Reflective Blog:

25th April 2011

Reflective Blog:

I have found this journey of the individual project very new as I have never done blogging and this was a great form of technology to help foster and challenge my own learning, and yes it was challenging at times but this gave me knew knowledge and ways to figure things out - and this gave me an understanding of how children might feel when they are introduced to new technology and to overcome obstacles.

This whole experience links to my own personal philosophy that I will encourage each child to strive for excellence, to encourage all aspects of the child – physical, emotional, social, creative, cognitive, cultural, and language skills. By having effective communication with parents, and work team I will build and maintain relationships with children and their families; through an environment which each child experiences the joy of learning and developing self-confidence and self-esteem. It is challenging to encourage and inspire children to learn, grow, think, and reason for themselves but I know these skills are necessary as they go on in life as competent, capable, confident learners.

For my own personal growth I found the blogs useful as I received several comments from my classmates. Anderson states that, “One of the key elements in professionalism is not just what you know, but how willing you are to share your knowledge and information” (Anderson, 2006, pg 52).

These proved insightful as the comments raised questions or ideas that I hadn’t previously thought of, in which I could integrate into practice, also by being able to put across my own ideas to my classmates and offer advice to them about their blogs, I felt empowered. This was due to the feeling that I was helping through contributing to there own learning and teaching. And as Smorti highlights, I too am “a learner, my ideas about technology are still developing, and I expect they will change as I continue to research and reflect on what is happening for educators and children as we explore technology in the early childhood curriculum” (1999, p. 9).

By reading other classmates blogs I was able to see the different technology they use in their own centres – and this gave me a greater understanding of what technology means to me and other people.

Even though my Individual project finishes here my extension of children’s learning will not. I will continue facilitating them in their interest and together the children and I will discover new technology and possibilities, to foster each other’s learning.

References

Anderson, M. P. (2006, January/February). Professionalism: The missing ingredient for excellence in the workplace [Electronic version]. Exchange,        49-54.

Smorti, S. (1999). Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, No.19 Autumn        1999, 5-10.

The many possibilities that music has…

18th April 2011

The many possibilities that music has…

We all know that technology is all around us, and one exciting thing that technology gives children is music…

Today we had a very busy ‘music day’ where we devoted the whole day on music. Before getting to this day myself and other teachers have noticed that we were in need of more musical instruments and that a lot of children were having conversations about the wiggles, hi5 and other favourite children songs, so after having discussions at mat times about our ‘up and coming music day’ we discussed that there would be 4 children bringing in music and dance DVDs from home, and 6 other children that would bring in their favourite CD’s to sing and dance too, and all children to bring in some sort of resource/material to help make a musical instrument.

Research demonstrates that involvement in music and movement activities from an early age helps children develop good social and emotional skills. Research also links social and emotional development with school-readiness and even with higher academic testing scores. It's no surprise. After all, the same skills that foster emotional security and social success - skills like confidence, curiosity, cooperation, self-regulation, and good listening - predict cognitive achievement and academic success as well.

The day of our ‘music day’: Our ‘mat times’ we watched, danced, and sung along to various DVDs that children had brought in from home.

Te Whariki states that “children experience an environment where they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive” (MOE, 1996, p. 80).

At our ‘art time’ we used many ‘technologies’ to help create our own music such as paper, cello tape, crayons, rubber bands, boxes, scissors, etc to make musical instruments, there was a table set up for the hot glue gun where a teacher was their to help guide children with this.

And throughout the day we played various CDs that the children had brought in from home, where we danced around (Mamma Mia – was the best CD of the day!)

Wright stats that; “through dance, children learn to be aware of and responsive to the nonverbal communication of others. They develop observation skills, which in turn lead to personal and interactive physical-emotional responses” (Wright, 2003, p. 235).

I believe that music is primal; and perhaps it is the one worldly thing that can take us through our emotional world to touch the sublime. Our children not only deserve music, it is an essential ingredient in being human.

