Internet Interview

For my internet safety discussion I talked with my Mom who is 46 years old. We talked about what she had done right in the home and how positive my experience had been while living at home. We talked about how the safe environment really did help me avoid many crap items that are out there. Talking about actually exploring the internet more in our home and having her learn more about what can be done was still pretty easy since she loves learning and wants to know more about technology in general since I have some very technologically savvy brothers whom she normally goes to if she needs help. She likes to be independent so this was a good conversation talking about different programs and applications that I have learned about from this class. Overall it was a very positive experience.

Reading about Safety

For my fourth article I read "An Ensign to the Nations, a Light to the World" by President Gordon B. Hinckley. With all these readings I found a great emphasis on strengthening our families and our homes safety so that we can teach the importance to our children and have that good back up for teaching our children then the importance of internet safety. There was a major emphasis on educating our children on all the positive things that we can do with media, and then demonstrating them for our children so that they can see that media in and of itself isn't the bad or evil thing, but that it is evil people that twist it to make evil of it. As a parent you need to be aware and educated yourself and using media so that you can model for your children and be able to monitor them and give constructive feedback on what they are doing with media and how that can make it a better experience and be safe. The point of my fourth article was not to fear media, but to be aware of it's power for good and to use it for such while keeping far away from its evil. I plan on becoming more educated about what I can do on the computer so that I won't be ignorant of what is out there for my future children. I also am going to be more aware of what I do with media and specifically the internet so that I can have the important good example now for my future family. I already have talked to some of my siblings and my parents about what they are doing good in the home with having the computer in plain sight and limiting the time spent on it. We have talked about the bad things that are out there but I told my parents that we could also start emphasizing all the good that is there as well so that it isn't shunned altogether. These were good readings, I enjoyed the gospel focus on this subject!

WHAT I LEARNED!

There was this really good idea about using digital cameras and going around the students environments to find shapes that they are learning about. They then combined these and used iClickers to assess if the children knew what they were talking about when the shapes were pulled up.
The whole idea of assessing with iClickers in the elementary schools was fascinating to me! I have never used one in my classes, and then they talked about using mac notebook to rotate, flip, and slide letter and objects in front of the children. This seemed to be effective and the students stayed engaged.

Technology for ECE

View more presentations from gtheresa.

ECE Literacy Technology

Standard 1- Objective 1- a.) Listen attentively

I found this activity on Poetry for kids website under "animated poetry" with this activity the children will be able to listen and see the words on the screen of the poem getting read and then can be asked parts of the poem as recall to see if they really listened. This is a fun hands on way for the children to learn to listen attentively!

ECE Mathematics

Standard 2-Objective 2- b.) Duplicate and extend simple repeating patterns with numbers and shapes.

I found this activity in Mathtools and for this activity you are given a pattern and then have to continue that pattern like I did in the above photograph. The children will be able to extend and duplicate the pattern that they are given. The children are able to use hands on learning to finish these patterns!

ECE Technology Inventory

The teacher I interviewed was from the BYU kindergarten. They had a whole bunch of technology options in their classroom, they had a digital camera, computers for the children to use, overhead projector, tape recorders, a VCR, and multiple teacher computers. She said that she was able to even ask for different things and have them easily considered if she did feel some type of technology was needed. 

The teacher did say that she wished that they had a more accessible computer corner since it was cramped and the computers weren't very easily seen. She said that they really had a lot of technological options so she didn't have too many needs. 

She used the internet a lot to find pictures to go along with lessons, also to find some lesson plan ideas, she uses the camera to record many of the activities and subjects they are learning in class to share with the parents, and to make books for the children with as well. She mainly used the computer games occasionally as an extra center during the classes center time, so that wasn't something the children regularly used.

The question I wanted to know is since she works in a public school how was the comparison of technology between her two jobs? She responded that at the other school they didn't have the digital camera for the classroom, nor did they have the same amount of educational computer games that the BYU kindergarten did. She said overall you have to buy a lot more things if you want them. So this made me think what I have of my own and how much technology I plan on using in my future classroom.