Vanflections

While using itsLearning in my first grade classroom has had its share of challenges, it's also been infinitely rewarding in supporting my students to become more self-directed and empowered learners. One challenge I found that really plagued my littles was none other than their memory...or occasional lapses in memory. In planning & rolling out new itsLearning content, I've often found myself saying something that sounds like this to my students, "So, when you go to (insert station) you're going to (insert content consumption like, read a book on Epic) and then do (insert assignment over a topic they may have learned a day or week or possibly month ago)." Generally, these directions are met with the sounds of crickets, quite a few empty and/or confused faces and a brave hand of a student who says something like..."I forgot what (insert a topic I thought we had covered in-depth) is..." Now, imagine me, standing there in front of 20 6 & 7 year olds while mentally coaxing myself out of a meltdown in my head and you get my inspiration for this post. Always one to take a challenge head-on, I was determined to find a way to make spiraling content less frustrating for both my students and I using itsLearning. So, boom, there it was, a bright idea that should've come to me eons ago but, instead, took an afternoon of 290 traffic to hit me. What about if I use my new-found love for screencasting to make minilessons for my kiddos that they can refer to whenever their memories lapse or maybe they just need to hear new content a few times?! Then, I can put my picture all over their itsLearning pages so everytime they need a minilesson from Ms. Roberts...I'll be there for them! Boom. #Cloned