After this ‘music day’, myself, teachers and the children had the chance to sit down together and reflect on the previous days event, and from what the children loved about the day was that the children loved going home and choosing their favorite music DVDs and CDs and bringing them to the centre to share with everyone. Another great thing that kept coming up was all the musical instruments that the children had a chance to make and play around with – they all enjoyed having turns using the hot glue gun.

Our next big project that seems to be where we are going to head to is, creating dress ups/costumes to dance in and the children have already started to design what they want.

Bring on the sewing machine!

References

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He wariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa/ Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Wright, S. (2003). Children, meaning-making and the arts. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Prentice Hall.

What else can the printer do?

11th April 2011

“What else can the printer do?”

Today I brought in my personal printer for the children to explore its many uses; as the printer at our centre is in the office (where children aren’t allowed to go).

When I had set up the printer on the table, I was quickly photocopying some of the children’s art work to put in their portfolio; “What else can the printer do?” S asked as she saw me lift up the top to photocopy some art work. “It can photocopy things” I replied “how does it do that?” S asked again, I could see S and a few other children were curious at what I was doing – lifting up the lid – putting a piece of paper in – pressing a button – then out came the picture – as well as the original picture still being there – now we had two!

Taking S’s question “What else can the printer do?” I asked the children “what else do you think we could photo copy?” “ME!” D shouted excitedly, D and the other few children around laughed, another child said “you can’t photo copy yourself!” “Should we see if we could photo copy our hands?” the children looked at me their hands, and looked at me with puzzled looks. After explaining to the children of how we could copy their hands that they could have a copy of their hands on a piece of paper, they were keen to get started.

S put her hands underneath the lid and I put the lid down on top of her hands, when the piece of paper came out, we noticed that one hand was a bit blurry, we talked about why this might of happened and she explained “because I moved my hand”, we did this again and she kept both her hands still – this showed the other children that when it was their turn that they had to keep their hands still to get a clear picture of their hands on a piece of paper.

Te Whariki highlights that " using many materials for different purposes enables children to recognise that different technologies may be used in various places and settings" (MOE, 1996, p. 95)

Once the children had their hands on a piece of paper, they were comparing the picture to other children, some put their hands on top to see that it was actually their real hands on a piece of paper!

After the children had looked at the other children's hands they wanted to photo copy many other things.

I found this learning expereince very valuable for myself and the children as by bringing in a printer for the children to explire they were able to discover a different use of the printer, and to photo copy their hands. This was something that was talked about day and many days after. And now my manager is going to get us a 'room printer' to capture many opportunities to foster children's learning through technology!

References

Mac Naughton, G., & Williams, G. (2004) Techniques for teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice (2^nd ed). New South Wales, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He wariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa/ Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

MacNaughton & Williams state that “placing equipment and material to promote social interaction between the children can help them to learn the skills such as negotiation and sharing which they need to create and maintain positive peer relationships” (2004, p.21).

A castle and princess

4th April 2011

A castle and princess

I have noticed that a few children have taken more of an interest in building at the carpentry table after I have brought in new resources (nails and wood), they used a variety of different technology to explore with such as using hammers, nails, wood; to construct their own buildings, houses, and castles. A lot of discussion happened during this learning experience about what they were constructing.

 

With lots of questions and discussions the group of children that were at the carpentry table decided to go inside and draw what they wanted to make to give them more of a visual understanding and something to refer to when constructing their own masterpieces. Te Whariki also goes on to highlight that children develop a perc

eption of themselves as “explorers” – competent, confident learners who ask questions and make discoveries (MOE, 1991)

A few girls drew princesses and took their drawings out to the carpentry table, where they used different types of technology such as bottle tops, wood, string, hammer and nails and the hot glue gun. These ‘princesses’ are now something that the girls love to play with outside, especially in the sandpit.

 

In this photo you can see a child using a hammer, nails, and a piece of wood to start his castle; over the few days of this process he then went inside and painted his castle.

