Organizing and Sharing Bookmarks

I am so excited the Delicious came into my life! This program has truly taken a habit that I have had for a long time, and completely revolutionized it. Postman would be happy because it solves problems that I have been working around for some time. I am a bookmarker. Big time. I have bookmarks on all of my computers, organized into folders and subfolders by topic. This is a bit of a challenge when you take into account my home laptop, my fiance’s laptop (which is regularly in my possession), my home desktop, my school laptop, my tablet and my school smart cart…not to mention my smart phone….all of which have become overrun with saved webpages. I thought I solved the problem when I discovered that the Google Chrome browser can create a shared bookmark section if you login on all of your devices. But, at school there was no way to coordinate those links with parents or coworkers unless I was emailing links back and forth. I am so excited that Delicious can do everything that I want and need it to do. I have already transferred over many of my save bookmarks. If you want to, check it out here!

I think that Delicious will come in handy for my kindergarten students when we start doing animal research projects. I can post a few good links up on the sight, and parents can log in and see my links and add their own. It will be a running list of resources and ideas that we can all contribute on. I think Delicious would, similarly, get even more use in upper grades that are more research based.

Before now, Instructional Technology in my classroom referred to the programs and devices that were already installed and in place that I could utilize to expand my students thinking. I agree with the book definition focusing on the design of instruction and the use of media for instructional purposes. For the first time, I am beginning to think of more student created means of utilizing technology: blogs, bookmark managers, wiki sites, all of these great ways to implement technology in a way that can be customized to each student’s individual learning path. I’m excited that I have all of these resources now to implement with my students.

I found it so interesting that the definition of technology has changed so much over the years. It is not surprising that it will continue to change and new technologies develop. I am hoping that I can find ways to continue to use all of the resources  available with my kindergarteners and that there will be more technology available for them to use as well. 

Using Wiki's in Kindergarten

Last week when the assignment was to make a blog I thought, “Oh this will be easy.” As I already confessed, I’m already a bit of a blog junkie…although I’m not great at the follow through. This week, however, I felt completely the opposite as I read the assignment. Not only do I have no experience with wiki’s, it is a term I barely know or have heard. As I read through the plan for the week, I thought “oh man, this is going to be struggle.” I am happy to report that I survived making my first wiki, and that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.  Here it is, if you would like to see it!: my wiki.

            The videos helped, a lot! I am not sure I could have successfully done it without them. Especially the video, Wikis in plain English. What I find interesting about this video is that it made the most sense to me, but did not utilize any actual screen shots of a wiki site. I also found the video, Wikis in the Classroom, very interesting but had a difficult time thinking about how I would utilize wikis for kindergartners while viewing it. I see how useful it might be in an upper grade, but kindergarten is a bit more challenging, technologically speaking. My kindergartners are not so independent and clicking between links on the navigation pane would be difficult for them.

            I found the readings, both the article by Tim O’Reilly, What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software and the Wikipedia entry, Wikis, to be equally difficult and interesting. I had to read through them each…a few times…before I understood what they were saying. I was feeling a bit like Charlie Brown when his teacher was speaking, the technical jargon was sounding a bit like “wah wah, wah wah wah” to me. I think the problem, for me, is that a lot of common technology terms are not common knowledge for me. Perpetual beta, scripting language, SQL, these are the terms that I had a hard time with, they aren’t everyday language for me. Sometimes I think I need things in 5-year-old speak (I am a kindergarten teacher after all.) None-the-less, I persevered and understood to the best of my ability what was being taught. What I found the most interesting about the O’Reilly article is what he calls “harnessing the collective intelligence” or utilizing the long tail not just the head, making sure to engage every user or the entire web. I never noticed before how interactive the internet is, and how every click on a website gets saved for future data.

          As I read this, I began thinking of my own wedding planning, and how I cannot open facebook, gmail, or other webpages without finding “suggested sites” such as David’ Bridal, Nordstroms, or “Paper Divas” listed on every banner. The internet is learning, too well, what my recent search history has been and it is adapting to my needs. (It’s scary how much I wedding plan apparently!)

          As a kindergarten teacher, I was most inspired by some of my own searching through wikis. I stumbled across this page, and thought, “What a great resource for a kindergarten teacher.” I constantly have parents asking about extension and enrichment activities, ways they can practice at home and asking “what was that activity you did yesterday? My son/daughter wants to try it at home!” I would love a place to compile that information and have it available for parents to access at home. Possibly, even, with a lot of practice, my kindergartners could chose activities from large navigation icons to use during centers or other times during the day. It could also be easily differentiated for learners working on specific skills at a certain level of difficulty.  

        I think wikis, very definitely, could have a purposeful place in my early childhood classroom. 

Documenting Student Learning through Blogs and RSS feeds

Ok, confession time…I have always wanted to be a “blogger.” In fact, as I was logging into Blogger to create this very blog, I found abandoned remnants of blogs past: a wedding blog I created to track my wedding planning, a blog I created as a camp director, a personal blog of my time spent living in Minnesota, and still others. I start them with every attempt to keep them up, and then forget all about them, or probably more accurately, get too busy. So, honestly, having the excuse to create a blog was exciting for me. I was happy to have (yet another) excuse to create a blog (with every intention of writing in it!)

