Skill observations enable you to observe children by way of the recordings captured through IgniteTable. These recordings will show engagement with other children as they interact with digital experiences. The recordings provide educators with opportunities to determine if children demonstrate participation and understanding of the skill(s) in question. In addition, the recordings provide educators with the power to observe children as they naturally interact with peers.
Where Do I Find This Feature?
To get to the skill observations page, log in to Hatch Insights™ with your email and the password that you created upon activating your account. In the top menu, hover over IGNITETABLE REPORTS, and click Skill Observations under Other Reports.
Note to teachers: This page can also be accessed on IgniteTable, but for the best experience, we recommend using a computer.
What Is on This Page?
At first glance, you might think this page simply includes a list of the children in your class, but you will also notice small arrow icons on the right. These arrows indicate that there are additional details pertaining to the children in question. Before we look at the details, let's look at the elements from top to bottom.
At the top, you will see a blue bar that contains information about skill observations. Below this bar, you will see a filter bar. The filters enable you to narrow the children shown in the list or the skill cards you want to learn more about.
When a child's name is outlined in blue and you see a number next to the child's name, the number indicates how many skill observation cards are expandable for each child. Children with a green outline do not have any skill observation cards to view. This may be due to the fact that a child hasn't played yet or because you already submitted their skill observation.
Let's look at a child who has skill cards available for viewing! Each skill card indicates an experience that a child has played on IgniteTable.
What's on Each Card?
- Skill: This is the skill you will watch for within the recording.
- Domain and subdomain: These represent which domain and subdomain the skill is in.
- Game name: This links to a pop-up with additional information pertaining to the game.
- Blue box:
- Instructions: Please document whether you have observed the child demonstrating the skill.
- Example: Each example is specific to the experience the child played and provides information about what to look and listen for.
- Child Participated?: This is data pulled from IgniteTable. Each game has specific participation indicators related to the skill in question. This does not mean a child simply "touched" the table but that the child performed an action related directly to the skill in question. You can use this information to see if a skill was deserved or not.
- Recording(s): IgniteTable records snapshots of each game so you can quickly review the children's interactions and progress. When you click on the recording, a pop-up will open. (Don't worry! We will cover more info about the pop-up in just a moment!)
- If more than one recording appears, this means that the child has played the experience more than once, which may occur.
- Skill Observed: This is where you decide if you observed the skill in question. If you observed the skill, select Yes. If you did not observe the skill, select No.
- Notes: You can also add notes about the skill observation to this card.
- Submit Observation button: When you press this button, the card will disappear from the page. Don't worry. Your observation and all the information on the card can now be found within the Child Skill Detail page.
Recording Pop-Up
When you click the name of the recording file on the skill card, you'll see a pop-up that includes the video collected by way of IgniteTable.
- File name: At the top of the pop-up, you'll find the file name, which is the same as the game name. You will also see a time stamp, representing when the video recording was captured.
- Video viewer: This is where you'll find the video, along with video player options.
- Children in Play Session: The children who logged in to play the game will be listed below the video viewer. The name of the child you're currently observing will be in bold.
- If you notice a child's name listed that is not in the video, you can remove the child by clicking the X icon. Please note that this will remove all play data for that child within this experience.
- Delete Recording: If, for some reason, you need to delete a recording, click this button.
- Deleting a recording will remove the play data for that experience from all the children in the video. It will be like they never played that experience.
- Download: If you'd like to save the IgniteTable recording, you can press the Download button to save it to your device.
- Add Child: If you notice another child playing the experience and they aren't listed under Children in Play Session, use this button to add a child to the recording. This action will add a skill card under their name.
What Do I Need to Do Here?
Let's break this down into some easy steps:
- To see all the experiences that require you to watch skill observations, expand the bar accompanying the child's name.
- Evaluate the data within the video: participation indicators, recordings, and example of the skill.
- When deciding if the skill was observed or not, select Yes or No.
- Add notes (optional).
- Click Submit.
When you finish these simple steps, the card will disappear and you can view the next one! All your notes and observations can be found in the Child Skill Details Report.