Early+Childhood


 * Early Childhood Group**

Clair Weston (4-5 yr olds) westonc@yis.ac.jp Jamie Raskin (7-8 yr olds) raskinj@yis.ac.jp Tasha Cowdy (5-6 yr olds) cowdyt@yis.ac.jp Zoe Page (5-6 yr olds) pagez@yis.ac.jp

The information required for this project is already documented in our current unit of inquiry planners. See the links below Brain storm for our AADMC project [|Story telling planner (4-5 yr olds)] Story telling planner (5-6 yr olds) Story telling planner (7-8 yr olds)
 * Planner**

We explored possibilities with several digital story telling tools before we found ones that would do the job we wanted:
 * Digital Media Product**

**Fotobabble** Young children can independently take photographs, add a voice comment (story) and share via twitter or simply via the fotobabble account. This is a free downloadable web tool, that can be used across platforms (e.g.all laptops, I-Phone, I-Touch, I-Pad,)

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Student example: media type="custom" key="12351570"

Young children can independently take photographs, sequence them, then view them as a slideshow and record their audio commentary/storytelling on top. The product is then exported as a video and easily shared by students via youtube or email. Teachers may then want to embed the youtube video in their blogs and so on. This is a free downloadable web tool, that can be used across platforms (e.g.all laptops, I-Phone, I-Touch, I-Pad,)
 * StoryRobe**

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**Story Kit** designed for making multi paged book adding both text and audio narrative and comments, and publishing. Limited by sharing being exclusively by email link. Our project looked fine on the iTouch but the online version was un-appealing, not being presented page by page, just as a big storyboard and not being embeddable elsewhere.


 * StoryBuddy** designed for making styling and smooth image and text storybooks, can be shared through email link, but no audio or embed options.

**Toontastic** Looks like it has lots of potential, but too complicated for what we wanted.

iBooks Author -we got this idea from one of the other groups. Might be suitable for us?

In Early Childhood we do not use a backwards design model. We often don't have a clear destination in mind. Rather, we provide engagements and opportunities to support the children in their developing dialogue and deepening understanding of the central idea. Our assessment is on going and credit based, focusing on what each individual child can do, so that we can help move them onto the next step. We do not use rubrics as an assessment tool. Instead, we use on-going formative assessment in the form of narrative observations, videos of children at work and work samples or photographs of work samples.
 * Assessment**