I did all the work for my workshop presentation and then I came home and I’ve practically avoided all technology for two weeks.
Diagnosis: A mild case of techno burnout.
It can be great, practical and timesaving. It can also be a black hole for my time.So now I am looking for my happy medium.
My webcam is installed, I’ve used it once, and I have plans to use it once or twice this week. Check.
I’ve updated my classroom website, I’ve been meaning to for two weeks. I had to edit pictures to blur the faces of the children. We also just had a really fun and busy couple of weeks in the classroom. But now that’s done. Check.
I found some good kidspiration templates that I tweaked a little for my students and added a cool website link to one. Great tech lesson! Check.
I am working on my first blog post in a few weeks. Check.
Have been using my Google calendar to organize my most dreaded time of year – end of school year.
Hmm. Spring fever – probably an underlying cause to my techno burnout – actually it’s probably a bit of life burnout. My husband is currently working out of state. He’s been gone this time for about two and a half weeks and doesn’t return for another two and a half weeks. Add to that the end of the year classroom to do items, one daughter in dance class and another in soccer, not to mention homework! Oh, and yes, my youngest (4) has been tantruming again - I’ve been lucky, no teeth marks yet!
NO WONDER I FEEL BURNT OUT!
So, now what to do? Prioritize! My Ning activities - bare minimum. Twitter- it’s been calling my name, but I have to put it aside – that black hole thing I was talking about, so it gets the least amount of my time right now. I think all those awesome links I love to follow were leading to my feeling of being overwhelmed. So twitter is very limited, mostly just what I see on BeTwittered when I check my iGoogle.
Now I need to breathe deep. I just realized that just the process of writing this down helps me to identify what’s going on. There’s a great reason for blogging – public journaling of your thoughts. Could save people thousands of dollars they would otherwise pay a shrink (grins).
I was chatting with my girlfriend yesterday and telling her how my web/technology knowledge has tripled in just the past six months. Now that I’m not taking any grad classes, now can I fill up my time questing for knowledge. I shared with her about my webpage, my new blog, my nings and how much I adore twitter.
Tonight I participated in my first Women of Web 2.0 live chat at http://www.edtechtalk.com/. I saw so many names of people I follow at twitter. Some of my “tech heroes” were there, Jen Wagner, MariaK and more. I listened to everyone, and boy, did I feel out of my league. I have SO much to learn!
Will I ever have enough time to learn everything I need? But then, perhaps I need to think about what I am using and not worry about the rest right now. My next immediate goal is to get a webcam so that I can start using Skype. Hopefully I will have it in a week or two. My class really misses our classmate who moved to Germany at Christmas time.
As far as Moodle, Yugma and some of the other things that were mentioned in the chat. I’m not going to race to learn it all. I want to effectively use what I know, learn a little more and enjoy the day in and day out activities of my kindergarten class. Perhaps sometimes I get a little too caught up in the technology. I need to be a great teacher first, but one who effectively uses some cool technology.
April 14th, 2008 by agamache in MiAEYC · 3 Comments
The Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children conference is over and I’ve had the weekend to pull my thoughts together.
First: Although I enjoyed the conference and gleaned some new ideas for my classroom, I was disappointed. The last time I attended four years ago, there were quite a few workshops geared for kindergarteners (even first graders) as well as lots of others that were adaptable. This time, over a three day conference, I believe there were two kindergarten workshops, one of which was cancelled. Of course there was quite a lot to adapt, but still, it was disappointing.
Second: I don’t know if it was me or the conference, but it seemed like much of what was offered I didn’t feel like I needed to learn. Either it was too young, I’ve taken several workshops like that before, or I know enough that I could probably teach that workshop. It’s not that I’m being conceited; because there is so much that I still need to learn! What I think it might be, is that the conference has become geared for preschool teachers and daycare providers who need the basics that I learned in college and then in graduate school, where I got my M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education. The other kindergarten teachers there were for the most part, from what I gathered, from private schools. It may be that the public kindergarten not to mention first and second grade teachers are being sent to more skill related conferences. Disappointing as this conference is known to be so inspiring and teachers leave enthused.
Third: Most puzzling for me, is that the workshop I presented on Technology was the only one of its kind. Is that good? Is that bad? What does this say about the importance of technology in the classroom of the young child? Is it because the teachers don’t know how to use the technology? Is it because technology simply isn’t provided in these classes and what does that say about administrators of these programs.Then again, how much technology is available for preschoolers and kindergarteners? How necessary is it for them to be exposed.
Personally I think there is a variety of technology offered for little children, and I use many different forms of it with my kindergarteners, for their parents as well as for myself as a professional. My children are not in any way intimidated by technology and eagerly attempt new projects and skills. Of course it does take teacher involvement every step of the way at this level, but it’s completely possible.
