After our discussion this a.m. about using the web with preschool children, I decided to take look. When I started my career, it began with teaching young children. It is still one of my passions and I have definite opinions on what is appropriate use of technology for young children. For the most part, if it’s not hands on, I think it’s better left out of the curriculum. For example, I found a site where you could use a mouse to move beads onto a string to continue a pattern. I would much rather have the children hold wood or plastic beads in their hands and feel the different shapes and how the texture of the string is different than the texture of the beads.
With that said, I did find some really fun blogs by preschool and kindergarten teachers. The adventure started when I found this blog entry. http://blogs.preknow.org/insideprek/2008/02/web-2what.html She had links to other sites which I visited.
Miss Erin’s blog, http://misserinsclass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-03-22T15%3A22%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7, is an amazing look into the adventures of a preschool classroom. I’m sure Miss Erin has a real interest in digital technology because this would take a lot of work. I think about how fortunate I would feel if my child was in Miss Erin’s class. She blogged a short paragraph or two periodically – once every week or two – and usually had a short movie or some pictures to go with it. She made simple books for her class and added them to the blog so parents could download them and reinforce what their children were learning in class.
Then there’s Kathy Shield’s kindergarten class that makes podcasts. http://kinderteacher.podomatic.com/ They’re not just voice, either. There are pictures and video clips to go with podcast (I suppose that’s really a videocast?). It seems her students love to do these impromptu, inventive stories. They would script it themselves and make their own props. It seemed they love to listen and see themselves. (This is ancient history, but I remember when video cameras 1st became popular. We would tape movies of events and play them back – unedited – for the kids when we needed a breather. They never failed to be enchanted by watching themselves. Isn’t that why YouTube is so popular?) I’m sure the students in Kathy’s class get lots of positive reinforcement from parents and others for their work which makes the kids want to do it again and again.
Here’s a blog from a kindergarten in
Most of these sites had an Odiogo link so that the site could be digitally read to them. How fun for kids who can’t read “big” words, yet. Many of the teachers had included maps with tacks to show who had visited their site, perhaps a bigger concept than kindergarteners can understand, but it’s a great idea.
This is a really cool site where teachers can preview picture books. http://lookybook.com/index.php (I suppose kids could look at them on the internet, too, but, I think young children need to have the actual product in their little hands.) You click on the pages to turn them. There have been times when I was buying books for Head Start classes and had to buy them based solely on the description in the catalog. This is soooo much better and a lot more fun.
I think the most important use of Web 2.0 for young children, is to keep their teachers connected with each other and with parents. Most of the blogs I checked had RSS feeds so all new posts could be tracked by anyone interested. The ideas and experiences they shared with both audiences made everyone richer for the experience.
OK. I am appalled and horrified. I did a search on digital diplomacy just to see what turned up. The first site had been archived and I was forwarded to the U. S. Department of State for Youth http://future.state.gov/educators/index.htm. I clicked on the link for parents and educators, then clicked on lesson plans. There are three choices: terrorism,
Global Kids at http://www.globalkids.org/?id=1 is more of what I thought the State Department should have. Their online leadership program which includes focused dialogues (limited number of kids, defined time period, specific topics, etc.) would be a great model for any school that wants to become more involved in digital diplomacy.
Another nice site with a digital diplomacy type of agenda is Kidlink. http://www.kidlink.org/index.html I’m finding that many of these sites are thoroughly screened and password protected. This site has a lot of great preparation activities for their global interchanges beginning by discussing themselves with others face to face, progressing to viewpoints. I thought it was a great idea and they had lots of international support. For those who are multi-lingual, they’re looking for translators.
I was truly surprised that there weren’t more digital diplomacy class experiences. It sounds like such a wonderful way to help kids become globally connected. As mentioned in class, perhaps translation is a huge factor. Other than the first link, I had to really stretch to find sites, using words like global, international, penpals and leadership.
I looked into several other areas, but didn’t find anything really innovative that sparked my imagination today.
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