When is it to young for Computers?

The question that I am proposing is when is it too young for students to use computers? I think there are so many advantages for having computers in classroom for students. I work at a day care center at starting at the age of two and a half there are computers for students to use. However, my thinking lately is does this effect their learning? Or do we need to be teaching these students differently now that technology is so important to our lives?

The two and half year old children are able to figure out the learning games once they are on. I see that the computer is a great tool for reading for young students. However, if we expect students to use the computers so young, should be giving them instructions on how to use? Or start explaining them what a computer is? There are how to go to bathroom books, how to tie your shoe books but no how to use a computer book for kids.

The other thing I have been wondering about is what will be the developmental difference compare to generations before? We have no research of the effects of having computers in the house or using them from birth. Will it lead to more ADHD? Will it help develop fine motor skills? Any thoughts.....?

Nook- good idea or bad idea?

I have been having a lot of thought on the new technology Nook. The Nook is something where you can read books on a small device compared to reading them in a book form. My take on it is like a small lap top that just hold books. Personally, I do not know how I feel about the Nook. I think that it is a great idea to have all of your books in one place and you don't have to worry about wasting paper. You could have hundreds of books on the touch of the button and I am thinking you would be able to search quickly. For someone like me who loves to read it saves money as well as the convince of having the books sent to you instead of having to go to the store. However, I do not know how long I would be able to read looking at a screen or will I miss the old school way of turning the pages?

So, how could this be useful in the classroom? I think that having the teachers library on this machine would allow teachers to make classroom sets easier. Students could use these during reading time, classroom reading and for projects. The Nook allows the stories to be read to the students which would help students who are struggling or help students who are ELL (English Language Learners). Also, for students who are different levels, its a way for to limit the idea of the better readers verse the struggling readers. This is because students won't know what level each other are at. Also, teachers can put rich literature on the Nook instead of kids picking up picture books or books that push them. 

I think that students might look at this as a game would enjoy reading off of it. Books would last longer because when you send them home and they read them, paper books often get destroyed within the year. This way the stories will last year after year the teacher will not have to continue to buy them. 

The problems I see is that if these break or data gets lost you are losing all of your books. Will students learn the basic concept of print if they read off of these? Is this something that schools are moving towards? Just something that I have been thinking about when I saw this!?

Nook/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Classroom Website

I have received my placement for next year and have already met my teacher. We sat down and explored different things that we could do in our classroom. One idea I suggested was making a class website to keep parents and students posted instead of doing the weekly newsletter. My teacher loved this idea however we are going to ask the parents who still wants it in paper format. My plan is to post important information, newsletters and big projects on the internet. 

My problem that I am having with this idea is that am I assuming that all parents and students are going to have a computer at home? Can I assume that just because it is a "nice" area that all parents are going to computers? My thought process was to help save paper and have papers be able to do a RSS feed so they get e-mails every time something was added. What are everyone's thoughts? Can we assume elementary students will use a classroom website?

Spelling City

The students in my class were using this website, www.spellingcity.com. I found this website to be a great study tool for the students, especially ELL. The user first types in the words and the computer generates the list. You can have the words pronounced and used in sentence. Then their are test at the end and games for the students to play. I think that many times ELL students have a hard time with spelling test because their parents may not know how to say the word in English. I see this in my class with my ELL student. After using this website daily, he is starting to improve on his test because he can hear the words being pronounced when he is studying/learning them at their house.

The game are ones that I found my students enjoying to play. My CT has added this website to their weekly studying of the words and I have found that the students respond very well. They are always excited when it's spelling city time. Compared to how they hate doing their worksheets about the words. I have also seen my students with ADHD focusing more during spelling time and then turning around and increasing their grades.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57634636@N00/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Majority Rules

In a society where majority rules and voting is important, this system has naturally been moved into the classroom. Student Response Systems are a way for the class to vote or click in to vote or to answer questions. An example of this is the i-clicker. The clickers are like remotes and they send their messages to one main computer. This computer collects the data and projects the data in data sources. Teachers use these systems for quizzes, interactive questions and votes. Each student will register these clickers so the teacher knows how the specific student responds.

Clickers are used a lot in large classes, like college, and can also be used as attendance. Since the clickers are assigned to each person, the teacher can tell who was in class and who was not in class. As well as monitoring each students learning by how they answer the questions.

Another way for students to respond to questions is through their cell phones. Websites have the students text different codes and it calculates the data into charts. While this is a great way to have students participate using their phones (which most students love), there are many problems. For instance, this is assuming that each student has a cell phone and has a text messaging plan. Also, many schools band all cell phone use and this would be breaking that rule. I think this is great more in the high level class, such as college.

Student Response Systems are great, however I have seen many flaws with them as well. The clickers allow students to easily "cheat" or wait to everyone has put their answer in (in the ones that show the polls as people vote). I think this will give answers that are not as accurate as simple paper and pencil. Also, people can use other peoples clickers which many students do in college so it does not ruin their attendance.

clickers/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0