Hmmm, my thoughts have been pulled together, but there are still a lot of issues still needing further discussion.
Please comment on your thoughts.
Tagged: , computers, conferences, early childhood, kindergarten, MiAEYC, NAEYC, preschool, technology
April 10th, 2008 by agamache in MiAEYC · No Comments
“Technology won’t replace teachers. But, those teachers that use technology in their classrooms will replace those teachers that don’t.”
http://teachers20.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=598604%3ATopic%3A2439
Day one - MiAEYC ConferenceI am thrilled to be here, and I’m feeling very relaxed now that my presentation is over. Today I presented my early childhood technology presentation. I think it went well. Ultimately, besides sharing what I’ve learned, my goal is to find early childhood teachers to network with. I know that there are some preschool, kindergarten and lower elementary teachers out there doing lots of technology, but I’m hoping to create a place to congregate together. I would love to have a successful forum to share ideas, lessons, successes, failures and solutions. I hope that forum might be my ning - or someone elses - I’d love to know if someone else has a successful group of early childhood teachers who are interested in sharing tech talk for our classrooms.
I think about the quote above. We are seeing lots of technology in classrooms, but it’s still not everywhere. Many of the early childhood classes have very little technology - do administators not think they’re worth it? I don’t know the answer to this. Meanwhile, as early childhood teachers, it’s necessary that we bring the 21st century tech skills into our classrooms and expose our children to them. If we don’t, eventually, other teachers will and it will probably be those tech savy ones.
Is there ever enough time in the day? Of course not! Today is an incredibly busy day for me. I have things I need to do before I leave for my conference tomorrow at home – I’m taking my husband and kids with me for a mini vacation so I have to pack for me and them. I have to leave substitute plans and unfortunately my students will be having two different subs. I am still putting the finishing touches on my presentation – nothing like waiting until the last minute.
OK, so everything I mentioned really has nothing to do with my actual job of teaching today. Isn’t that how it often is. Our administrators give us extra jobs and reports to do. Here, tour this parent around the building, and by the way, during your prep time, test this child and see if he is ready to start __next year. Hello! I’m a teacher. I need to teach!
You may not have the same exact situation as me but I bet you feel like you never have enough time. I had some unfortunate circumstances collide at the same time and became unavoidably busy. But isn’t that life. Something is always coming at us out of the blue. We are teachers, perhaps we are parents and spouses. That’s life. So now what do we do?
When you find our please let me know!
Meanwhile, when I actually stop to take a breath – which is what I’m doing RIGHT NOW – I can notice that my kindergarteners did an absolutely fantastic job writing three sentences about morning, afternoon and evening in their journals. When I listened, I heard them say; “Hey, there’s the phonogram ‘oo’ as in boot in afternoon.” “Yeah and there’s our new phonogram ‘ar’ as in jar . . .” Some really great learning is going on and once I can take a breath I can really enjoy it. I am very lucky – I have a job I love, how many people can say that? So, in spite of my busyness and my braining whirling, I am taking this break to readjust my thinking for the day, and I am putting myself back into teaching mode and am ready to enjoy my kindergarteners . . .as soon as they return from recess!
Tagged: administrator, blogging, busy, enjoying, frustrating, kindergarten, teacher, writing
I love technology. I love using it. I love finding ways to incorporate it into my kindergarten classroom. I have a privilege of working in a school with small class sizes and lots of technology. My students love their two tech times with the tech teacher each week, but they really have tech time daily with me. This year I decided to apply to present a workshop at the Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children (MiAEYC) Conference in April. “Fun and Effective Ways to Use Technology in Your Early Childhood Classroom” is the name of my presentation. So I submitted my proposal, was accepted and now I have to put together my presentation. I went into techno overload. I joined, perused and often tried every new technology idea that I came into contact with. I not only have a mission, but an obligation to create an informative presentation that Early Childhood teachers can take back to their classrooms and use! I created a simple classroom website. I joined a ning. I joined twitter. I started my own ning. (Still in it’s infancy.) Then I was asked - “Do you have a blog?” Humph. I don’t need a blog, I thought. What can I say that’s important enough for someone else to read it? Wow, these other bloggers are really good writers. They sound so . . . professional . . . so . . . grown up. I can’t do that. . . but then I thought about it. Ok, perhaps I won’t have the most profound blog - but it will be MY blog. If I want to show my co-workers and workshop attendees’ realistic things they can do, I should try them first. I really can’t knock it until I’ve tried it. So now I’m stepping up and acting like a real grown up professional. I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and giving this blogging thing a try. Who knows, maybe I’ll really like it.
