Digital Learning Day

Digital Learning was such a neat day in the York Chester Middle School Band  We started out the day with a pic of a runaway slave collar on the Smartboard screen. Students were asked "In one word, how does this image make you feel?".

In order to collect student responses I created a Padlet Board for my classes, and then made a QR code for the Padlet URL. My students used a QR code reader to get to the Padlet page. We then collected the "One Word" responses from all of the students in the class. It was fascinating seeing what my students wrote. I then probed them further and had them explain why they chose the word that they did. I am constantly trying to get my students to outwardly express what's going on internally and this exercise seemed to recall get them to open up.

Empathy is sometimes difficult for our students, but one of the things that we discovered through our conversations is that when we can put ourselves in the place of others we stand a better chance of treating them the way we would want to be treated, but when we create a culture of "them versus us" it is quite easy to do the most inhumane things to other human beings. 

It was amazing how the use of technology helped facilitate this dialogue, which led us into the piece of music that we are preparing to perform, a negro spiritual. Digital Learning Day in the York Chester Middle School Band led us down wonderful road of discovery and we are continuing to use technology to facilitate the learning and innovate how we teach our students.