21st Century Skill: Save Often

Today we worked on writing (or should I say typing) stories into Storybird. The graphics are really neat and the kids loved doing it. They had a lot of fun as they wrote a story to go along with their graphics.

Next year, I will want to start by creating a storybird with the entire class. I was impressed at how quickly and easily the students picked up on how to make their own storybird but upon reflecting I feel as though creating the example together (as opposed to just showing them the website and walking them through the steps) will be very beneficial to students. I have to remember a computer, like any other tool, needs to follow the same gradual release process-especially with first graders. I do. We do. You do.

I believe I only had one meltdown in my classroom today. It was from a little girl in my class. She began crying as she was very frustrated that "somehow the story got deleted." The computer froze and deleted a good portion of her work and she had to restart it. Therefore, today our most important lesson: save often. Projects being deleted by stubborn machines is a frustration of 21 century tools. It has happened to me; it has happened to most of us...a paper, a project deleted by a stubborn computer. Along with reading, writing and math I am also officially teaching 21st century skills.