Montlieu Project Reflection

At the start of our visits to Montlieu Elementary, I was a little nervous about how this experience would pan out. While I felt confident in my ability to use the iPad and the relevant apps, such as Comic Life and Keynote, I was unsure of how experienced my student would be with the technology. Fortunately, even though this was my student's first year attending Montlieu, she had become familiar with the iPad very quickly and rarely seemed uncomfortable with the technology. 

During the first few weeks at Montlieu, my student and I worked on several projects using both Comic Life and Keynote. Due to the fact that my student was a little shy, it was sometimes difficult for her to vocalize how much she knew about the applications or if she had had much practice with them. In order to get a better idea of my student's skills set, I asked her to show me what some of the different features of the apps were. For example, I would ask if could she show me how to add text or an image, or how to change the font style. After a couple of sessions, it was clear that my student had a very good handle on how to use the applications and needed only a little assistance with spelling words, constructing sentences and correcting grammar. 

Within the first few weeks of meeting with my student, I had gathered that my student's greatest weakness was the difficult she had coming up with creative ideas to focus our projects around. Since she had shown me that she could easily navigate both Comic Life and Keynote, I decided to introduce a project that would help get her creative juices flowing. We started by brainstorming a list of a few things she'd like to learn more about. I suggested topics such as a favorite animal or a place she'd like to visit. She decided that she wanted to learn more about hamsters because she was hoping to get one as a pet in the near future. We agreed that Keynote would be the best application for this project so we could organize and present different information on each slide. I left it up to my student to decide what the topic of each slide would be in order to put her in charge of the project. She was able to come up with some great ideas, such as what hamsters like to eat, what their cage should have in it, and if they make a good pet for children. We then worked together to gather some information and pictures from the internet and put together the layout of the slideshow. This project helped my student to come out of her shell a little bit and start talking about things she is interested in and wants to learn more about. 

All in all, I was very pleased with my experience at Montlieu and definitely feel that I learned a lot from this opportunity. For future classes, I think it would be helpful if we could know some background information about our student before meeting with them. For example, it would be helpful to know the gender, grade level and academic achievement of the student in order to get a better idea of what types of projects would be most relevant and beneficial. 

By knowing bit about the student before meeting with them, we could plan to focus our sessions on improving specific skills and making the most of the hour we have together.

References:
Keynote [Graphic]. (2012). Retrieved November 17, 2012, from:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keynote/id361285480?mt=8