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?
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2 comments:
I can definately say that I also experienced some difficulty with reading the e-book to my child. I thought I was the only one, but I guess not! It made my experience and reflection hard to write because my child didn't pay attention at all. He always asked me "Are we done yet? I don't want to do this anymore." And I would be stuck at that point. I'm glad to hear that you realized something from it because I did as well. It changed my perspective completely. I do agree when you say that it will take a lot of creativity and time to incorporate technology into the classroom at such a young grade level. We can do it though!!
Well it is great that we both have learned from this experience and that will help us later on when we begin to teach. I am suprised that the child you read it do did not enjoy the experience. What age was he and which books did you read him? The child I read to absolutly loved it, I think too much for it to provide educational value. The other side of the spectrum, disliking the eBook can also cause a problem.
I am very glad that I got to participate in this assignment because it gave me another tool for my classroom. This particular tool, though, will require a lot of creativity and thought to incorperate them into the classroom. Have you come up with any of ideas for incorperating any of the stories you read? I really liked the Bugs story and I think you could go over the different types of bugs and then take the students outside searching. There are many others activities to do with this book. I am very excited to come up with more ideas. Let me know if you have any.
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