I have had this
book on my shelf for several years and not cracked it open. I decided to read it for a couple of
reasons: 1. My new principal is all about technology and
what classroom teachers can do on their own with it. 2. Our
computer teacher/support person has taken a principal position at a new school
and will no longer be there to bail me out.
(And I don’t think we are getting a new computer teacher and I may have
to teach my own computer classes.)
3. Yes, I did write down improving my knowledge
of technology for my professional goal and now I have to do it.
So it is time to
read this book. I have to admit I found
several good ideas to incorporate into my first grade classroom right away at
the beginning of the year.
Chapter
One is a lot of information
about the importance of using technology in Early Childhood Education the
author provides lots of quotes and evidence that give pros and cons.
The author, Brian
Puerling, provides a lot of forms that you can use to assess your knowledge of
the technology in your room. The form I
liked the best was the form about how to implement technology through the school
year. It is a basic chart that anyone can make on word.
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Technology
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October
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November
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December
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January
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February
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March
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April
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May
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Chapter Two has
a lot of great ideas of how to use photographs in your daily lessons.
Idea
1: Use photographs to help student develop
schema. I thought this was a great idea,
in fact I have done this in the past with some of my own photographs from
vacation. However you could google a
photograph and use it as an opener.
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| google image |
One idea I had was
the ducklings in Boston’s Public Garden.
I was telling the boys and girls I went there however I could not find
my photo. Several days later one of my
students brought in a picture of when he was three and he was sitting on the
mama duck. This was a great way to
connect to the book, Make Way For Ducklings.
This year I showed
my students for photographs I had from my visit last summer to Laura Ingalls
Wilders Schoolhouse. We used this as a
stepping-stone to compare and contract our classroom with schoolrooms of the
past. I projected the pictures on the
smartboard so that all the students could see them. I gave them some time to observe and process
the photographs. Brian Puerling writes
that “when children are given time to observe, think and reflect, they are
giving the time they need to build background knowledge necessary for a unit of
study. It was interesting to talk about why they needed buckets in the classroom.
Idea
2: Use Photographs to Facilitate Conversation in
the classroom. As the students look at
the photographs they will be able to “share connections and pose questions.” As I read this part I thought, wouldn’t this
be a great way to introduce the expectations of “Read to Yourself.” I have photographs of my first graders
reading and I thought I could put them together in a slideshow and show my new
students some good readers and we could discuss what it means to be a good
reader.
Idea
3: Put together a slideshow of the students for
different purposes.
I thought this
would be a good idea for several things:
·
Our
First Day of School (Post on Website)
·
For
Parent Night (Pictures of their kids in action on some of the things I am
discussing.)
·
Open
House (Something for new families)
·
Grandparents
Day
Idea
4: Have each student bring a photograph of their
family. This photo can be used for
several lessons, getting to know each other, recognizing similarities and
differences in families, have the students speak about their families..common
core. I generally have the students hang
up the pictures in their lockers however we could make a class book out of
them.
Idea
5: This is one of my own ideas I did in
kindergarten but I want to do it again in first grade. At my school we have church/reading
buddies. The first graders buddy up with
the fourth graders. We get together
twice a week, once we sit together for Mass, and second is reading or whatever
you want to plan with your buddies.
In kindergarten I
made a book with the pictures of their buddies and their names to help them
remember the names. I also used the
sight words, I am, to re-enforced reading.
I am going to do something similar however expand the sentence.
Idea 6: Use photographs to learn about Authors. This is on my areas to improve for next year…..Author/Illustrator
studies. By showing photographs of the
people who write and illustrate books you make them because real people. You can find pictures on their websites or google.
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