Reaping the Rewards of my very own Learn Create Share moment

Exciting moment! I can relate to the excitement of my learners as my very own version of Learn Create Share gets an audience!

The dreaded Influenza has hit the youngest of the Raisin clan, so Husband & I resorted to playing tag-team, taking 'sick days' to look after her. I had put my hand up to share how we use the Learn Create Share model in our syndicate. Panic mode!

I'd LEARNed:

I knew what we did... It was easy to explain, in person, with the use of Hapara to show what it looks like in practise...

I needed to CREATE something to explain it in my absence. I decided on Powtoon, as I was in the process of trying to get the learners to use it. Afterall, part of the fun of being a teacher is being able to play Guinea Pig first (That's my excuse for all the time I whittle away coding and exploring online... and dragging my children around museum exhibitions and such, in the holidays!) My first Powtoon prototype is in an older post. I didn't dabble with the voice recording... so it's like watching a silent film! (Not particularly exciting) However, it is a prototype... as everything is these days!

My short Powtoon ended up taking a particularly long time to come into fruition... (Aren't we finding that this is a huge issue we are running into with our learners at the moment...?)Voice recordings were rerecorded due to: the three year old's shriek for water or tissues in the background; the overzealous paper turning that became too audible when played back... (Again, a problem faced with any recording task in the classroom, although I only had the one other child in the house to contend with!)

The end of the school day was looming, my little pixie sleeping, me frantically trying to export my Powtoon to Youtube to roll it out! (That panic we induce in our learners when we remind them a task is required to be completed before the looming bell... or they are eager to complete it in one sitting, while it's fresh in their mind.) I emailed it to our facilitator and four different people at school. I placed an emergency call to the staff member I thought was most likely to take a call in staff meeting... The eagle was in the air... I had SHARED!

The only conundrum... as staff meeting are often want to do... a slight tangent was taken and time allocated toward a few important points that cropped up. My SHARE had become rather stilted... (like the child who wants to share something with the class, but once again "we've run out of time".) I sought feedback from peers that I had sent it too... I published it on this blog... which probably has an audience of 1(myself) ...

My exciting moment came when I happened upon an email I'd missed at the end of a thread. My SHARE moment was appreciated... it was commented upon... and had been shared in a closed community group (I'm fairly certain this doesn't involve a peculiar sect, but at this point my excitement will take that even!) I'm reminded of what it's like as the learner to feel empowered by the comments of strangers, out in the big wide world! 

The power of Feedback

I hope that any one the Individuals who commented don't mind my taking a screenshot their comments, but I couldn't resist! I've had an epiphany of the kind that I believe every educator needs once in a while. We ask our learners to try new things and step out of their comfort zone, yet it is only when we, ourselves, do this... that we are able to become grounded again and walk in our learners shoes once more. It enables us to reevaluate our practice, our expectations. When we step out of our comfort zone, we find it all too easy to revert back to former practise... By embracing the mindshift, we are able to better support our learners as we are more empathetic to their uncomfortable feelings of being "In the Pit".