approach is to hook that learner. Where words spoken or written on paper sometimes miss the child, the flick of a mouse, the flash of a screen, the creative crunch of data, the rumble of a digital camera can perhaps reach him. Not everyone will excel with technology, but it is a mode of learning that connects with many, including many second graders. And those small, byte-sized learners will continue to build on their prior knowledge, developing more skills and learning new technologies. They truly will be twenty-first century learners. And we can say, it all began in those primary years at West Friendship Elementary.
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