Other pages:
STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION – Strategic implementation to ensure success
GROUPS – Family Partnerships – Using Showbie ‘Groups’ to support Family Partnerships
GROUPS – Digital Floor Book – Using Showbie ‘Groups’ to support use of Floor books
CLASSES – Learning Journeys – Using Showbie ‘Classes’ as a digital learning journey
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS– step by step solutions
Join our demonstration Group to learn how to use annotation tools to capture children’s voice using code ECGJZ6.
You can join a group within your Showbie app/browser by going to the Groups tab at the top left and then tapping the spanner and going to ‘Join a Group’.
Within most photographs in this floor book group, you will find embedded comments and recordings, as well as evidence that children have engaged with the photos using the annotation tools, so ensure you tap the photos to explore the full depth of the documentation process.
Showbie
– Groups to create a digital Floor Book
What is it?
“Every day, children and adults learn from and with others, encountering new perspectives, strategies, and ways of thinking. Together, groups can achieve greater perspective and understanding than any individual can alone, but we need tools for sharing thinking and making learning visible to others.”
(Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2022)
Showbie provides a wealth of different tools to document children’s progression of learning efficiently. Using a variety of evidence, such as photos, video and audio recordings allows practitioners to capture the process of learning while sustaining quality interactions. The process of documentation becomes a meaningful part of the learning experience, taking place in real time as well as providing an accessible platform for children to revisit and consolidate previous learning in an engaging way.
“Parents, carers and families are by far the most important influences in a child’s life. Their support can play a vital role at all stages of education… Parents who take on a supportive role in their children’s learning make a difference in improving achievement and behaviour. The active involvement of parents can help promote a learning community in which children and young people can engage positively with practitioners and their peers.”
(Parental engagement and family learning, Education Scotland, 2021)
Parents have the right to be informed about their children’s learning and it has been shown that those who are actively involved in the process, make a significant difference in achievement and attitude towards learning. Showbie can be used to share children’s learning with parents and families real time, allowing them to be active supporters of the learning process, when it is most meaningful to the child.
Realising the Ambition (p.84), emphasises the importance of “seeing families as partners in constructing an understanding of the whole child….supporting families to develop confidence in their role as the child’s first and most important educator,”
Key messages
- Quality Interactions – Showbie is used on a portable device, enabling practitioners to efficiently record experiences without distracting from a quality interaction.
- A variety of media – Showbie supports a variety of evidence to be used as part of the documenting process, enriching the experience of reflection by children as they can view video, audio recordings and photographs.
- Clear links between posts – There should be clear links between the different Showbie entries so that it is clear to see the thread of learning – how it started and then how it progressed throughout the posts.
- Paper Floorbook to complement – The setting should have a physical floorbook that runs alongside this to capture anything that cannot be captured on the Digital Floorbook (such as children’s creations/child’s voice/child’s mark-making etc). There should be no duplication between the two.
- Child’s voice – Children should be encouraged to add to the Digital Floorbook where appropriate and effective, through adding their own photos/videos/speech.
- Parental engagement – Parents should be encouraged to contribute to the Digital Floorbook & their child’s learning as much as possible. Encourage parents to talk to their child about their learning evidenced at Nursery and encourage them to continue learning at home.
- Reflect on learning – Children should be given the opportunity to reflect back on the posts within the Digital Floorbook and comment/record their voice where appropriate.
- Links to other planning – There should be clear links between the Digital Floorbook and planning, as the learning captured will feed into any planning of the interactions, spaces & experiences within the setting.
Ways we can do this
Quality Interactions – Practitioners can continue their Quality interaction by talking to the children about what they are doing, using voice notes to capture, or supporting the children to capture experiences themselves using videos/voice notes/speech to text function on the keyboard.
A variety of media – Practitioner observations or comments can easily be added using + comment tool or by using annotation tools directly to photographs. Showbie supports the uploading of different media, so that practitioners & children can “Share to Showbie” from a different app e.g. videos from the “Clips” app or drawings from the “Sketcheschool” app, allowing children to share their learning and ideas in different ways.
Clear links between posts – Practitioners could use emojis effectively by using a consistent one for each thread of learning. Practitioners could also date or name their entries using consistent language so that this is made clear.
Paper Floorbook to complement – This can include entries such as a mindmap created together with children, drawings, tickets from trips out, notes jotted down by practitioners, hand prints/paintings etc. This would be made readily available for the children to engage with, hold physically in their hands and might lead to the children asking to see the media captured digitally of this learning experiences.
Child’s voice – Children can interact with photos recording their voice using the voice notes function or the speech-to-text function on the keyboard. Numerous voice notes can be added to one photograph capturing different children’s perspectives or opinions.
Parental engagement – Pin a post to the top of a group so that it is clear to parents how they should be engaging with the group. Encourage & strengthen family engagement – make it clear that comments are welcome, including documentation of learning conversations at home. Practitioners could suggest activities that could be supported at home to extend learning and parents could even document this themselves to share with the setting on a private group or email.
Reflect on learning – Retrospective reflections can be documented so children can reflect on past experiences. By tapping photographs, practitioners evidence these reflections at any time, using annotation voice note or comment tools. Each comment or voice note also features the date, allowing practitioners to track engagement easily.
Links to other planning – use experiences and outcomes to show the links between the Digital Floorbook and Planning documentation elsewhere. On other documentation, ensure to note that evidence is recorded in the Digital Floorbook.
Different types of Digital Floorbook – Consider the use of a group to document learning indoors and another for outdoors. Another possibility could be to use a group to document learning taking place in key worker group time.
