Creative thinking with SOLO.

From Kerry Poulsen, West Melton School

LC 10 are a bunch of energetic, innovative Year 3's at West Melton School on the outskirts of Christchurch.  Our not so small rural school has rapidly grown due to families moving into the area after the earthquakes and to help with the rebuild.

 LC 10 have embraced the use of ipads and app smashing. App smashing is the use of multiple apps with the focus on creative thinking. I initially used SOLO to evaluate how children had achieved a task i.e. what makes a great blog comment and what makes a great photo Taking a GREAT photo using SOLO   

I now have children referring to our SOLO framework, talking about their learning and setting goals for each other, creating a place of critical thinking. I thought I had a lot of tech savvy children, but as a speaker at the 2013 Think it Forward Conference mentioned, our kids who are digital natives don’t really create, they just game, download music and movies and surf YouTube.  Using children’s natural curiosity we integrated our learning and used digital technology as the presentation vehicle.

      Some of our app smashing projects:  

c     Comic life and iPhoto for creating how to be a digital citizen and thank you cards for parent helpers at camp

·     iMovie, itunes and iphoto for putting together a slideshow of our frozen photos
·     Sock puppets, iMovie, Puppetpals and iPhoto to present and host our whole school assembly 

u   Puppetpals and iPhoto to explain to others how to leave comments on our blogs Puppet Pals blogpost

·        Blogger and iPhoto to blog about school events blogpost

·     Google Drive for writing and collaborating

·     Chatterpix and iphoto for summarising what they have read

     Using our class blog, I have posted SOLO resources to share with home what we are learning (and how we are learning).  I know some parents have found the fluency rubric helpful and use SOLO language at home.

      I am still on the SOLO journey myself along with my students.  I keep a professional reflection blog and mention my Journey so far using SOLO where I trial ideas from Pinterest, Twitter and of course Pam Hook’s website. 

   

      So where to next?  I’d like to co-construct a rubric on digital safety with the children.  We have spent a lot of time on this and have a good understanding already. My learning journey continues.