A Dot Day Google Hangout With Mrs. P, Mr. Gagnon, Mrs. Fox, and Van Meter Turns To Research and More

To celebrate Dot Day with a few friends in other places today we decided to meet up in Google Hangout yesterday.

And to make it even more special and fun we invited our great friend Mrs. P!  

In our hangout was Heather Fox, my sister who is the new librarian at Amana Elementary in Iowa, and the 3rd graders there; Steve Gagnon and his 5th graders in New Hampshire; Mrs. P., and Kate Goodwin's 5th grade class from Van Meter.  

They are always excited to connect with Mrs. P.....and today even more so with friends in the call as well.  This was the first time the 4th graders connected with Heather so they were very curious about the other students in Iowa.  

Mrs. P is a wonderful story teller.  Over the last three years as we have gotten to know her, the kids have also learned to give her challenges as she tells stories too.  When she asks for ideas....They love to get her going.

Steve's students enjoyed her visit and asking questions too.

Then Steve, or Mr. G as we all call him at Van Meter, asked her to tell a story that included my new favorite bird....the Cormorant.  I saw this giant, beautiful bird when I was visiting Steve's town Portsmouth this summer on our family vacation.

Mrs. P didn't hesitate at all.....Her story about the Cormorant was so much fun.

But as she was telling her story, something else was happening around the room.

The 5th graders were grabbing their iPads and looking up the Cormorant.  Some of them were using Suri to ask, and some were using Google to search.  Others were asking friends how to spell the bird so they could look it up too.

I just love seeing our young people using their iPads or other devices for finding out information they might not know or searching for information to enrich the discussion in the room.  They are taking the responsibility of learning into their own hands.  They absolutely love this too.  

As soon as Mr. G said how much Mrs. Miller loved the Cormorant they wanted to know what it looked like, why it flew so close to the water, and what made it different from birds we have in Iowa.  

When we got off of the call with Heather, Steve, and Mrs. P, the conversation continued and we talked more about the birds and the area where are friends in Mr. G's class live.  They used their iPads to do even more research.  They also researched the birds we had in Iowa and other places we had visited.  

It was really awesome to see and engage with them in this active conversation.  Experiences like this will make them even more curious thinkers and learners.  

While we were Skyping, Channel 5 came to the library to see what we were doing for a story called Iowa Schools Advancing Their Technology.  You can watch the news video here. 

Thank you Mrs. P, Heather and your 3rd graders, and Steve and your 5th graders for sharing Dot Day with us.  As always....we learned from all of you and had a whole lot of fun too.