This week, NewTechKids continued with our digital literacy lessons for kindergarten students at Wereldwijs primary school. The last few lessons have been about self-directed learning and how technology enables us to learn on our own, without teachers, parents or adults directing the process.
We started the lesson off by talking about the fact that not all children have the same abilities as they do. We talked about how some children can’t hear and this requires us to develop new skills to communicate with them.
The scenario we gave our students was that some day, they might meet a new child who cannot hear or talk. Their class challenge was to teach themselves simple sign language to communicate with a deaf child using an app on their iPads.
Students used the Dutch-language Kinderbaren app to learn how to sign words related to animals, food and drink and emotions. The app is wonderful in that it shows a picture, has an audio recording of the word and then a video of a child signing the word.
The students were very enthusiastic and some, including those who already knew a bit of sign language, demonstrated their skills in front of the class.