A 4th Grade Student Becomes The Teacher As She Teaches Others About HaikuDeck

             
Tomorrow I will be at the School Library Journal Summit in Austin, Texas.

I have one class of our 5th graders scheduled for tomorrow, so I made sure to touch base with their teacher Kate Goodwin in the hallway today.  I asked Kate if I could stop in at the end of today to run through HaikuDeck really quick so they would be ready to go tomorrow.

When we realized it would be tricky to connect today, I told Kate that I would make a little video and put it onto the 5th Grade Symbaloo webmix.  That would work great!  They could learn from the video and also refer back to it if they had questions while working within HaikuDeck creating their project.

I got back to the library and the 4th graders came in for their time with me.  They have been creating HaikuDeck Dot Day projects for the last few weeks. Today they were finishing them up and getting ready to present next week.

Then it hit me!

Why was I going to create a video?!?!?!  Why not have one of the awesome 4th graders create a video teaching the 5th graders and others how to use HaikuDeck?  

I asked one of my 4th grade friends, Shae, if she wanted to help me out with a little project and teach others how to create a HaikuDeck.  She immediately said "Yes!" and was so excited that I had asked her.

We have this super handy iPad holder, tripod, and microphone, so we grabbed that and went into the other part of the library where it was a little quieter.  Shae did such a wonderful job showing the HaikuDeck she created and explaining it for the video.

Shae and I uploaded it onto my YouTube Channel and made it public so it would be easy to find and view.

The 5th graders will find Shae's video on their Symbaloo (5th Grade webmix), along with the Haiku Deck for iPad Demo from their website, tomorrow when they come to the library.  My associate Diana will point out where the video is and watch it together as a class first.  If needed, they can always watch it again on their iPads independently as they are working on the projects.

Our students are amazing teachers.  They teach friends, siblings, parents, and others all of the time. My students teach me things every day.

I encourage you to give the young people you work with the voice and tools they need to become teachers too.  It is so inspiring to see this confidence, happiness, and creativity come out.  It definitely does make a difference.

And just as Kate's tweet says....

The kids will love learning from each other too!