Stumble upon....

this is a site that I personally had not been able to try out until tonight.  People in my class seemed to enjoy this site a lot.  I mainly use my laptop and the Internet for looking up information and doing work.  I wanted to see if this site could be used for an educational purpose.

I found out that you could use this site for educational purposes, but be warned you need some free time and will have to set some of your preference up in order for the stumble feature to be the most beneficial to you. The only issue is that there is a lot of junk on the Internet so you could be searching for a while.  They call it stumble for a reason!

However if you do spend your free time on the Internet or happen to find some to devote to it you should check out this site.  I am always interested about learning new things.  This site literally pull random pages for the Internet that relate to a topic you are searching for.  You have to remember that when using this sit not all pages will be from creditable resources so use some discrimination when browsing!

Stumble upon

Looking for resources??

You are in luck!  I have stumbled on another website for your resource files!  I know it does not sound exciting, but I always seem to be looking for resources! The more I have learn about how to operate much of the new technology that is in our society today, the more I want to know how to incorporate it.  Education world is a great resource.  It covers grade levels from k-12.  It give tutorials for teachers on how to use applications.  Ideas on how to incorporate technology into lessons and into classrooms.  Even ideas on how to teach children how to use the technology around them safely.  

I hope you enjoy this site as much as I have. Education World-technology

Interesting Article

I thought this was an interesting article from Scholastic.com about the use of technology in early childhood classrooms.  It addresses the topic of if children can actually understand and grow/ develop from it.  Just wanted to share it with you all!

http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/using_technology.htm

Assessments

Assessments are a controversial topic in the world of education.  We cant work without them, but working with them sometimes seems impossible. 

I personally feel that  with all the stress on standardize testing  the children in our classes are missing out on a true education.  I feel that the tests limit the experience children can have, because there is so much pressure for them to learn what is on them.  There are less and less opportunities for teacher to customize their curriculum to their students.  To teach outside of the box.  If a class has a sudden interest in tractors  An educator might be forced to reign in the classes interest about this topic or skip it all together because it is not covered on a standardize test.    Since the result of the test reflect on the teacher's performance as well as the students, educators are under even more pressure to prove themselves through their students.  Unfortunately this means that teacher often only go over what is on assessments, because that is what has been deemed important.

I clearly understand the need to have a way to assess student learning and teacher performance, but I wish there was  a way that didn't take away from student learning so much.

Cameras for Children

I thought i would talk a little bit about allowing children to use camera in a classroom.

Children are fascinated with technology. They now make digital cameras that children can use.  These are simple function cameras, that can take some rough handling.  Allowing children to take pictures and document their own experiences  can be a great opportunity for learning.

One idea is that you could use them on field trips.  Children can take pictures of what they see.  Later on they can go back and look at the pictures and talk or write about their experiences.  They could use them to make posters and collages and share their experiences with their peers and other members of the community.

Another is that you could make a scavenger hunt.  An example of this would be for preschool or kindergarten.  You could have a shapes scavenger hunt.  You could give children a shape and have then take pictures of objects they see in their lives that incorporate that shape  ex Circles : tires, street lights, clocks etc.

The cameras are not too expensive and even having one or two in the classroom will being new opportunities to the students.

 Here are some websites that give more ideas for using digital cameras in the classroom.

Link 1

Link 2