Technology Inventory

For the technology inventory, I interviewed Mrs. Chatterly, a first grade teacher. In her classroom, she has a TV, DVD player, VCR and CD/Casette player. They also have a computer lab that the students go to once a week and there is a laptop the teachers have access to if they want to do power points.

Mrs. Chatterly wishes she had laptops for the students in the classroom so they would be able to play math and reading games on them and also learn keyboarding and write stories.

The last question I asked her dealt with how comfortable she felt with technology and if she would like to learn more and use it in the classroom more often. She responded that she does not feel very comfortable with technology at all. She tried taking a 3 day technology class, but is 56 and says she got lost. She says she would like to take more classes in the future and would like to use more technology in her classroom.

PLE

I thought this blog was a good idea because often I'm sitting in class and something comes up and I think 'I want to remember that,' but I never do write it down or anything, because I know if I do it's just going to get lost anyway. So the PLE was nice to have somewhere to record these things.

The only bad thing is I don't have access to a computer at all times of the day and during all my classes, so I didn't get to use this for other classes. I think in the future I'm just going to take a notebook with me to my classes and use it in place of the PLE.

Internet Watching Assignment

I watched a couple of the Webcast videos and a couple of the Netsmartz videos and all 6 parts of the Frontline PBS reports. I had a difficult time watching these videos, especially the PBS ones because they were real stories. The stories were very disturbing. But I don't think I've ever fully realized the reality of these things before. It's pretty scary. After watching these videos, there is no way we will ever have a computer in a private space. It will be in a high-traffic area. And I definitely want to teach my children the reality of these things.

I remember chatting online a couple of times when I was younger, but I knew that I should never give out any personal information. Still though, it's possible that I could have left enough clues. That scares me. I'm glad I never really got into it.

I watched 60 minutes total.

Internet Reading Assignment

The article I chose to read was "Leave it Alone" by H. Burke Peterson.

I feel like I learned so much from these articles. I honestly didn't think I'd get out of them as much as I did. I think the biggest thing I learned is that pornography isn't the only addictive thing on or about the internet. The internet itself can be addicting, or playing games, etc. So, these are things we need to be careful of as well.

I think when I have my own children before allowing them to just get on the internet and do whatever they want, we'll have a family home evening lesson about internet and internet safety and we'll establish some rules as a family. Also, we'll get some sort of protection against pop-ups and dangerous websites.

I feel like what I have learned can help me to have a positive influence on my family and friends because I know the internet isn't bad. It can do a lot of good, we just have to be smart about it and use good judgement. But it can be used for good!

11-20-08

We did first grade, standard 5. We're using Star Fall.com and we're using the activity "learn to read." The children can use this activity to learn blending, which is a key feature to learning to read.

The next activity is for second grade mathematics. The standard I chose was #1. I wanted to find a way to teach fractions, so I went to mathforum.org/mathtools/. Then under "all courses" I selected Math 2. Then I went to "fraction topics" and to "real life fractions" and then you do the activities and click next to go to the next one!

Early Connections (Nov. 13)

In other classes I have been learning a lot about the importance of the way you set up your classroom in the primary grades. I knew it was useful for emergent literacy, but apparently it's important for technology as well. Some things to take into consideration when setting up your technology equipment would be to put the equipment somewhere the students can easily access it, but it's also good to put it somewhere against a wall so children don't trip over the wires, etc. Also, you want to put it away from the windows to avoid glares, and you want to put it somewhere that students are able to work together, but it needs to be in a place that it won't be too distracting to others in the class.

The article also talked about how using computers and other sources of technology can enhance communication and gives them opportunities to develop their language. The author of this article argues that children should always be able to work collaboratively on computers because this gives them the chance to share their ideas with each other, talk about what they're doing and assist each other.


The laptops were pretty neat. We would be able to use these laptops in the classroom much more easily because this way it would be easier to have one for each child, so you could use it much more often . I was thinking it might be fun to use the chat as a sort of classroom discussion...I'm not sure exactly how this would work but I think it could work for those who finished their assignments early or something. Also, there was internet which has obvious implications for the classroom. These are the two things we spent most of our time exploring.



IDEAS:
Digital Camera:
Take pictures of everything that starts with the letter A
Scavenger Hunt: A sign that has to do with safety, someone you can run to if you're scared and someone is chasing you, or something...

First thing to do when teaching them how to use a digital camera:
where the buttons are they'll need
Then help them make a plan first! This will help them stay focused and on task


How we used the digital camera: Kindergarten content standard 1, objective 1: Identify ways people look different.
We took pictures of different colors of hair. You could also do tall, short, eye color, etc. and each child could take two pictures in groups of say 4.