Going Digital

During Tuesday's lecture, we watched a mini video that taught the usefulness of having kids use digital cameras.

I had never really thought of what it would be like to have an eight-year old play around with a digital camera for a class project. I'm used to saying (or hearing) words as, "Careful, easy now...oh, not that button, oh please don't smudge the camera lense with fingerprints...steady, gentle now..." whenever a child is in possession of a camera. However, I am beginning to have more faith of the tender care of a child. Sometimes, they tend to be more careful than adults and less accident prone...sometimes. As we begin to trust children more and allow them to care for items with value, I think we will experience something remarkable. The world seen through the eyes of a child couldn't even be compiled into one picture book! There are endless possibilities of creativity as we allow children and students to experience the adult world with direct supervision and trust.

Diving into Kidspiration

In yesterday's class, we spent time exploring an amazing program for students, "Kidspiration." This program focuses on main subjects including reading/writing, math, science, and social studies. Each subject includes multiple activities students may work and reflect on in order to learn and apply topics they learn in class.

It was easy to spend more than 20 minutes on one activity. I can only imagine how much fun students would have working together on fun learning activities through Kidspiration. This is a program that is worth the investment! I would love to have this program (or something similar) in my future classroom.

From Culture to Culture

In today's class, we took the opportunity to become familiar with Microsoft Excel. Although I learned how to master Excel years ago, it was great to have a mini refresher course (I forgot almost everything I learned!)

After figuring out information for spreadsheet, we worked on the CultureGrams site for our my.uen webpage. I chose to make a portlet for Japan since my best friend is from there. She has taught me so much about her culture and family life in Japan already, and it was great to learn more in addition to what she had taught me. I hope that my students will find my site to be fun and entertaining as they learn more about me through what I love most.

Sites 4 Kids

In today's class, we went over specific websites that may be useful to our future students in the classroom. One particular website in which I showed interest was in the World Book for kids. I remember having multiple sets of different types of encyclopedias as a child. Although I loved looking at the pictures and using the information for school projects, it was a hassle trying to locate the specific volume I needed. We never had the volumes organized in order. I always took the different volumes around the house and placed them in various locations. Now, with the Wold Book for kids online, students have easy access to updated information with the click of a mouse (this sounds like a catchy advertisement to promote internet resources for both students and parents). I could see myself using this website for many different projects and research papers in my classroom.