Innovating Play: Reimagining Learning through Meaningful Tech Integration

Introduction

Our Story

The idea for this book was born several summers ago, when the two of us—Jessica, a kindergarten teacher in New Jersey, and Christine, a kindergarten teacher in California—first met online. Up to that point we had followed one another on Twitter but hadn’t found the time to really share our ideas in great detail. Christine was moderating the #GAfE4Littles #SlowFlipChat where Jessica was one of the participants. ¹ We both liked connecting the Twitter handles of the fellow educators with whom we’d been interacting on Twitter to names and faces on Flipgrid. Educators who had only connected in 140 characters or less on Twitter came together via video on Flipgrid, and everyone’s voice could be heard. We shared stories and united as colleagues with a common mindset and vision for children. Suddenly the world of teachers seemed smaller. Exploring new ways of learning and teaching felt limitless, and through that community we felt brave enough to expand our ideas and share them with others.

It was also during that initial #SlowFlipChat when Jessica caught Christine’s attention by the way she articulated her ideas about her classroom in her response videos. Her thoughts about design thinking and building empathy with her kindergartners while using technology were unique. Christine encouraged Jessica to start a blog, invited her to write a guest post on christinepinto.com, listened intently to what she had to say, and offered a gentle nudge forward when needed.

The following school year, we found opportunities for our classes to collaborate. Teaching in California, Christine posted an invitation to her class’s Guess the Sharing Item Flipgrid on Twitter. Jessica saw the invitation, and her class jumped in and participated from New Jersey. Later on, Jessica posted an invitation to her class’s Lego Creation Flipgrid on Twitter. Christine shared the Flipgrid with her students and had them share their Lego creations. Opportunities like these led us to wonder how our students could connect and collaborate on a more regular basis. A collaborative daily project (our weather reporting Flipgrid) emerged from that question. This collaboration occurred for the rest of the school year and surfaced special collaborative projects along the way.

As we arrived at another summer, a whole year after our initial interactions, we wondered about ways to streamline the connection between our classes. We knew that in order to delve deeper into our practice, we would need to develop a framework to follow. This would create the foundation for a collaboration that would provide meaningful daily experiences over the course of an entire year. We began by looking carefully at each of our schedules and curricular expectations, along with common goals and objectives, in order to weave together a cohesive collaboration between teachers and students. We knew that the collaboration could not be seen as extra. We saw the potential to explore a new way of learning and teaching that would allow for a richer process and perspective while addressing the expectations each of us faced in our respective districts. Throughout the months of June, July, and August, we worked through every part of our daily teaching schedules together. When the next school year began, we were ready to put our ideas into action.

The Innovating Play Cycle

As educators our task is to tune into the needs and processes of the learners in our care. What inspires them? What challenges them? What can we do to reach them collectively and individually in order to support their growth and development? When we decided to explore the idea of Innovating Play by connecting our classrooms, we went from considering the needs of one class to considering the needs of a collective community of learners. It was important that our students eventually normalize the fact that they had a New Jersey teacher and a California teacher.

Establishing this new norm meant paying particular attention to the patterns of learning and interactions that occurred. Although we used every resource we could find to support our educational decisions, we did not have a textbook or research to which we could specifically refer. Connecting classrooms of young children on opposite sides of the country on a daily basis for an entire year was brand-new territory in education. We knew when we started that we would be trailblazers, and that made us even more mindful of the pedagogical decisions we made.

In our first year of collaboration, we were particularly mindful of the flow of the interaction between our classes, and we started to notice patterns forming. Instead of deciding on projects and experiences ahead of time, we noted the reactions of our students to the opportunities for connection we had built. As we watched student interactions, we worked together as teachers to find the instances where we shared common curricular goals and objectives. We wanted to weave together intentional, productive, meaningful experiences. From this process a cycle began to emerge.