Now, with all of my extensive blog “creating” experience, I never actually got far enough into blogging to create RSS feeds or really follow anyone else’s. It was something I had heard about, but did not fully appreciate…I can just look up whatever website I want to check in on, right?... That misguided opinion changed after creating one. I love it! It was so much easier, and is so much more convenient of a way to follow information. It is like my facebook wall, but with actual information! I’m hooked. (if it is anything like facebook, I will now check in several times a day!)

While creating my blog and RSS feed, I was thinking about The Cone of Experience. I think that blogs fit into the top 5 bands. Depending on what information is being supplied, of course, but blogs allow teachers to showcase verbal symbals (words), visual symbols (pictures), recordings (audio), motion pictures (video) and educational television (youtube clips, etc).

In terms of imaginative ways to use blogs and RSS feeds in the classroom, I would love to create a blog of my students reading their writers workshop stories aloud, with scanned drawings to accompany their audio. What a great way to “publish” their work. The ultimate writer’s workshop sharing celebration! RSS feeds takes a little more thinking about, but I love the idea of creating a page where parents can follow each other’s blogs and share parenting strategies and help them to develop a community of parents that supports their students. So much of kindergarten is focused on creating a community of learners, why not support parents in doing the same thing?

There are so many ways I can envision using blogs and RSS feeds as communication with colleagues and parents. If I worked with older students, I would use them as ways to communicate with my students as well. (While I’m a proponent of technology in the classroom….5 might be a little young for creating a social media footprint.) I use A LOT of photographs in my newsletters to parents. I love documenting my students’ work (and progress!) through photography. In kindergarten, so much growth happens during the year I have them as students, and it is exciting for parents to share in their child’s school day. Creating those newsletters, however, is time consuming and because of the number of photos I include, they sometimes have difficulty sending through email. I love the idea of creating a classroom blog to showcase student work. It also allows for using audio and video components that my publisher newsletter does not allow. If Postman asked, I would tell him that blogs and RSS feeds solve the problem of delivering big newsletter files to the parents of my students, and allows for an even better means of communicating with them on a regular basis.

My brain keeps spinning with new ways to utilize this technology! I feel so inspired to keep blogging…maybe this time I really will keep this up! J

Importance of Technology in the Classroom

What a contrast in opinions and attitudes towards the use of technology! As I began reading the Reigeluth article, I must say, I had a very positive response. I found myself highlighting, and making many notes in the margins of points I liked and agreed with.

As a kindergarten teacher, I whole heartedly agree that it is extremely important to meet the needs of each student. Reigeluth states, “Different children learn at different rates and have different learning needs, we can no longer to afford to hold time constant and allow achievement to vary.” This statement struck home to me. Kids learn differently. They come to school with different experiences, with different attitudes and with different needs. These needs must be addressed for students to be successful. It can no longer be assumed that one lesson fits all. Differentiation is paramount, in terms of both difficulty of material, and how the material is being presented.

Reigeluth continues on to discuss assessments. He believes that the form of assessments should shift to become more of a checklist, an “inventory of attainments” as he calls it. As a student meets that standard, he or she can check it off. This is where my experiences as a kindergarten teacher may separate me from other teachers. I could see this working in my classroom. My goals are such that I could see a system of “knows it” or “does not’t know it yet” working for my students. I also do not care if they learn their letters before learning their numbers as long as they know them all by the end of the year. For my kindergartners, I find myself presenting material in many different ways, over and over again, to ensure that it makes sense for all of my students in every context.

In contrast, while reading the Postman article, I found myself not making many notes or agreeing at all. His pessimistic view of technology, and really, the future of education as a whole, was disheartening to me. He states that technology is only useful if there is a direct problem that is being addressed or solved. In the case of education, Postman believes that technology is not helpful in addressing the purpose of school, which are “social and moral nature and have nothing to do with dazzling new technologies.” He warns that “school is to teach children how to behave in groups.”

I do not believe that integrating technology into the classroom disregards establishing teamwork, communication or cooperation. In fact, Reigeluth says it best when he says “Technology is important, but it would be a mistake to look only to technology. Fellow learners can be powerful agents of learning. It is often said that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Peer-assisted learning and collaborative learning can take many forms, but they all facilitate the social construction of knowledge.”

In short, how I view education is child-centered learning and inquiry based methods where each student has the opportunity to learn for his or her peers. Is there a place for technology in my classroom? Absolutely. Does that mean that my students sit in front of a screen all day long? No way. There is a balance. In my classroom technology fills in where experience cannot. I cannot feasibly take my students to the ocean to learn about ocean animals, but I can have an expert show (and tell them) on a video, so that they can have that experience. Although this does not replace actual inquiry, it supplements my students’ learning in meaningful ways.

Welcome!

This blog was created for EDT5410. I look forward to working with all of you this semester!