I am sitting on my last weekend of this
assignment and I am amazed about how much I have learnt on this course. I was
not expecting it to have the impact that it has on me. The easiest way for me to reflect is to categorise
my learning.
Connecting
people. This
has to be the overwhelming learning for me.
I was not expecting to feel so connected to my fellow students when I
read their blogs. For me I have
translated it into how parents feel and how we communicate with them. The readings of Wang (2008) and Yang (2009)
were very powerful and thought provoking to me.
If I could feel this connection to my group's teaching and the
experiences they had had with children.
What would parents feel if they read something similar about their own child? As a mum
myself I would have loved something to enjoy my children’s learning experience:
when I was not there, and at a time when I could take the time to relax and
enjoy the experience at home. From this
course I am taking a new journey into blogging in my own teaching experience
with the backing of my head teacher. Hopefully this will lead to a centre blog.
Safety. This was one of my
big concerns when I started the course.
The talk by NetSafe was really helpful and gave me lots of
strategies. The easiest one was, if you
have a question someone on YouTube will have answered it. During this course I have been dipping in and
out of YouTube tutorials on a weekly basis.
With that said. A comment on one
of my blogs from an internet safety team that I had used their YouTube tutorial:
http://donnapeopleplacesthings.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/what-can-i-hear-technology-for-enquiry.html#comment-form, Highlighted to me how much I still do not
know about the Internet. How did this
person know I had used their tutorial? As
a teacher I feel that having this healthy awareness of the dangers of the
Internet is justified when young children are involved. I have changed the centre laptops to do safe
searches in Google and YouTube and it has made me want to continue my education
in Internet safety further.
Te
Whāriki and National Curriculum. When we sat in class looking at these
documents my table scanned the documents for anything that mentioned
technology. What I have learnt through
my own blogs, commenting and comments I have received, is that technology falls
into all the principles and strands of our curriculum document. That really opened my eyes as my group had so
many other ways of looking at technology throughout the document (Ministry of Education, 1996; Ministry
of Education, 2007).
Children’s
world. My
readings further made me reflect on my role as a teacher. This is a different world to when I was
growing up and who knows what the jobs will be for children in early childhood
today . Have they even been invented? As a
teacher we have a responsibility to connect with our families and children and
incorporate experiences that flow from centre to home and back again. This was something that was echoed by my
group with lots of feedback about connecting with children and recognising the importance
of home. In some ways we are the learners
as the children, if we let them, show us their world. (Carter, 2010; Fleer &
Jane, 2011; Gibbons, 2006; Grey, 2011; Hertzog & Klein, 2005; Mindes, 2006;
Rosen & Jaruszewicz, 2009; Scholl,
2005; Tsantis, Bewick & Thouvenelle, 2003).
Image
of the child.
This was a big theme running through my comments to others and them back
to me. Technology really shows you what
you really think about children. How you
interact with them, what you allow them to do for themselves, how you allow them
to question, to problem solve.
I believe through this course I have
developed an idea that when I am qualified I want to group reflect with my
team. Philosophy is very important and
sets the scene for teaching. I think
this is important and when policies are made it has to come from the foundations
of: How we value children and see them.
Is it as confident, competent learners?
If it is our teaching environment needs to reflect this (Ministry of
Education, 1996).
Lastly, since reading Smorti (1999) I am
seeing technology everywhere and has brought new life into equipment that I
thought was mundane.
Thank you for an amazing course!
Reference
list
Carter, M. (2010). helping
teachers think about technology. Exchange (19460406), (191), 30-32.
Fleer, M., &
Jane, B. (2011). Design and technology for children. Frenchs Forest,
Australia: Pearson Australia.
Gibbons, A. (2006). The Politics of
technologyin Early Childhood in Aotearoa/ New Zealand: Fitting early childhood
educators in the ICT grid. Australian Journal Of Early Childhood, 31(4),
7-14.
Grey, A. (2011). Cybersafety
in early childhood education. Australasian Journal Of Early Childhood, 36(2),
77-81.
Hertzog, N., & Klein, M.
(2005). Beyond Gaming a technology explosion in early childhood classrooms. Gifted
Child Today, 28(3), 24-65.MacNaughton, G., & Williams, G. (2009). Techniques for teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice (3rd
ed.). Frenchs Forrest, Australia: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ministry of Education.
(1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga
mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa : Early
childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education.
(2007). The New Zealand curriculum.
Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Rosen,
D. B., & Jaruszeiewicz, C. (2009). Developmentally Appropriate Technology
Use and Early Childhood Teacher Education. Journal Of Early Childhood
Teacher Education, 30(2), 162-171.Scholl, M. (2005). Social studies
in action. Young Children, 62(4),
1-5.
Smorti,
S. (1999) Technology in early childhood. Early
Education, 1, 5-10.
Tsantis, L. A.,
Bewick, C. J., & Thouvenelle, S. (2003). Examining some common myths about
computer use in the early years. Young
Children, 58(1), 1-9.
Wang,
H. (2008) Exploring educational use of blogs in U.S education. US-China
Educational Review,5 (10) 34-38.
Yang,
S. H. (2009) Using blogs to enhance critical reflections and community of
practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (2), 11.21.
