|
ECE 912
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in the "gabiluci" journal:
|
08:04 pm
[Link] |
Last Journal Entry?
Is this our last journal entry?
Anyway, when looking at this weeks article it made me think of my half brother, who does not live with me. Sometimes, Ireally wonder if the computer is the new gadget that people use along side of the television, game systems, and other technological devices to keep their children busy as they get their work done. What ever happened to spending time with your family and doing non techy things that require little to no money spending. What happened to playing outside with a ball or coming up with something to do with other kids in your neighbourhood. I know that if I was to ask my brother 7 years old who attends school outside of his immediate community if he can go and play with someone on his street he wouldn't know who to play with. There are clearly lots of children his age living on his street but it seems like his parents feel safer if he stays inside than if he is playing outside where he can not be as constently supervised as at home. I guess that could be o.k. but who is really supervising him inside. Well for my brother it is one of those gadgets. He has almost been programmed to grab the remote and turn the T.V. on if he is playing or sitting in front of the T.V. no joke! It is like outomatic, his little 7 year old hands simply reach out and turn that darn T.V. on when all I was looking for was a little sibling interaction! I did not realise how much technology had been infiltrated into him as when I asked him if he wanted to read something to me and he dissapeared upstairs. I thaught he was going to bring me a book down so that we could cuddle on the couch, drink hot coco and read a nice book together. Instead, I heard him hallaring after me from the upstairs computer room, so... are we going to read?!? He chose this disk and the computer started reading for us. At first I thaught it was great...I could rest my voice but then I realised that what he was really intrested in was all the pictures he could push and the things they could do. He must have seen/read the story a zillion times before but when asked what the story was about...all he could tell me is, "Hey look what happens when I push on the rocks!" I remember doing those games/story telling too. I also remember getting caught up just as my brother in discovering what happened when I pushed the buttons and not even getting to the end of the story. The difference was that I could do it as a separate activity instead of T.V. or anything else and my time was always limited. My brother on the other hand calls it "READING A BOOK/STORY" !!!! Am I already coming from a different world than him? I mean he has lots of books but now I can see why they are much more boring than the average computarised version. I really hope that children do not become total slaves of technological advancements which were only supposed to facilitate us as human beings not impair us as in many ways they have. Who knows how to make coffee without a coffee maker? Who knows how to do large number math fast enough without a calculator? Who still uses the post? Who would rather go visit a friend than call her and stay on the phone for hours? Have we already become slaves totally dependant on our own creations?
Current Mood:  busy
|
|
03:49 pm
[Link] |
Week # 9
Haalloo people!!!! :-)
`` The role of technology in early childhood education, birth to age eight, is a controversial topic. Parents and educators have concerns about potential benefits or harm to young children. Critics contend that technology in schools wastes time, money, and childhood itself by speeding up the pace and cutting down on essential learning experiences (Cordes & Miller, 2000; Healy, 1998). Proponents suggest that children should have the advantages that new technologies can offer. Thoughtful observers are concerned that while exciting and potentially valuable things are happening with children and computers, we may not be using these tools in the best ways, or obtaining the results we expect (Healy, 1998; Kleiman, 2000). ``
The first paragraph of Van, Ellis and Railsback (2001) really stuck out for me because it resembled a little like something that I had previously said in reflections to a different article. It also stuck out because it underlined my own beliefs about people`s views towards computers/new technology and young children. I have my own belief about this view. I was taught that too much of something that seems to be good at first may not be so good in the end! I think that computers and their use by young children can be just that. Teachers, need to find meaningful ways to incorporate computers into their teaching and if they do not know what is age appropriate or meaningful to their students than maybe they should either gain more information before exposing their children to it or dropping it altogether.
Children should learn through play as much as possible especially during the younger years. Therefore I think that it is important for educators to recognise the computer as another tool for learning in their classroom rather than a tidious activity that children need to sit at and do a certain task like learning to tipe! I think that the importance for children to learn to properly type at the computer while they may just be learning how to hand write letters and what they look like is really pushing the line too far. At the same time, this is also one of the main activities that I have seen teachers use computers for. I think that the sort of activities that children should be doing at this age should be more discovery base of a story, screen and if anything is to be used it should either be touchscreens or the simple mouse, which is a co-ordination / orientation skill in itself.
