Early Childhood Technology

I find myself with a totally different kind of school year.  Wonderful, but somewhat technology limited so far.  This year I team teach with another K teacher.  You would think that it would give us extra time, but actually, it does the opposite.  Strange, yet true.

Daily, as I log onto my computer, I see my iGoogle account, and look longingly at BeTwittered.  How did I find time to check it so often last year?  How can I find some of that time, and search for some more technology to use in my classroom? Good question.  Do I need more technology than what I used last year?  Better question.  Is it just the time of the year and it will naturally progress as the children continue to develop – more food for though.

So what have I done so far?  Well, I actually keep up on my classroom blog weekly.  That is a good start.   I’m finally writing a post on my professional blog – once again using this rambling as a way to verbalize my scattered thoughts and work through them.

Hmmm.

This week for instance, I have found some little resources that I am incorporating rather nicely:  a little interactive book of The Gingerbread Man, activities from starfall.com and janbrett.com.  Of course, I also used an older piece of technology – a video of Jan Brett’s The Gingerbread Baby. That brings me to another technology tool I’ve been using – my public library’s website.  I choose items from the database, request them online and then pick them up – they’re ready and waiting for me – hooray!

As a side note, I found this great link for interactive stories that I’ve just got to share!  It’s from the UK, so many of the recorded voices have a delightful British accent.  Interactive Stories for Kids!

Now I found myself doing something else this year for the first time.  I have purchased a webkinz for my classroom.  We introduced it yesterday.  Around half of the children already have a webkinz and are familiar with the concept.  We voted on the gender – it is a girl, her name – Chica, and created a kinder friendly log-in and password.  During our Friday free play, we had the sight up on my computer and visible on our big screen television.  It was actually really cool to see my kinders work together to play the “CashCow” game, one child learning how to use my remote mouse to click, and his friends at the screen pointing to groups to click on.  Ok.  So now we’re playing video games in the classroom.  Is that technology at its finest, or is it going down a slippery slope?  Hmmm, interesting question – one I’m sure could be debated from either side.

So, maybe I’m doing ok so far.  Perhaps I need to remember pacing.  Also, it’s not just about the gadgets and gizmos but the content.  I do know that I’m getting the content across to my students, so perhaps I need to be satisfied with that for now.