I had a considerable drop in signal strength moving from a RAZR to the iPhone. The typical difference was 2 bars, which was awful at my house since I only got 2 bars there to begin with. The first thing they had me do was get a new SIM card from at&t, but that didn't really help. Later, when part of the touch screen stopped responding, I got a replacement phone from Apple and the new phone got a much stronger signal.
I teach 5- and 6-year-olds in a cross-age K/1 classroom. I work at a private school that funds technology generously. We have an interactive white board & ceiling mounted projector in our primary meeting area, a small lab area that has 4 computers, and a couple of laptops. We also have access to cameras for making movies, microphones for podcasting, and things like scanners and external hard drives.
The interactive board is magical. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but writing with a stylus and projected light gathers attention and engagement in a way that's significantly different from dry-erase markers on a whiteboard or chalk on a blackboard (which I still occasionally use.) In a typical lesson, I'll write some letters on the board, and then click and drag them around to make words. Sometimes I'll open a browser window and show a short video clip to go with the lesson. We write stories on the board that I can save, email, or put on our class website. During exploratory time, kids take turn using the board on their own to do freehand drawing with a kid-friendly image editing program.
Our podcasting so far has been about reading fluency. Kids pick a book they want to read, and practice it until it sounds just like talking. I record their reading, add a little music and publish the podcast, and then kids either listen at home or on the computers in the classroom. We publish books as well, where kids write and illustrate the content, I scan the pages, and we end up with a nice hardcover book that stays in out classroom library. The movies we've made so far have been about our classroom routines ("This is how we do reading," "This is how we do math," "Here's what to do to clean up at the end of the day.") I thought they'd be beneficial for the next batch of kids, but the procedural thinking that goes into making these helps the current class even more.
I spend a lot of time with the following questions: "What does technology add to this lesson?" and "How much of this should I teach kids to do and how much should I do myself?" I follow their interest and answer as many questions as I can when they want to create technology projects, but some things are just "teacher jobs." Kids in our class use the computers independently when they're playing math and reading software. They use the interactive board with minimal guidance. I set up the camera and laptop when they want to make stop-motion videos, and they shoot all the frames. I do the scanning for book projects, as well as most of the audio and video editing for podcasts and movies. We primarily use Macs, which have been very graceful at handling these media tasks. However, the interactive whiteboard company has been slow to produce Mac driver updates.
As I read all this, it may sound like we're using technology all the time. The truth is these kids are building, reading, doing math, and playing outside more on any given day than they are holding a mouse, a camera, or a microphone. Technology in our classroom is just another tool, and when used appropriately is extends, enriches, and chronicles our learning.
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I had a considerable drop in signal strength moving from a RAZR to the iPhone. The typical difference was 2 bars, which was awful at my house since I only got 2 bars there to begin with. The first thing they had me do was get a new SIM card from at&t, but that didn't really help. Later, when part of the touch screen stopped responding, I got a replacement phone from Apple and the new phone got a much stronger signal.
I teach 5- and 6-year-olds in a cross-age K/1 classroom. I work at a private school that funds technology generously. We have an interactive white board & ceiling mounted projector in our primary meeting area, a small lab area that has 4 computers, and a couple of laptops. We also have access to cameras for making movies, microphones for podcasting, and things like scanners and external hard drives.
The interactive board is magical. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but writing with a stylus and projected light gathers attention and engagement in a way that's significantly different from dry-erase markers on a whiteboard or chalk on a blackboard (which I still occasionally use.) In a typical lesson, I'll write some letters on the board, and then click and drag them around to make words. Sometimes I'll open a browser window and show a short video clip to go with the lesson. We write stories on the board that I can save, email, or put on our class website. During exploratory time, kids take turn using the board on their own to do freehand drawing with a kid-friendly image editing program.
Our podcasting so far has been about reading fluency. Kids pick a book they want to read, and practice it until it sounds just like talking. I record their reading, add a little music and publish the podcast, and then kids either listen at home or on the computers in the classroom. We publish books as well, where kids write and illustrate the content, I scan the pages, and we end up with a nice hardcover book that stays in out classroom library. The movies we've made so far have been about our classroom routines ("This is how we do reading," "This is how we do math," "Here's what to do to clean up at the end of the day.") I thought they'd be beneficial for the next batch of kids, but the procedural thinking that goes into making these helps the current class even more.
I spend a lot of time with the following questions: "What does technology add to this lesson?" and "How much of this should I teach kids to do and how much should I do myself?" I follow their interest and answer as many questions as I can when they want to create technology projects, but some things are just "teacher jobs." Kids in our class use the computers independently when they're playing math and reading software. They use the interactive board with minimal guidance. I set up the camera and laptop when they want to make stop-motion videos, and they shoot all the frames. I do the scanning for book projects, as well as most of the audio and video editing for podcasts and movies. We primarily use Macs, which have been very graceful at handling these media tasks. However, the interactive whiteboard company has been slow to produce Mac driver updates.
As I read all this, it may sound like we're using technology all the time. The truth is these kids are building, reading, doing math, and playing outside more on any given day than they are holding a mouse, a camera, or a microphone. Technology in our classroom is just another tool, and when used appropriately is extends, enriches, and chronicles our learning.