I have used educational mouse clicking games such as Sami`s Math House or Reader Rabbit as part of Science or Reading time and I have found children not only become more exited about their own directed learning but more currious about the computer. Children are exposed to images in a book, they are read to and encouraged to explore book reading. In the same way a computer can be used for children to explore, get read to and overall discover the information that a certain computer program has to offer them. We would not expect children to learn how to write a book or answer questions to a book from the begining. So, why are so many educators expecting children to learn to write/type things so early on. I think that educators who choose to use the computer within their classroom should have to take a computer class which may enlighten them as to the uses of different softwares that can be appropriate for various age groups/curriculam related topics. What do you think?
Current Mood:  happy
|
|
01:35 pm
[Link] | While doing this weeks reading it made me kinda laugh a little! The reading itself I found to be really, kinda....BORING....just because I am not soo much into history and this one was kida dence as well but, I did like the diagrams!!! Ok well I definetly try to find a positive in everything!?!? Anyway, Joseph Lancaster’s Educational system style reminded me very much of a high school teacher (history/geography). It seems like although Lancaster’s system eventually failed/died down, I can still see its influences on some teachers’ teaching styles which still lingures to this day. The example that I can give you is Mr.M(we will call my former teacher) Mr.M hardaly ever actually taught a lesson. In fact it was us, the students who presented the course materials in interestig ways....in other words we taught ourselves and the teacher not only marked us on what we were learning from others but the ways in which others were able to explain and make us understand the topics of the course. I remember how we used to rely heavily on the overhead projector as our main ways to get our information accross and now I can link the use of acetates to Lancaster’s use of big boards/posters. At the head of the class would be a student or a group of students just as Lancaster’s instructor students. In a way at first many of us were excited by getting the oportunity to use the same sort of media as the teacher. We were all excited to put information on a small acetate and then to reflect it, inlarge it and expose all the students in the class to it. However, this was only good as long as one of us in the group actually knew what we were talking about.(our topic) We were called the experts group, which meant that we were supposed to know a lot about the given topic. However, there were times when none of us actually knew what we were talking about. The media in this case the overhead projector was supposed to help us get our information across. It was supposed to simplify things but it also reduced face to face communication which I believe lead to many disadvantages. The teacher student interaction also felt very strange. Furthermore, children interacted with the media but not so much with their classmates in socially approriate ways. That is that there was always some sort of power inequality within the classrooms between the students. I really disliked this teaching style! Did any of you have to do this?!?
Current Mood: accomplished
|
|
11:03 am
[Link] |
Week 5 Reading
Hey guys, sorry this is a few minutes late but I had some major issues with my Mac and I could not open the text from home so, this is the earliest I could come and read the text and do my writing on it.
Anyway,in our readings I realised how real our use of technology and the affects of it on our society is. It seems like our society has shifted more towards a wireless world. Both wired and wireless opportunities have forever changed our day to day social relations, routines and our cultural activities.
In relations to computers and literacy practices and the use of computers in education I have very mixed feelings. I have seen computers work wonders for certain children in helping them learn but I have also seen many children get overwhelmed and confused. When it comes to using computer as a group work assignment, I do not really believe in it. It is almost like when children take piano lessons in a group setting and one child plays and all the others watch until it's their turn...if they get one. Often the child who may happen to have a computer at home is the one in charge often not listening to other group members suggestions and clicking away. This I have seen in higher levels like grade 5 and up. As for younger children, I find that the key board is too complex and confusing for children and as an educator I would rely on a click game/program which can also have it's educational values like "Sammy's Math House" or "Reader Rabbit". The importance of the use of technology within a classroom setting in my opinion is not as important as the programs used and what they are teaching. It is similar to the importance of the contents in a book. I think that if you have access to computers than why not use them? The important thing is to use computers only as part of your lessons to enhance or add on to children's experience of the subject(math, science, reading, etc.) As teachers we would not use just one book to teach something, you would do a number of activities. So, the use of technology can be one of the activities used. What do you think?
