Where do you start……

A wave ?

A smile?

A nod?

 

A HELLO,

Hello can you hear me ……

HELLO????

 

I watched excited faces eager to connect, but all I had was silence.

 

COMMUNICATION…….. that’s where we started

 

We were all new to this way of working and it felt strange.

We had to get to know each other, how to work the microphone, how to focus the camera, how to ring C2K in an emergency!!

We had to allow the children (and ourselves) become familiar with this new means of communication in the classroom environment.

 

Not allowing ourselves to be put off by bumps on the way , Stella reassuringly said “lets just try it, lets see how it works”

 

AGAIN…..

A wave, a smile, a nod….. HELLO?

And then we could hear each other, loud and clear,

seems so easy now,

but we thought we should practice this thing; LISTENING

Virtually There presents a whole new way to communicate with listening being a key part of it.

 

I felt welcome in the classroom. Stella approached the project with openness, not allowing it to be pinned down by the current class theme. We wanted the project to go where it needed to and welcomed each others ideas. It helped that we were on the same level in terms of knowledge around the technology. Beginners, we figured it out together, working and learning through the process and supporting one another. We found the mic, focused the camera…….

and we just got started.

 

All kind of wonderful sounds were floating through the classroom, a radio, a noisy lot upstairs, the birds singing, the wind whistling  and someone counting??

With listening devices we could hear even better; there were talking sounds, builders making a new footpath, drilling and stamping, the whiteboard quietly hushing us and a leaf falling off a tree!!

The sounds were documented through sound wave drawings. We found, loud and harsh noises, soft and gentle noises, there were sounds that went up and down like umbrellas and lifts. We gathered materials and listened to their voices, and found ways to make them sing. We tapped and shook, and watched and waited, we PERFORMED. In elaborative sound suits we travelled the corridors of St James and filled them with new sounds.

 

Thursday became an important day, as eagerly awaited as PE day.The children have been so receptive to this way of working, their responses surprising both Stella and I.They dealt better with the glitches and noise that we couldn’t figure out.

 

We’ve been taking it slowly, just getting to know how it all works, how we work and how we might work together. We’ve been giving all this TIME. When is a good time to meet up……. it didn’t work this time……. where did the time go…… I forgot the time…. looking forward to seeing you all in the morning time…..

Sometimes finding time can be a challenge but we have learned that making time to plan is really important. At the end of our sessions we reflected on what happened and began planning for the following session. On one occasion when we did not have time to meet to discuss our plan and so we met stumbling blocks instead. Our plans were directed by the children’s interests which Stella would watch and translate to me. Our planning became stronger the more we worked together. We did not plan a real visit until we were midway through the project giving ourselves lots of experience with the technology before we met up in person. At the end of our real visit, we used a reflective framework ORID to look at everything we had done and plan where we would go next. Planning flowed better from this point, as we knew each other better and were more confident in our roles. Trusting each others judgements, we had more confidence to call it, to move on or stay with something a little longer. There was a better sense of ownership as the technology became less of a focus and we could work on other ideas.

I got to know the class better. P2 know lots of things about me…… P2 asked where did I sleep, how do you draw a 3D hat and where do you stop to go to the toilet on the long journey between Belfast and Boyle?!!!!

We’re getting to know each other, so we can keep working together

We’re not in a hurry, and now we’ve pressed flowers and planted seeds, we’ll watch and wait and give it TIME, if we listen we might be able to hear them grow.

 

Over the past few weeks just getting to know each other took centre stage……and now we are ready to learn what we can do with all those extra buttons we haven’t been using!!