Technology in Kindergarten

In the morning after all of her 1/3 sized people arrived in her class and took off their coats, Ms. Grube announced that Mr. Weinberg was coming to their class. She announced that he would be bringing something.

Mr. Weinberg brought a whole tub of digital cameras. In a semi-circle the students gathered around Mr. Weinberg as he explained how the digital camera worked. Students listened intently and worked hard to control their excitement.

Ms. Grube and I went over how to use the camera, how to take good pictures and a couple rules. The rules were designed to keep the cameras and the children safe. After the brief explanation, Ms. Grube paired up the students and Mr. Weinberg handed out cameras to the pairs. Then Ms. Grube gave students little prompts for them to follow. “Take a picture of something red,” she would state. Or “Take a picture of something that represents spring,” she explained. Students followed directions.

This was the first day, what we called an introduction day, of a project that requires students to work together and use digital cameras. On Wednesday March 7th, 2012, students were given a clipboard, check list and a digital camera. In pairs students participated in a “letter sound scavenger hunt.” A few students got “hung up” on taking pictures of the letters instead of taking pictures of objects that start with the letter sound. After a couple corrections students understood the difference. Students alternated taking pictures of objects that represented each letter and its corresponding sound in the alphabet. The student not taking the picture had the responsibility of checking off the letter on a piece of paper on a clipboard.

In 2003, 87% of all jobs involved using a computer in some way. The percentages of jobs using computers most-likely has not decreased. Exposure to technology at an early age is a great way to get students ready for their lives after school here at Cattaraugus Little Valley.

Using a digital camera is a simple way to help emerging readers learn phonics in a different way while exposing them to technology. Students were also required to be responsible with the cameras and to get along with their peers. These skills are important for all of us but is especially important learning for kindergartners.

Students in Ms. Grube really enjoyed this project. Most students were able to complete the project and find all the letter sounds. Now, Ms. Grube is taking the cameras and is going to print out a picture book for each of the students and have them write about their pictures using inventive spelling.

What is Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows users to converse with large or small audiences with a text message-type blurb in a 140 characters or fewer. Messages or “tweets” can be sent via text message, from basically any mobile device.

The experience on Twitter really depends on how many people “follow” you and your tweets and who you follow. Some people find that the people that they follow have nothing but negative things to say. Others say that they find out information from Twitter that either mainstream media has not cover yet or will not cover because mainstream outlets do not find it important. m a regular computer or a mobile device. There are also a bunch of third-party Twitter applications that allow users to create time-delayed tweets, organize tweets into search-able columns by topic or rank tweets by popularity worldwide.

Still others use Twitter as a tool for social justice and helping to cause positive change in the world by communicating ideas and beliefs that benefit people. During the massive and destructive earthquake in Haiti, a plane from the program Doctors without Boarders was attempting to land in Port-

au-Prince. The plane, filled with critical life-saving supplies, was unable to land due to the U.S. Air Force having taken over the airport. People from all over the world started tweeting to the U.S. Air Force’s Twitter feed and an hour later the plane was able to land. At one point the U.S. Air Force tweeted back and said they were working on it.

What can Twitter do for students? Like any type of communication tool,

Twitter can be used for negative as well as positive uses. One negative use was reported by KNWA, which is a Television Channel from North Western Arkansas. Three teenage girls were “picked up” for bullying a fellow teen on Twitter. The student who was bullied did not return to school for 3 days because her self-esteem had been so damaged.

Other students have had their self-esteem affected in a positive way. Oscar Lozoria, a shy 14-year-old student from East Los Angeles, said that after tweeting in his high school social studies class, his fellow students no longer made fun of him. Oscar goes on to say that he is respected by his peers for his thoughts that his classmates see in the form of tweets. Osc

ar said that, “They see me as somebody now, like an equal.” Here is the link to the

CNN article.

No matter how you view Twitter, it is important to know about. Whether you are sending out tweets about how many pancakes you ate for breakfast or are receiving tweets from authors who have written books you are reading in class, this new type of communication is something to be aware of and is not going away anytime soon.

My Learning at #CMK2011

This is my second post about Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference. This post is focused on my learning around my project. I learned many things at this conference. Some of the things I learned about had to do with engineering, electrical charges and gear ratios. If you missed the previous post, I created a cell phone charger that was powered by the pedeling of a bicycle. Also, some of my learning is explained on the Constructing Modern Knowledge blog here on a post called "Impossible!"

