WOW Wednesday – Tanis Bennet
On Wednesdays, I highlight some of our amazing MVSD staff on our social media pages. Every day our staff are using tech in new and exciting ways, are learning new skills, and are sharing ways in which ed tech is assisting them in their practice.
Today I want to highlight Tanis Bennet and the work that she is doing at Whitmore Elementary. Tanis, and the team at Whitmore, offer the only daily Kindergarten program within MVSD that features a unique component where the last component of the day invites families into the building to participate in programming alongside their children. During the second week of November, I had an opportunity to join Tanis and her Kindergarten community as we collaborated on designing and facilitating a digital literacy theme for her program. These sessions saw adult participants and their children move through a series of “stations” where:
- Tanis introduced an educational website that she used in the Kindergarten program. Both adults and children were introduced to the website, supported with navigation and features, and then had time to work through the website together using the classroom tablets.
- Students then continued to explore the website, being supported by the MVSD adults in the room, while I gathered the adults to discuss a component of digital literacy that was designed to support the use of digital technology in the home.
This pattern continued four times which allowed for the introduction of four different websites and the following topics:
- Establishing and communicating expectations on digital use
- How to customize parental controls that support your expectations
- Internet safety tips
- Making informed decisions around screen time
My components of these sessions were supplemented with take-home resources from Media Smarts as well as links to local resources like our divisional Caregivers Support page.
I cannot thank Tanis enough for putting this program together as it is the perfect way to address our triangulation of support that moves beyond just staff training and expands to include:
- Student support in personal device management and educational implementation
- Caregiver sessions and resources on the role of personal devices in student success and well-being