|
|
04:54 pm
[Link] |
Week 4 readings
O.K. so, I read the two articles and they made me think about a number of things. First of all, the article written by Howard Rheingold made me think of the relationship between teachers and technology and their students and technology. In a way, we as educators are to teach students of the possibilities of technology and how it can be used and how it can be useful to them. In another, we need to use technology in ways that are not simply functional, as it has often been used in the past but in ways that are meaningful to students. The first few lines in the Howard Rheingold’s article underlins that adding new technology within school environments does not necessarily improve children’s education. This is especially refered to the use of internet to which many schools across our nation have become hooked up to. As mentioned in the article, students learn best if what they are learning is of some interest to them and if they have some sort of meaning to them. Howard Rheingold talks of the use of programs such as MOOSE Crossing or MUD to teach students. These sort of programs are not only formulated to be age approriate but they also promote self-motivation, self-direction, peer - support and it promotes children to be activaly engaged in the process of writing and creating. Internet should and can be used in a variety of ways and not just as a conduit for information. The article by Walt Whitman also talks about these similar kind of programs where words are used to create characters and imaginary places for a variety of people of various ages and interests. These sort of programs are not just a class based program but they are world wide with the help of the internet. It seems, that when looking at both articles over, the years the rapport between people and the internet have drastically changed and so, should the ways in which they are used within the school settings if they are to be used at all.
Current Mood: thankful
|
|
09:14 am
[Link] |
First Readings
So, here I am trying to repost my 1st reading responce again because it did not appear the first time...O.K. so this entry is on the readings about the blogs. I now have a little better understanding I think of what exactly blogs are. From what I understood according to Mr. Nolan is that there are three actual main types of bloggs. There is the Greymatter which is for those power computer geniouses, definetly not me. I guess they are a little bit more complicated so, those kids we called the icon nurds in high school would probably come in handy now...do we have any of those in our class? Anyway it is for the more experienced computer people. Not me! The second is the Livejournal which is what I am using right now and it is in my opinion not so easy yet but hopefully with more practice I will get to learn what all the buttons do, and how I can modify, move things and basically learn to run this system rather than it running me, which has been the case so far. Live journals are interactive which means that other people may see your work but there are different buttons which allow you to choose who can see your work. In addition to that, when you read other’s live journals you can choose to read about things that only interest you, you can join communities and stuff that talk about your interests that way all can share.(community) Apparantly the easyest and most sophistycated so far out there is in fact the Blogger. It has been expanding over the years and adding on features, they would be the main competition at the time as they include other forms of technologies other than the standard computer. (cell phones,etc.:-) I haven’t looked at any of these other forms of bloggs yet has anyone else? Which ones do you prefer?
On a side note as we all are being exposed to this “Blogging” what do you think about Orlowski’s paper which underlined or I should say mentioned the study done on the Polish population which found that many of the bloggers were in fact teenage females. I find that there was a negative feeling given off by the wording used to describe what young girls were using the blogging for and calling it less interesting than other subjects that people could blogg about. I think that it is great that young girls could in fact do this from their own home. What better place than an internet system where no one really knows who you are and you can talk about your problems and ask questions you may not be comfortable asking others face to face?!? My only concern is that there are adults or professional individuals who can guide in some way the answer to some of the questions that these girls may ask. I think there should be someone who had phone numbers or help strategies etc. In the case someone wrote something which required more help than any of the other girl’s her own age may be able to offer. What do you think?
|
|
07:54 pm
[Link] |
Getting Started
Woooohooo...I think I did it...well, i'll definetly find out if I didn't...Anyway, this has been an iteresting experience, there's soo much on this web site and so many things and ways to go to the same plance. It can get confusing, or maybe it's just me... I'm just happy the BACK button still works so I can cover up or not loose too much time each time I push some button I would shouldn't have. It's nice to ask people around you who help...expecially if you are at the same point and working things out together. O.K. so, I've been having lots of issues with sending my posting out since I did not get the e-mail I sent a duzen times to my ryerson account!!!! So, now I,ve just saved this. So, I think that I have basically posted this almost everywhere possible, even in places where it really should not have been posted! :-) Well, hopefully one of the places I have posted it will be o.k. I have made many mistakes and will probably continue to do so but at least I am learning...I think. I really wish that I could have had more assistance from people who finished their work first (were there any who had extra time???) Anyway, if anyone out there finishes before me please come and help me...if I need it I would really appreciate it as I become a little more confident with the computer!:-)
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gabiluci's journal