Children Can Record Reflections on Their Own Learning

You heard right, children can record reflections on their own learning on Storypark! We put children at the heart of everything we do. In a practical sense, this means our team ensures that every feature and tool we create, comes from a place of understanding and knowing that children will experience positive outcomes. We’re excited to announce a new tool that will support children to reflect on their own learning in a way that’s engaging and simple to use. It’s called child mode.

What is child mode?

Child mode is a tool that educators can use WITH children so that they can be active protagonists of their own learning. Communicating and collaborating about their learning with their educators and their family is a valuable way for children to contribute to their own learning journey, to really drive their learning in their own direction, and in their own way. 

It’s available in the Storypark for Educators iOS app, and is a mode that allows children to browse their stories in a safe way where they can’t accidentally post or delete anything. They can create both audio and video reflections, which an educator can then approve to be posted as a response to the story. Hear more about how it works.

Why is this important?

When we give children time and space to reflect on their learning, we are supporting them to develop an understanding of themselves as learners and thinkers. This offers the opportunity for them to recognise their strengths and challenges and to identify themselves as competent and capable learners. The fancy word for this is metacognition. Although educators understand that metacognition is essential for children to have a lifelong love of learning, and the skills to persist when challenged, it is often felt to be an aspirational aspect of their practice. Often it’s put in the “too hard basket” but child mode offers a way to involve children and weave in their contributions.

Encouraging children’s voices in their learning documentation is core to Storypark’s purpose and values. We want to hear from children themselves, and we want to encourage educators to seek children’s perspectives and view them as active participants in their learning journey.”

Child Mode creates space on Storypark for each child’s unique voice, enabling greater participation in their learning, and co-creation of ‘what’s next’.

Storypark’s purpose is to help every fulfil their unique potential by connecting and empowering the community around them. Child mode supports our purpose and gives children even more of a voice, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 13, “The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice”.

Strengthening practice

Giving educators the tools and opportunity to include children in their documentation and reflection of their own learning is in line with advice given to us by our advisors – some the world’s leading experts in ECE.

Child mode will:

• support the work and aspirations of many ECE services to more actively include children’s voices
• encourage recall and memory development for children by revisiting their learning in new ways, 
• support quality standards and practice requirements in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other countries 
• align with Early Childhood Australia’s resources on effective digital documentation (available free for all Storypark users).

“Including children’s voices will redefine the boundaries of what ‘family engagement’ means because families will be engaging with new forms of content. The way educators and organisations choose to use these tools (and support their teams to use them) will enable them to express their unique philosophies and approaches in a new way that parents love – deepening outcomes, improving the parent experience and strengthening the connection between families and educators.”  Peter Dixon, Co-founder, Storypark.

Want to learn more about using child mode? Learn more about this new feature here.