Here is what I learned about gear ratios. Really the only gears that matter are the ones that connect directly to the energy source or the output. All the other gears just transfer gears and really do not matter that much. Gears can be geared for speed or for torque. If your input gear is small and your output gear is small your torque will be great. If your input gear is small and your output gear is large your torque will be low but your speed will be high.

I learned a bit about creating an electrical charge. In the early stages of creating the cell phone charger, I wanted to see how much electricity I could create by self-powering a motor with my hand. With some help, I was able to connect a volt meter to the electrical output of an engine. I then cranked the engine with my hand. I was only able to create a .033 volt charge, which is very low. I did feel that I would be able to create more voltage by pedeling a bike than just turning a crank with my fingers.

I also learned that the only real electrical part of a USB port are the outside pins. There are 4 pins and the two inside pins are for grounds. I did not worry about the grounds since the electrical charge I was creating was not harmful. With the help of a friend, Elias, the female end of a USB port was sodered to the output wires from the engine.

The last thing I learned was the idea of over engineering. When I was young and I would get scared my father, who is a chemical engineer, would always tell me that I do not have anything to worry about because things (air planes, roller coasters or bridges etc...) are over engineered. I remember being a young child and getting on a plane. I was affraid but my father told me that I had nothing to worry about because engineers had designed the plane 300 times stronger than it had to be. Basically, whatever mother nature or human error, to a certain extent, “threw at the plane” the machine could handle it. I finally learned what this meant. When creating the cell phone charger I realized that I could create something better and in the long runs save myself time by over engineering. Basically where I could put one support I put two. Where I could put one stopper I put two. Where I could put three braces I put four. This made my charger virtually indistructable, which is a good thing because the vibration of the bike caused problems.

I do want to take my cell phone charger a step further. I want to make the charger out of an old VCR or outdated computer or other recycled materials. I think it is great for the environment to make energy from human powered devices made from recycled materials. As of last week, I purchased a $.99 electric can opener from Goodwill and am slowly turning my learning from Constructing Modern Knowledge into a real product prototype that I can use on my bike.

My Experience at #CMK11

My experience with the Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference was like no other. I was able to hear from experienced

educators like Johnathan Kozol, Lella Gandini and Mitchell Resnik. I was able to choose a project and finish it to completion and I even have vid

eo documentation. I was also able to work elbow to elbow with Brian Silverman, Artemis Papert, Cynthia Solomon, John Stetson, Brian C. Smith, Claudia Urrea and others. The incredible thing was that you could not tell the participants from the instructors. I also got to talk to scientists. I spoke with Marvin Minsky and Derrick Pitts. At this conference it is difficult to label a person so I will just call all of us educated tinkerers.

Gary Stager asked all of us to take off our teacher hat and put on our learner hat. This request varied much with different teachers. I was able to take off my teacher hat and emmerse myself in learning. I even neglected a lot of my emails and did some work on my project in the evening in my room. On the first day I stated that I wanted to create a cell phone charger that was powered by a bicycle. I was able to make it.

Another great thing was working with educators from all over the world who have like minds concerning ideal uses of technology. If you have ever asked the question “how do I teach problem solving?” then this conference is for you. If you choose, you will be put into situations where you will have to solve problems.

Should Screen Time Be Limited (Continued)

The whole year of 2010 was a very interesting year for me. Each year I make resolutions or create goals in different sectors of my life and do my best to accomplish them. I often have mixed results at my resolutions and my goals. Last year I created two publishing goals. One publishing goal was to read a book and record a book review for my local NPR affiliate. Here is that work. My next goal was to publish something in Learning and Leading, a magazine published by ISTE. I actually tried to publish in this magazine previously but was rejected. Unbeknownst to me, I was pitted against, in a duel of words, with Dr. Gary Stager. Gary is a leader in the edtech community whom I greatly look up to. Of course, I won the argument but I still feel that my 500 point/counter point stance could use further clarification, especially after Gary highlighted this poor attempt at a “faux debate” in a blog post not to far in the past. I must iterate the point that Gary and I did not know, at the printing of the original article, which side of the argument we were lobbying for. Here is the pre-published article.

