eBook Experience

For an assignment in class I had to borrow a child and read a eBook to her. An eBook is a book that is on the computer and has pictures, some that move, words like a normal book, and someone who reads the book. It pretty much does what a teacher would do when reading a book to the class. The readers have fun voices and are enthusiastic. Then I had to reflect on the experience and compare it to reading a traditional book to a child. I also thought about how these books would work in a classroom, specifically kindergarten since that is where I want to teach.

I thought that an eBook would be great for a kindergarten classroom. They seemed fun and some could relate to specific lessons that I would be teaching. Others had morals behind the story that are always good for children to learn. I was very excited to read the eBook to a child because I thought it would be successful. Against my expectations, I realized that an eBook may not be suitable for a young class. The child I read it too thought it was a movie. She was so fascinated by the pictures that she did not pay attention to the words or the story. She said, "lets turn off the lights and have a snack like we are at the movies." This was a big shock and challenge for me. How could I allow my students to enjoy the experience but still be providing them with a meaningful educational experience at the same time?

As I began to write my reflection my feelings about eBooks changed once again. I realized that if I was creative enough I could tie these books into my lessons and the children would still learn something. I was concerned that my students would think they were like movies and not learn anything. As the teacher it is my job to provide fun but educational experiences to the students. They can have fun reading these books but I can do projects as an extension of the book to make sure they learned something. Also, I realized that the eBook is just for support to emphasize a lesson. I learned that I have to be really creative to tie in technology into my classroom, but I can do that. I am very excited to graduate and use eBooks and other technologies in my classroom.

Also, I am curious to see how others eBook experience went. Was it anything like mine or completely different?

Did she cross the line?

When I went to observe in high school, I observed a freshman geography class. Before I even entered the classroom I was shocked by the teachers attitude toward the students. She was holding the door for the students as they walked in. One student asked if he needed is book and she said something along the like of "Are you really asking me that? I will chop you're head off." Throughout the rest of the class she referred to students as being dumb or retarded. She even told me that there was a retard corner in her classroom where all the stupid students sit. I was shocked about how she treated the students. I realize that she was just joking with them, but I still think that she crossed the line. Many of the students thought it was funny and joined in with her jokes. It was not that funny to me. What do you think? Did she cross the line?

Transforming Schools to High Tech Schoolrooms

The article called Toward a New Model of High-Tech Schoolrooms by Royal Van Horn discusses how it is more successful to transform a classroom rather than a school in terms of technology. Van Horn says that he has worked with 5 schools to help them become high-tech and only one of those was successful. The three things that made the one school successful were a hand-picked faculty, an enthusiastic leader, and a teacher evaluation system that made technology use a priority. Van Horn discusses that it is hard to include computers into a kindergarten class because they are on a routine schedule and computer time is not part of that schedule. In most cases, the only time the students are allowed on the computers is while they are waiting to go to lunch or to go home. He says that if you were to remodel your home, you would do it one room at a time; that is how a school should be transformed to a high-tech school, one room at a time. There are four approaches described in this article to transform a classroom. The first suggestions are specialized geography/Earth science labs at the secondary level. The second idea includes a planetarium, a 360-degree immersion theater, and a high-definition television production lab. These types of technologies will put an emphasis on oral language, which is usually overlooked in schools. In the next model, every student at a grade level or in a particular school is given a laptop computer. "A fourth approach to using technology in a school district might be to concentrate the technology in an all-out effort to narrow the achievement gap."

I think this article is useful for all teachers, teachers in training, and administrators. We are in a time where technology is present in everyday life. More and more educators are realizing this and trying to incorporate technology into their classroom. If this is to be done in a successful way, Van Horn suggests to do it one classroom at a time. If you try to transform the whole school at once, it will most likely fail. This article partly addresses my inquiry question: How can technology be incorporated into a kindergarten classroom? I know the tendencies of kindergarten teacher to only use computers before lunch or dismissal. I will try to use the computers and other technologies more often and incorporate it into the daily schedule.

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