One of my favourite movies growing up was “What about Bob?” It was a movie about Leo (Bill Murray) who was in constant therapy. His therapist instructed him to take baby steps to help him on his way. Along the way the therapist loses his mind and Leo of course is able to save him using his baby steps therapy. It’s funnier than that, but this is a blog about technology and not Bill MurrayJ.
So far the series presented by the school district has been very informative and there has been a great deal of information downloaded to us. Ideas like using twitter with our morning announcements, students creating movies, using KIVA for teaching Global citizenship, and on an on. As teachers who frequently like to go above and beyond there is that inner push to start using all those big ideas right now. But I teach Kindergarten…
I have always wanted to teach Kindergarten since I completed my first practicum. After teaching a few years of Grade 5 and enjoying the students and incorporating technology into my classroom I finally got my chance to teach Kindergarten this year. I love interacting with the little sprouts and the sheer joy on their faces when you tell them to find the hidden “F” in the class and they burst out in giggles when they finally discover it taped to my back. However I missed using technology to create bigger projects and the students ability to present that in a digital format.
As the saying goes “Rome was not built in a day”, and just like letters and phonemes take time to learn, so does building a foundation for using technology in meaningful ways. I have changed my paradigm a bit, building a strong foundation of skills they can use in years to come. Yes, there are still many great ways to have meaningful ways to use technology in Kindergarten: Educreations as a tool to draw and label or have students voice record and draw what they have learned in a unit, Scribble myStory or MyStory which allows them to draw and record their own story ,a myriad of ABC items to help print letters the correct way, and for those Daily 5 folk out there, ABC mouse orbook flix to have students listen to someone read.