We feel like video games could be useful in some ways, but not in others. Video games such as the ones described in the text could be too complex for early childhood children. The content could also be inappropriate. World of Warcraft is all about war and Melissa said that you could make people have sex on the SIMS games. I think learning communities are a good idea, but parents and teachers should definitely monitor their child's use of the websites. I like the fact that it follows children's interest and let's them go deep with it. It's important that students become familiar with technology while they are young because almost every career requires some use of technology.
Chapter 10 Presentation:
Rethinking Learning- We shouldn't graduate and then be done with learning; we should be life long learners. Also, we shouldn't just memorize information, we should teach students how to research and find information as they need it.
Rethinking Motivation- Children should be intrinsically motivated to learn. Children should be able to research topics that they are truly interested in and could see themselves using in their future personal life and career.
Rethinking what is important to learn- There are some things that we learn in school that are necessary for everyone to know and there are other things that students may never need to know. The schools could still teach the same content but do it in a way that they are teaching other types of functional, relevant skills the students will use such as forming hypothesis, testing ideas, researching, problem solving, collaborating, etc.
Rethinking Careers- Almost every job is utilizing technology. If we want people to be able to pick up these skills as they enter the workforce, we have to teach them how to use them before hand. It becomes very natural when you grow up with it.
Rethinking Transitions- School should help children figure out what they are interested in and guide them towards accomplishing those goals. Perhaps provide career paths.
Rethinking Educational Leadership- it would be really beneficial to have a technology expert on school campuses. A lot of teachers want to use technology in the classroom, but do not know how to carry it out. Just having one workshop on a piece of technology is not always sufficient in terms of helping a teacher to feel comfortable using it.
Rethinking the role of government in education- more money, more standardized
Contemporary Issues
The Sum of All Thrills: a theme park attraction to encourage children to explore careers in math and engineering. I think this is a good way of making students understand the importance of learning math concepts. It gives them a real-life application when they are sitting in class learning things they think they may never use.
The effects the internet has on social interactions: Technology is a good thing, but parents need to monitor their children's use of it. children still need to spend time with family, go outside and get physical exercise, and engage in pretend play with friends. We have learned in our classes that pretend play in the early years is extremely important to pretty much all aspects of child development.
children finding what they need on the internet: Research shows that children try to find information online differently than adults. They need to be taught how to effectively and efficiently search for information.
Instant messaging and text messaging affecting students' writing: children's grammar, punctuation, and spelling is going downhill. They get so used to the shorthand they use when texting or instant messaging. Some research has shown that as long as teachers set expectations for student writing, students don't typically use it in their academic papers.
Cool Tools
Draw anywhere: a free account allows you to construct three diagrams. I may use this for my thematic unit now.
Don't put any personal information on it because anyone can view the diagrams on the website.
Google Lit Trips: Read a book and then follow the characters journey on google maps.
Flickr: used to upload pictures. You could use it to document events during the school year to show parents and other relatives. You must get permission to put photos online and you can't identify any student by name on the web.
Gabbly: Make your own chat room for any website. You can make it private to use in the classroom so that random people can't join your chat. Very interesting, I've never heard of anything like this.
All of the cool tools that we learned this semester I have saved to my delicious. I hope that I can find ways to use them in the classroom.
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