iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

We know student voice is crucial to effective pedagogy -- both literally and figuratively. If teachers and students can’t hear one another, their contributions to the learning are negated. 

“Hearing the tone, speech, and passion in students’ words is what drives our educators,” says Matthew X. Joseph, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment at Leicester Public Schools in Worcester County, MA, a PK-12 district with 1,400 students. “Having the option to have clear sound to include both at-home learners and in-school learners gives a true ‘one class’ feeling.” 

I have been thinking a great about student voice lately. Firstly, this week marked Student Voice Day. I’m not sure where #Studentvoiceday originated, but my Our Global Classroom PLF created a Flipgrid especially for Student Voice day which had so many contributions from classrooms and students all over the world. Check out some of the awesome things shared here.

I have also been thinking about it because I am researching the impact of mentorship on digital citizenship, digital literacy, and student voice and agency for my MEd project–did I mention that I am probably the luckiest student ever to have not one but two of the most prolific experts at Ontario Tech University (Dr. Janette Hughes and Dr. Robin Kay) advising me???). But I digress. I need to pace my research with data collecting so I don’t lose my mind and stumbled across the work of Dana Mitra. In her lIterature review for her article, Student voice in secondary schools, she shares a hierarchy of student voice: