Friday, July 6, 2018
Final Narrative on Final Project
My Web Page Link
I created a Teacher Web Page for my final project in this class. I firmly believe that positive and ongoing parent involvement in their child's education is paramount that child's academic success. Wesch believes that collaboration is the key to success. As a kindergarten teacher, I want to foster a collaborative relationship with parents during the school year.
As a techno-traditionalist, I do communicate with families and colleagues via email; in class, I use such devices as computers, desk tops as well as chrome books. I access various websites to gather resources and new ideas. In addition, I am exposed Google Docs, Word, Excel, and Google Slides. As time goes on, I am hoping to transition from a timid digital immigrant to a somewhat digital native. I feel that Boyd's terms, immigrant and native are terms that can make people feel defensive or uncomfortable, I understand what he is trying to convey. I also believe that just because a young person may be a digital native does not make them fully capable of handling all the information that literally is at their finger tips. As teacher, I need to be able to help children process such information as well as help them navigate the internet in a responsible and meaningful well. In kindergarten, I want my students exposed to sites that encourage learning, exploration, and imagination. In my class, we learn about all things frogs! Using the internet, this tool provides videos that can bring frogs to life!
As an ELL early childhood educator, I want my families engaged in the education of their children. However, I have struggled year after year to get my families involved. This past school year, I had 23 students, with 20 being with me for the entire school year. Of these twenty families, only three (3) or 15% were actively engaged in consistent communication with me.
I have been wanting to create a teacher website for some time now but my inability to do do was frustrating and weighed heavily on me. Through taking this class, I have learned the skills to create my first teacher web site using Google Slides. With the guidance and input from my professor and classmates, I have successfully created the shell of the website, which you can access by clicking on the link at the top of the page.
Since I believe that parent involvement is a key academic success of my students, I wanted to create central location where ALL my parents will be able to access information on their child's school experiences. As a parent, I could not wait to open my sons' folders when they came home from school. As a teacher, I knew some of the questions I could ask that would elicit a more detailed response to the question, "What did you do today?" Many children will respond with, "Nothing".
Turkle believes that the art of conversation is being lost to technology taken over. I wanted to give parents a tool to help foster conversations between parents and their children. (Turkle)
Prior to taking this class, I did not have the resource and KNOWLEDGE to create a teacher's web page. I tried to seek out assistance from work colleagues as well as out IT department but was usually met with resistance. I was pointed to various on line tutorials but those proved to create more frustration on my part. Through the knowledge imparted and gained in this class, I have taken the first steps in creating this tool for parents to foster a stronger relationship between parents and me. In creating this tool, I am hoping that parents will be more engaged in their child's education. By creating this web page, parents can refer to specifics in their child's day. This will be an ongoing and fluid document that will change over the course of the school year.
In addition to fostering positive involvement between parent and child, I also want to foster a collaborative relationship between parents and myself. As a teacher, I can only offer so much. Parents need support and resources to help provide for the needs and wants of their child. Schools can only do so much. By fostering a collaborative relationship between all three entities, my hope is to provide a strong foundation to benefit the students to come through my classroom.
Will be uploading the self-assessment rubric in a separate post.
I created a Teacher Web Page for my final project in this class. I firmly believe that positive and ongoing parent involvement in their child's education is paramount that child's academic success. Wesch believes that collaboration is the key to success. As a kindergarten teacher, I want to foster a collaborative relationship with parents during the school year.
As a techno-traditionalist, I do communicate with families and colleagues via email; in class, I use such devices as computers, desk tops as well as chrome books. I access various websites to gather resources and new ideas. In addition, I am exposed Google Docs, Word, Excel, and Google Slides. As time goes on, I am hoping to transition from a timid digital immigrant to a somewhat digital native. I feel that Boyd's terms, immigrant and native are terms that can make people feel defensive or uncomfortable, I understand what he is trying to convey. I also believe that just because a young person may be a digital native does not make them fully capable of handling all the information that literally is at their finger tips. As teacher, I need to be able to help children process such information as well as help them navigate the internet in a responsible and meaningful well. In kindergarten, I want my students exposed to sites that encourage learning, exploration, and imagination. In my class, we learn about all things frogs! Using the internet, this tool provides videos that can bring frogs to life!
As an ELL early childhood educator, I want my families engaged in the education of their children. However, I have struggled year after year to get my families involved. This past school year, I had 23 students, with 20 being with me for the entire school year. Of these twenty families, only three (3) or 15% were actively engaged in consistent communication with me.
I have been wanting to create a teacher website for some time now but my inability to do do was frustrating and weighed heavily on me. Through taking this class, I have learned the skills to create my first teacher web site using Google Slides. With the guidance and input from my professor and classmates, I have successfully created the shell of the website, which you can access by clicking on the link at the top of the page.
Since I believe that parent involvement is a key academic success of my students, I wanted to create central location where ALL my parents will be able to access information on their child's school experiences. As a parent, I could not wait to open my sons' folders when they came home from school. As a teacher, I knew some of the questions I could ask that would elicit a more detailed response to the question, "What did you do today?" Many children will respond with, "Nothing".
Turkle believes that the art of conversation is being lost to technology taken over. I wanted to give parents a tool to help foster conversations between parents and their children. (Turkle)
Prior to taking this class, I did not have the resource and KNOWLEDGE to create a teacher's web page. I tried to seek out assistance from work colleagues as well as out IT department but was usually met with resistance. I was pointed to various on line tutorials but those proved to create more frustration on my part. Through the knowledge imparted and gained in this class, I have taken the first steps in creating this tool for parents to foster a stronger relationship between parents and me. In creating this tool, I am hoping that parents will be more engaged in their child's education. By creating this web page, parents can refer to specifics in their child's day. This will be an ongoing and fluid document that will change over the course of the school year.
In addition to fostering positive involvement between parent and child, I also want to foster a collaborative relationship between parents and myself. As a teacher, I can only offer so much. Parents need support and resources to help provide for the needs and wants of their child. Schools can only do so much. By fostering a collaborative relationship between all three entities, my hope is to provide a strong foundation to benefit the students to come through my classroom.
Will be uploading the self-assessment rubric in a separate post.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/08/confronting-racism-early-age
Confronting Racism at an Early Age by Jill Anderson
Article was published on August 28th, 2017
“Kids get it, even as little as the first grade. They are more likely to understand than most adults, especially white adults, where the socialization has been that if you mention race, it might get you in trouble.”
As a (white) early childhood educator working, in an urban district with many children from many different cultures and races other than white, this topic has become quite important to me. Early on in this class, having read Lisa Delpit's article, "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children", and learning about the five tenets of the culture of power, opened up a discussion on power. I am part of the group, in this society, that has power. I am an educated, white woman teaching in a classroom where the majority of my students and families are People of Color and not native born.
In this article, Jill Anderson offers five suggestions to those who want to bring a curriculum about racism to their school. Below comes directly from the article and credit goes to Jill Anderson.
- Begin with your staff and yourself. Before bringing lessons about race to the classroom, Anton and her staff focused on creating a more diverse staff and understanding different cultures. “You don’t want groups of people who haven’t examined their own bias to go off and do this work without being able to think about their own power in the situation,” she says. Educate yourself and the staff on the cultural groups within your school. Understand how culture shapes learning, and how discourse can shape or shut down lessons in school.
- Assess. Assess. Assess. Conduct an assessment to discover what you and your staff already know about race and culture. Notice staff’s response — what's the energy like, who is reluctant, and who is ready for the work. Consider consulting an organization like RIDES, which offers tools of assessment to determine where your school may be in this work.
- Identify the materials that you’ll use. Determine whether your school will use a curriculum that already exists or craft one around your specific needs.
- Consider the terms and definitions you’ll use. A big decision for elementary-aged children is around language and word choice. The Bowman School decided to use real vocabulary terms, since staff concluded that if students can learn complicated concepts like "metamorphosis," they can also learn "race," "power," and "oppression." Still, she advises figuring out a kid-friendly approach.
- Designate support staff. Remember that not every teacher will be comfortable implementing such a curriculum or determining the right words to say to students. Support staff within the school can be called upon to help when needed.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ787759.pdf
Confronting Prejudice in the Early Childhood Classroom
by Luisa Araujo and Janis Strasser
Article published 2003
"When teachers
confront prejudice
actively in early
childhood settings, the
classroom can be a
place where children
celebrate diversity".
How do we address prejudice in an early childhood classroom? As we talk about tolerance, understanding, and address stereotypical comments, it is imperative to first acknowledge that young children can make damning comments.
Where do children pick up on such racist comments like, "Black people are bad".
As educators we need to recognize racist comments when we hear them and then learn how to to address them in a meaningful way. It is not enough to say that is 'not a nice thing to say'. As educators we have a great responsibility to show children why that statement is wrong. We also have a responsibility to help children understand what they are saying and show them a different way.
For my TEACH OUT Project, I would like to explore this topic of racism in the early childhood classroom. In the early stages of planning out this project, I am considering interviewing an educator in an urban district as well as a a student from an urban district as well as a student who is in a class that is not culture or race diverse.
It will be interesting to see the varying perspectives of those I interview regarding the issue of prejudice in the classroom and how it is addressed. Once those interviews are conducted, I would like to discuss with our class the findings and possible course of action moving forward.
As I have mentioned, I teach kindergarten in an urban district. My school, my class, and the district as a whole, serve a diverse population. Most of my colleagues are white. I am very interested to see if the person I interview recognizes the culture of power and her place in it.
As for the children I will be interviewing, I am eager to learn of their impressions of racism and prejudices in the classroom, both from classmates and from the teacher.
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Thursday, June 28, 2018
After reading both articles, I felt like the message from both authors ran along similar lines: that technology may be a useful tool in the learning process, it has gone beyond the classroom. Technology has taken over every aspect of our lives.
As stated in, "The Flight from Conversation", Turkle asserts that we have gone from, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call' to 'I have a feeling, I need to send a text'. There is safety in texting; and emotion is hard to read or often misread in text.
In the beginning of this article, Turkle makes the revelation that technology and our various hand-held devices not only change 'what we do, but who we are'.
I could not agree more with this statement.
One does not need to look further than Facebook to validate this statement. On my own 'Friend' list, I see filtered photos, exaggerated commentary on relationships, and misrepresentation of status, financial, social and the like. And, if I am to be totally honest, I have also fallen into this trap from time to time. I only post pictures of myself that I see as flattering; when I post about my family or my sons, I only post comments that show them in the best light. I post pictures of family gatherings but do not discuss the tensions between this family member with that family member. I make deliberate choices about what post because I make a conscious effort to present my life in a certain way. Don't misunderstand me; I also post when I am miserable because I haven't slept and how much I hate the humidity. I show my humor and sometimes my choice in words are, let's say, colorful. Should you visit my Facebook page, if you KNOW me, you will be able to tell when I am being authentic and when I am filtering what is posted. Below is a picture I I would post (but did not because she is a current student of mine).
I look happy, right!?
But, this is how I felt that day due to behind the scenes stress and frustration!
The key here, is, if you KNOW me. If you know me.....
Turkle makes the statement that, 'Texting, email, and posting let us present the self we want to be'. In these forms, while there is a connection, there is no conversation. Through feel life, face-to-face conversation, we connect on a deeper level than just script on a screen. While we can be connected to hundreds of people on various social media platforms, there is no way we can have meaningful conversations with that large a number.
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/problem-texting-relationship
Technology is a wonderful tool. It makes our day to day work easier; in the classroom, it opens the door to literally the world. At the same time, it has the power to isolate us, even in a room full of colleagues, a classroom full of students, and families at the dinner able.
As stated in, "The Flight from Conversation", Turkle asserts that we have gone from, 'I have a feeling, I want to make a call' to 'I have a feeling, I need to send a text'. There is safety in texting; and emotion is hard to read or often misread in text.
In the beginning of this article, Turkle makes the revelation that technology and our various hand-held devices not only change 'what we do, but who we are'.
I could not agree more with this statement.
One does not need to look further than Facebook to validate this statement. On my own 'Friend' list, I see filtered photos, exaggerated commentary on relationships, and misrepresentation of status, financial, social and the like. And, if I am to be totally honest, I have also fallen into this trap from time to time. I only post pictures of myself that I see as flattering; when I post about my family or my sons, I only post comments that show them in the best light. I post pictures of family gatherings but do not discuss the tensions between this family member with that family member. I make deliberate choices about what post because I make a conscious effort to present my life in a certain way. Don't misunderstand me; I also post when I am miserable because I haven't slept and how much I hate the humidity. I show my humor and sometimes my choice in words are, let's say, colorful. Should you visit my Facebook page, if you KNOW me, you will be able to tell when I am being authentic and when I am filtering what is posted. Below is a picture I I would post (but did not because she is a current student of mine).
I look happy, right!?
But, this is how I felt that day due to behind the scenes stress and frustration!
The key here, is, if you KNOW me. If you know me.....
Turkle makes the statement that, 'Texting, email, and posting let us present the self we want to be'. In these forms, while there is a connection, there is no conversation. Through feel life, face-to-face conversation, we connect on a deeper level than just script on a screen. While we can be connected to hundreds of people on various social media platforms, there is no way we can have meaningful conversations with that large a number.
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/problem-texting-relationship
Technology is a wonderful tool. It makes our day to day work easier; in the classroom, it opens the door to literally the world. At the same time, it has the power to isolate us, even in a room full of colleagues, a classroom full of students, and families at the dinner able.
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