Not much if technology doesn’t work as expected!

Our second graders have been involved in some wonderful learning activities in which the students rotated through each classroom to learn about whales, the water cycle, and poetry. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take what had been learned and use VoiceThread to share their thoughts.

Each student illustrated a picture in MS Paint and I compiled the drawings into class VoiceThreads. That seems to be where my problems began! For whatever reason, the first class was unable to record their comments using the iPads. Since the VoiceThread app had worked perfectly a few days earlier, I wonder if trying to have 5 or 6 students logged onto the same VoiceThread prevents this. Who knows? But, with another class coming into the lab, I had to make some quick adjustments! I went back to what has been working for the 4th graders – individual VoiceThreads. The students created theirs and then we started recording – no problems at all! We didn’t get everyone recorded but we’re off to a good start.

Lessons learned: Try to think of and test every possible situation and ALWAYS have a back up plan!!