I have three main points that I want to clarify. (Child=Student; Not all screen time is equal; limits are love)When is a child not a student? For that mater, when is a person not learning? I too believe that schools have very little jurisdiction of what a child is taught in the home, what parents should expect of a child and what that child is exposed to. I do not think that it is unreasonable to coordinate with the home about content. If Suzy is learning multiplication facts, wouldn’t it be great if the parents could do 15 minutes of flash cards a night. This is not an unreasonable expectation of the school. It is even a greater gift to a child if the school collaborates with home to help a child learn about his or her interests. By the way, these interests might not be on a state standardized test. If learning is a 24 hour, 7 day a week natural occurrence, then shouldn’t we consider a child always a student? And if you except the “child is always a student” premise then should parents limit screen time? And Yes, there is a screen time hierarchy. It does depend on what you consider screen time. I do not think that I consider, as a part of the edtech community, that all “screen time/screen-based activities as equivalent.” I hope that I am not a part of the “imaginatively bankrupt,” but I would let a child create a musical score to his or her video voyage to the center of the Earth, discussing all the layers of our planet before I sat that same student in front of a projection screen to let them watch the movie Marley and Me. On the same note, I see way too many children at Applebees playing Nintendo DS’s at the table waiting for a meal when conversation should occur. Give me a break. Parents and teachers should not placate their “student” with electronic devices because it is easier to let them zone out and avoid any risk of an augment with a disagreeable teen. Also, when children are engrossed to the point of zombies in their electronic devices they are a lot less likely to bug or touch each other in an effort to annoy, which seems to be an activity that my 8 and 11 year old cannot avoid. Parents cannot let their children sit around and “eat bonbons all day.” If we limit bonbons and screen time we are being the 24 hour educators we should be and are not being “capriciously mean” or in any way shirking our responsibilities as parents.

My son, while using an iPod Touch on my home wireless, downloaded the app “Sexy Monster Trucks” when he was 10 years old. My Internet at home is not filtered. I would rather teach about limits that are self-imposed rather then authoritatively handed down by some kind of automatic filtering system that blocks my father’s website because he works for the “lubricants” division at the American Refining Group. My son did not know what the word “sexy” meant so he looked up the word on YouTube. He got an education. He uses my iTunes account so I got an email about this app he downloaded. I asked him about the app and at first he lied and said he did not download it. Then I said that I would investigate and that is when he came clean. I was not going to punish him until he lied about it and it seemed he felt so guilty that he wanted some kind of consequence. So, for a whole month he had no screen time. He actually limited himself and did not watch TV or use a computer of any kind for a month. A transformation occurred. He became more articulate, talkative and more thoughtful. He even read more on his own. He was looking for a limit and in someway he understood that I cared about him even more because of the consequence that I handed down. I cannot imagine how inarticulate and mind numbed my son would be if my wife and I had no screen time limits.

The number one predictor of success for a child is their ability to delay gratification. Setting limits teaches children how to delay gratification. I wrote a previous blog post and I recently read a WebMD article about this very topic.

Setting limits are very important for children because they are always “students.” Watching “Fred Clause” during school and not creating your own video game using the program Scratch just further emphasizes the point that not all screen time is created equal. And sometimes children are looking for us (the village) to set limits and many times those limits are a sign of caring. And in this day and age, a caring adult in a child’s eyes can have a lot of impact.

(All Photos are in the public domain and were found using creativecommons.org)

Can This Job Go Over Seas?

Can This Job Go Over Seas?

Click here and please listen to this story (August 24, 2010-Morning Edition)

To be honest, I think the job of "remote caregiver" can go over seas. But this story from NPR begs a couple questions. Are we as educators preparing students for a growing job like "remote caregiver?" Is it easier to build relationships with people from our own country? If I say yes, am I xenophobic? With the aging of the baby-boomer population, will the technology of wired homes help our economy or hurt it?

I heard this story the other day and just thought it was interesting. A few years ago there was much talk about "preparing students for jobs that have yet to be created." Well, the job of "remote caregiver" was not around 10 years ago. What do you think about the questions I have raised?

Is It “Us verse Them” in Your School?

Is It “Us verse Them” in Your School?

I refuse to perpetuate the “us verse them” mentality that I have encountered all my previous 7 years as a teacher. It is not always possible to break the “us verse them” mentality or cycle but where ever possible I try. I also refuse to perpetuate this mentality in my current role. I am co-principal at BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Service) Summer School at Wellsville Central School in Wellsville, New York. Currently, I am a graduate student at Niagara University and attempting to become a future school leader. As part of my internship I have given myself the humorous title of Co-Principal. It’s humorous because, Dan Denner, the other Co-Principle has been the principal here at summer school for 4 years, been a summer school teacher 8 years and has been teaching at Whitesville for 12 years.