This cycle, which we call the Innovating Play Cycle, represents a pattern of play that students move through when engaging in a learning task or experience. While this cycle can take place as part of formal learning in the classroom, it is also an intuitive process that happens as people participate in informal learning and discovery. We have found that highlighting these elements of natural learning patterns within our lesson planning supports authentic engagement as students broaden and acquire depth of understanding. Planning, facilitating, and reflecting through the Innovating Play Cycle can enrich lesson-plan design across the curriculum.

Connect: Every meaningful learning experience begins from a point of connection. Connection can come through just about any experience. In each chapter of this book we explain how a particular activity can become a connected one. You can take one of those ideas, or any learning experience you presently teach, and use technology to strengthen and further connections for children that reach beyond the classroom and into the world.

Wonder: When a connection inspires, it will naturally provoke wonder, or curiosity. The language of wondering is part of the culture of the early elementary classroom. Wondering comes in either the form of a statement (I wonder. . .) or a question. Lessons and experiences that begin with wonder hold authentic engagement opportunities. Lessons can also focus learners on questions that stir up curiosity about big ideas. We start with questions that begin with: What if. . . ? What happens when. . . ? Why. . . ? These higher-level questions give learners and teachers purpose as we prepare to deepen connection and understanding through the next phase of the cycle.

Play: What do we do with wonders? We play with them! Play comes in many forms: free and open-ended play, games, reading and writing, hands-on activities, and even exploration and creation through technology. We see every learning opportunity as a possible playground ready to be explored. In this part of the cycle, there is an important shift from a traditional lesson mindset to the mindset of playing with an idea or concept. Even simple vocabulary adjustments represent an important change in classroom culture (for example, replacing The goal for today’s lesson is. . . with Today we will play with the idea. . .). Just as there is a language for wonder, there is a language for playful learning that contributes to the overall experience. In using words that reflect the importance of play, we empower children to see the role of learning as it applies to experiences that they naturally initiate as they seek to understand the world around them.

Discover: As the cycle reaches this culminating phase, we pause to consider the learning that has taken place. What new information has been uncovered? What misconceptions have been redefined? How can we share and move the learning that has taken place into the world beyond the classroom? Discovery is both reflective and active and moves us forward armed with new connections so that we can enter the Innovating Play Cycle once again.

Consider these questions when thinking about using the Innovating Play Cycle to explore and innovate when it comes to your classroom activities and lesson plans:

Connect

Are there opportunities for learners and teachers to connect with each other within and beyond the classroom?

Are there experiences that connect learning to the real world?

Are there elements that move learning beyond the walls of the classroom in order to share and connect with families and expand the learning experience?

Wonder

Are there opportunities for children and teachers to wonder together?

Is there room for spontaneous wonder?

Does the classroom culture and environment support a sense of wonder?

What higher-level or big-picture questions can be asked to spark wonder?

Play

Are there playful and joyful elements of learning incorporated into the classroom experiences?

Are play-based experiences supportive of the level of academic learning that students need to obtain?

Is there a shared, common vocabulary between teachers and students that creates a natural connection between learning and play?

Discover

Do the learning experiences provide opportunities for student discovery?

Does the classroom culture provide a safe space for children to be able to communicate discoveries?

Are there elements of instruction that allow discovery to move beyond the walls of the classroom?

Though in this book we focus on the possibilities for bringing our classes together to explore the Innovating Play Cycle, the cycle is in no way limited to classroom collaboration. It can be found within individual classrooms, across grade levels, between content areas, even beyond the classroom itself as authentic learning experiences emerge out in the world.

The Role of Technology and Empathy

What happens when we create a foundation for learning that includes technology as a shared human experience, beginning with our youngest students? We discover that we can build relationships that break down classroom walls and in the process learn how to communicate and collaborate on a deeper, more meaningful level.

In this book we connect the use of digital tools to the bigger picture of purposeful learning through play. When we begin with play, we follow children’s natural instincts and support authentic learning connections. As we play we connect and share a common experience, and as a result of play we wonder about new ideas, explore new questions, and discover new interests. The cycle of play is essential to the emotional development of children and ought to be fully incorporated into their learning experiences. But how?