I believe that from children being imaginative children can express their ideas in a way they would like to communicate or see in a result of something they can put together in a constructive form; from the work of Piaget it is known that perceptions depend on the world view of a person. The world view is the result of arranging perceptions into existing imagery by imagination. Imagination is needed to make sense of perceptions for example children creating different forms of construction like castles with ‘characters’, towers and other buildings…

I believe from this learning expereince children have created something that they were interested in and i was able to extend on this by providing the different technology children could help themselves to such as all the different resources available including the hot glu gun, paint, hammer and nails; as I believe that technology is anything that makes our lives eaiser - all these resources helped with fostering children's learning through technology.

What would be some other ways in which I can use technology to help foster children's interest in castles and princess?

References

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He wariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa/ Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Links to blogs I have commented on:

http://cathyyoung2011.blogspot.com/2011/04/technology-as-tools-for-creativity.html

http://creativechildren-mit.blogspot.com/2011/04/imagination-to-paper.html?showComment=1303596513742#c479361421478208173

http://niriasblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/taking-photos.html?showComment=1303597915835#c1822182153596075096

http://nikolastechnoblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-do-you-see-as-technologyand-where.html?showComment=1303599088771#c5349464347272582152

http://kristastechblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/technology-resources-for-infants.html?showComment=1303600557802#c6932040335885726730

http://tamarwk.blogspot.com/2011/03/martin-robot-man.html?showComment=1303601362878#c7525487135664776517

http://tamarwk.blogspot.com/2011/03/welcome-to-blogging-for-people-place.html?showComment=1303603450070#c1289580776295031849

Blog #1 - Capturing the weather

Capturing the weather
28th March - 1st April

Lately I have noticed a small group of children have been interested in the weather and looking up at the sky constantly.
While I was outside with the camera a child wanted me to take photos of him up on a big blue box, while he was standing up there he looked up at the sky and said “it’s going to rain today, I heard it on the radio”.

Later that morning we went out and a few children pointed and talked about how dark the clouds looked.

A few children had turns of taking photos of the dark clouds.

Te Whariki highlights that “children develop the ability to represent their discoveries using creative and expressive media and the technology associated with them” (Ministry of Education, 1996. p. 88).

When we went inside the small group of children that were interested in knowing more about the weather went with me to go to the printer to pick up there pictures they took of the clouds.

At mat time, we all talked about the different types of weather we have, and how we can find out about the weather; some children pointed to our classroom weather chart on the wall and a few children shouted out listening to the radio and the news on TV, and another child said “on the internet on the laptop”.

Smorti (1999) states that "technology is a creative and purposeful activity aimed at meeting the needs of opportunities through the development of products systems and environments (p.5)".

From our group discussion at mat time, one child came up to me later that day and asked if we could “look at the weather on the lap top” “sure we can use the laptop to go on the internet to see what’s happening with the weather”

A small group of children gathered around and we went on a website: http://nz.weather.yahoo.com/ to look at the weather and what is happening. We talked about what the little pictures meant – such as its going to be sunny and cloudy and it might rain. We then talked about the New Zealand map and where Auckland is on the map, and this later brought us to go to our New Zealand map in our class room and talk about where we are on the map – as this gave some children a more visual understanding of seeing the map on the wall and on the internet.

Later that week, I had a parent coming to me asking if we are learning about the weather as her child had wanted to watch the news on TV about the weather.

And I had another parent come in and say that his son wanted to show him that you can see if its going to rain on his laptop. It was good to see that children are extending on their learning from the centre to home, with using different technology to find out what they are interested in.

I believe that when children observe different experiences such as when it’s raining children are asking questions, making theories, reflecting on their findings about what is happening. And as Smorti highlights, I too am “a learner, my ideas about technology are still developing, and I expect they will change as I continue to research and reflect on what is happening for educators and children as we explore technology in the early childhood curriculum” (1999, p. 9).

Reference List

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He wariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa/ Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Smorti, S. (1999). Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, No.19 Autumn 1999, 5-10.