We have about a dozen students that smoke across the street, off of school grounds and before school starts. The law is actually pretty clear about under age smoking and loitering around schools, but that is not a direction I really want to go in. I think for some school administrators I’m taking a “different” approach by trying to get to the bottom of why they smoke. I am trying to build a relationship with the students and it seems to actually be working. I often go across the street to talk to them. I affectionately say while crossing the street “Good Morning young lung polluters.” I often say, when I leave, “you young lung polluters have a great morning.”

As co-principal, I’m not sure what to do about it. Calling the police for loitering or underage smoking will, in my mind, not accomplish what I want. Getting the kids in trouble will basically continue the “us verse them” mentality and make them more untrusting of adults. Allegany County is the poorest county in New York State and many of these students have some financial difficulties. According the Ruby Payne’s research, “the only thing that can break the cycle of generational poverty is a caring relationship with an adult and education.” I have tried to create a rapport with the students who smoke and I’ve made efforts to try to guide them into caring about themselves on a very general level. We have also suggested to students about calling their parents and basically the students say “go ahead, cause that’s how we get them [cigarettes].” Nothing seems to work so, last Thursday I took the matter a step further. Near the smoking area I stapled signs to a telephone pole. Actually, they were just little fliers that had pictures of healthy lungs and smoker’s lungs. You could see the black asphalt lung compared to the red, vibrant lung very clearly.

I spoke to a summer school teacher, who is a teacher from Wellsville. I asked him if there is always a group of students who smoke before and after school and he said “yes.” I asked him why he thought they did this. I asked him if he thought it were just students making poor choices. He said no. It is different than that. He stated that it has to do with people not wanting to be told what to do. I agreed with his point. He said that no one likes to be told what to do and that may not be why students started to smoke but it is probably why students continue to smoke.

This morning (8/11/10) I asked multiple students why they smoke. Many of them mentioned that their parents smoked. They also stated that their lives are very stressful. I continued and asked, “what is so stressful about your life?” One student said he has school and a job and his job is stressful. He works in a local restaurant where the kitchen is extremely hot. I did say that other people have stressful lives and they don’t smoke. I also told this particular student about the concept of reframing. I stated that you should try to find something that you enjoy that is healthy and substitute that activity for smoking. So, when you get the urge to smoke you should maybe listen to music, eat raw carrots and read an extreme sports magazine, as a possibility. I gave them an example that is near and dear to my heart. My mother, Susan Weinberg, smoked and she is actually a cancer survivor. I went on to say that my mom smoked and I don’t smoke. I also talked about my own addictions with food. Basically I weighed 30 pounds more than I do now, and there are people all around me that eat foods that I want to eat but I make health choices much of the time.

I can here the “other side of the coin” arguments about my philosophy centered around student smoking in my head. Kids should be held accountable for their consequences. The law is the law. I understand this as well. I also know that when kids continue to smoke around me that it damages my authority. I realize that I am sacrificing my authority to build relationships with these kids for a greater good with the hopes of positive decisions down the road when these students become adults. I would also like to make it clear that this is in no way a cultural issue with the school or the town of Wellsville. I believe that the issue around smoking is deep ceded in poor economic conditions, living environments where this behavior occurs and a misunderstanding of actions and one’s health.

I mentioned previously how people don’t like to be told what to do and students are no acceptation. The issue that I am having internally is the idea of “us verse them” and students learning that people in the future will tell you what to do. Students also need to realize that every time someone tells you what to do, it is not always “us verse them.” With that said, no matter what job you have, and there are different degrees of politeness, future employers are going to tell you what to do. A part of me thinks that students need to get used to people telling them what to do or they will never keep a job.

Let’s face the facts. These students are not going to quit smoking at noon today because I had this conversation with them. Really that is not my point. I am hoping that someday, maybe 10 to 15 years from now, that one of these students say “hey, remember that Mr. Weinberg? He was interesting. Do you remember the pictures of lungs he put up?” And I hope that after all the things they heard, seen or experienced pushes them over the edge and my efforts contribute to them making the tough decision to try to stop smoking because someone cared and made an effort.

I would love to know your thoughts on this matter.

If you are a student answering, just leave your initials, or at the most, your first name only. All comments are moderated before they go up on this blog.