I came across a blog post by G. Steve McCallum that really peaked my interest and made me want to explore the topic more.  Along with discussing the early childhood IT possibilities he brought up the security issues that we are forced to deal with in this day and age.

I suppose I have not put a lot of thought into this area for a while, just as we automatically do something that is ingrained in us.  Back in the late 1990’s I was involved in a grant funded program – project GET-IT; that’s goal was to train educators to effectively incorporate technology in their classrooms.  During each training session, we spent a portion of time educating teaching about the dangers on the internet.  This was before schools had internet filters and firewalls; we were just beginning to explore student internet agreements and such.  Now certain security measures are second nature to me – for instance, all my Facebook friends will be wishing me a happy birthday on a day that is not my real birthday, and when posting family pictures, I do not include the name of my mother’s mother.

So this poses another question.  Am I paranoid?  Perhaps I am.  However, I’d like to make it extremely difficult for people to find out pertinent information about me.  Likewise, on my classroom website, I don’t want to give away too much information about my students.   

I absolutely love using technology with my kindergarteners.  It is a wonderful tool for learning, exploring and sharing.   It is a marvelous marketing tool – a priority for me as a private school educator.  My classroom parents love being able to “see” some of our classroom highlights.  Pictures and voicethreads paint a much better picture of our week than our photocopied newsletter.  My parents also take comfort that I promise to protect their children’s identities.  I don’t need to use the smiley faces that one school tried, but instead have become adept at capturing pictures from behind, profiles and such and occasionally use editing to crop or blur as needed.  I want to share with all the great things we are doing in our classroom, but I refuse to give up my peace of mind to do it.  So over the top or not, that’s what it’s going to look like on my site, at least for now.

Now when I see other teacher’s sites with all those beautiful children’s faces that are engaged in learning I try not to cringe.  I hope that they have asked parent’s permission, do not include first and last names or the exact location of their school.  I hope my anxiety is for naught – like I said, I’m probably a little paranoid.  My goal is NOT to judge, I don’t want to overreact – call it my own personal phobia.  I also realize that perhaps I am the one to take it a little too far.  Hopefully if everyone uses a little common sense all of our young bloggers will be safe.

 

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.

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.