With today’s technology, we can facilitate creative play that helps children make meaningful connections as an essential part of the classroom learning experience. We can start by asking questions like:

What is happening beyond our classroom?

What do schools look like for other children?

How can we redesign rituals and routines to include a broader definition of the world?

How do we create safe and beautiful multimedia spaces for children and teachers to connect daily? How can we use free and open-ended tools to create these experiences?

How can we redefine the experiences we offer our learners so that they have a deeper, richer context for what it means to actively engage and participate in the world?

How can we plan and discover together as teachers?

How can we rethink what it means to be educated?

These are big questions, and while we are asking you to think about them, we are not leaving you alone to discover the answers. As classroom teachers, we have discovered so many possibilities (and continue to discover more!). We will share specific examples of our experiences with you and teach you how to create your own.

However, if there’s one place to find an overarching answer in Innovating Play, it is in our embrace of a design-thinking approach to tech integration with a strong focus on developing empathy in students. In this thoughtful approach, teachers try to see from their students’ perspectives in order to initiate meaningful and relevant experiences. To continue to nurture the growth of empathy, we focus on connecting students with their peers—both immediately in their classroom and on the other side of a screen—through these experiences. In this process, children improve their ability to put themselves in the shoes of others. By blending technology in education with a mindful approach, integrating it seamlessly rather than putting the tool at the forefront, we allow the students’ experiences to take center stage.

It is the hearts and minds of children playing and learning together every day that will help us to redefine education and digital interaction in our current culture. From sharing daily routines and cultivating personal interactions to documenting rich experiences, technology offers us the tools that can bring students together from across the country and let their emotional development shine.

Before we send kids up the educational ladder to analyze sources, design solutions, communicate opinions and perspectives, and think critically about the world, we need to give them a language for empathy and the tools to safely interact in physical and virtual spaces. If we are going to nurture truly thoughtful human beings who can collaborate through technology, we need to build from the bottom up. We need to educate young children (and their families) by allowing them to imagine new possibilities and participate in learning together.

With this mindset we learn to stop teaching alone. We let go of the traditional limits of time and space and instead embrace the opportunity to reconceptualize students’ classroom experience while supporting one another as educators. Most of all we empower all children to see their potential to shape and contribute to the world through joyful creation and a deep understanding of human connection beyond the screen.

Bringing Innovating Play to Your Learning Environment

Innovating Play was written with these goals in mind. It is designed to be an inspirational guide for teachers of young children who are passionate about the natural development of their students and interested in discovering how technology can help facilitate that process and expand their horizons. Inside, you’ll find dozens of learning opportunities for classroom collaborations that lead to greater empathy, deeper understanding, and, most of all, a playful outlook.

The book is divided into four parts. Part One looks at three different rituals and routines that kick off the day in early elementary classrooms and explores how connecting through technology can deepen students’ experiences and expand their ability to empathize. In Part Two we then turn to focus on early elementary curriculum in the areas of literacy, science, and mathematics to show how innovating play in the academic realm leads to joyful learners and a more comprehensive grasp of the material—all while fostering social-emotional development in students. In Part Three we investigate what happens when innovating play is unchained from traditional classroom expectations and students activate prior knowledge by exploring current learning concepts through Connected Play, foster connections across classrooms with Community Play, and even involve their families. Finally in Part Four we provide a rich trove of materials and resources for teachers who are ready to dive in and start experimenting with the Innovating Play Cycle.

Each chapter is designed in a similar fashion. We introduce the specific topic we are investigating in the chapter and explain its importance to students. We then show how using the Innovating Play Cycle approach can be transformed in the context of a collaborative classroom. Along the way we share anecdotes about particular experiences or examples to illustrate the impact of the Innovating Play approach and explore different directions teachers and students can take.

Each chapter is therefore an invitation to walk the path of