Sunday, November 7, 2010

Blog Assignment # 11



These children are absolutely precious. As you see in the video, these are 1st grade students at a school in Canada. One thing that I kept thinking about while watching this video was a thought that a lot of people think that technology in the classroom is limited to higher grade levels. They don't really see a need for integrating technology into lessons for younger children. It might be because they don't think the younger kids can handle it, or the teachers may not know how to be on the younger children's level when it comes to learning through technology. Seeing this class be passionate about sharing their work and seeing how the blogs allow them to know that other people can view and enjoy their progress in the class made me realize just how much of an impact these types of things can make on keeping students engaged in their work and wanting to do more.


I also viewed a Skype session where Dr. Strange talks to Ms. Cassidy about how she began using technology in her classroom and techniques she uses with her 6 year olds. I tried viewing this session all the way through, but, for some reason, my computer cuts out half way through on most of the videos we view on MobileMe Gallery. Perhaps it's because I'm a sinful PC owner, but I will do the best I can and comment on what I did get to see.

The thing that I liked was that Ms. Cassidy started out exactly how we, the students in EDM 310, have started out. She didn't know everything about technology, and began by learning how to create websites which branched off into blogging and other things and she is still learning about different ways to teach through integrating technology. This gave me some hope that I may, one day, be able to accomplish a lot of the things she lets her students do in her classroom.

2 comments:

  1. I also think that these first graders are very accomplished and are using technology well.

    Sorry to hear about your sick PC! But she continued on talking about twitter and other things that she uses.

    Good post Brandi,
    Keep up the good work!

    Stephen Akins

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  2. I also believe that first graders may be overlooked as a grade level in which they should not be learning things such as technology that early. Teachers may not want to handle those who are so young through this process because they think it will be a "hassle." However, it is an advancement to these students currently and in their future. I loved seeing how this class was so passionate about their work and that by others viewing their blogs it made them only want to learn and do more technologically.
    In the Skype video Ms. Cassidy talks to Dr. Strange about how she began the use of technology in the classroom. She was not advanced with it but she just started learning how to create websites and then branched off from there. Then she started blogging and doing lots more with technology. This gave me hope because I was just like Ms. Cassidy before this course and it shows me now I have all the tools I need in order to integrate technology into my classroom no matter the student's ages.

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