Digital Learning Day at Kickapoo

February 1, 2012, was designated as Digital Learning Day across the country and we definitely celebrated at Kickapoo!  While I knew that our teachers, for the most part, are quite avid technology users, I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear about all the fun digital activities taking place in our building on this day.

My 4th graders have been researching their favorite authors the past few weeks and on Digital Learning Day, the students took their information and began creating Glogs using Glogster.  This is a new program to them and they had a blast putting their information into the interactive posters.  It's fun to watch my students' creativity juices flow using a program like this.  I can't wait to see what their final projects will look like in a week or so.

A new to me Web 2.0 tool is Study Blue.  I was introduced to this by a colleague of mine who is using it frequently in her classroom.  When I saw the flashcards that the students were creating with Study Blue, it gave me an idea.  I could create flashcard sets for my Battle of the Books team and they could have access to these all the time to help them study their authors/titles.  It has been fun watching my team practice on the SmartBoard using their digital flashcards that I created.  My team has thanked me numerous times for creating these flashcards for them because they really have assisted them in memorizing their information.

My 6th grade book club met on Digital Learning Day, too, and they used Edmodo, an online safe social networking site to share their thoughts on the book that we're reading.  We use Edmodo some after our book club meetings and more so to communicate with each other on those days we don't meet.  It has been a tool that has worked well for us and the girls in my book club like having a safe site they can go to for our book discussions.

Along with what I was doing in my library, there were Mystery State Skypes taking place, students using apps on our NOOK Colors, teachers and students using Mimios in the classroom, teachers using digital cameras, and Yearbook students using Jostens software to create their yearbook.  Are these activities something that only take place on Digital Learning Day at Kickapoo?  Absolutely not!  They are taking place every day and technology is becoming something that is integrated into every classroom/subject area we have.  This is great for our students!

Now that you've read how we celebrated Digital Learning Day, I'd love to hear how you spent the day learning digitally!