Comments on: Kindergarten Tech

By: Jody Hayes, NZ

Jody Hayes, NZ — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:07:08 +0000

Hmmmm… my school has a few English as second language children, but not a lot. We are a not very wealthy school… but not too bad either. How about dropping me an email on hayes@olol.school.nz and I’ll try to help more with finding some NZ teachers for oyu to make links with.

By: Dorothy Burt

Dorothy Burt — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:16:00 +0000

I really enjoyed your potted history of technology, and was amazed how many similarities it has to mine, even though we live so far apart. When I was 13 our Maths teacher told our class that if we worked hard and completed the maths curriculum in half a year we could spend the rest of the year doing ‘computing’ – despite none of us having the foggiest what a computer was. We applied ourselves and out reward was to punch cards to create graphics that the maths teacher took to the local bank and printed out on the only main frame computer in town. A very heady experience, and we thought it was preparing us for the future! Then I remember getting my projectionist certificate when I went to teachers’ college. And when I arrived at my first school as a wide-eyed, enthusiastic beginning teacher, all the old teachers got me to show their film reels to their classes because I had a certificate! And now kindergarten kids use technology so matter-of-factly in their daily learning.
It is quite a privilege to have been part of (and survived!) so much change.

By: alicemercer

alicemercer — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:26:24 +0000

Hey Jody, I’m trying to find teachers in Australia and New Zealand who are in a similar situation to the folks who are writing here:

1. Large indigenous/minority/language learner populations in their school
2. Large numbers of poor students
3. and the addition of undergoing reform would be nice, but not required.

By: Jody Hayes, NZ

Jody Hayes, NZ — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:56:05 +0000

Kindergarten is what I currently teach. I think these children should be using technology (with teacher support) to have conversations with others.

By: » You Can Run… In Practice

» You Can Run… In Practice — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:10:17 +0000

[...] response to my comment on the previous post seems like a good place for me to jump in here, in the spirit of [...]

By: graycie

graycie — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:13:59 +0000

My 6th grade teacher told us to watch what would happen in our lives because of a new invention. He said it was a city block long and a city block wide and four stories tall. It would add two numbers together and if you wanted to add two different numbers, you had to unplug a bunch of the wires and plug them up a different way.

Now, nearly 50 years later, I have: every one of my lessons, quizzes, and tests for three grade levels (including accompanying visual examples and background info for me, etc), my gradebooks for the past three years, all correspondence with parents and bosses, many photos of my brother’s children, all of my own writing, and lots more that I don’t remember right now — all of that is on a teensy device smaller than my thumb.

Mr. Abramson was soooo right.

By: mrssommerville

mrssommerville — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 01:36:53 +0000

Maybe it’s the Alaskan in me Doug, but I’ve always wondered… “what do you do when the power goes out?” Didn’t happen too often when I was a child in El Paso, but it certainly DID happen a lot in Barrow, Delta, and Fairbanks due to cold, and wind, and snow load…. and in Kansas due to wind and those pesky things called “twisters.” Here on post we have power surges and flickers. Every time the lights have gone out I’ve had my flashlight, my battery-operated radio, my “land line” phone, and my beautiful address book with the suede cover, and pressed-paper pages. My wonderfully bound books, my ink pens and writing tablets, and in most places, my gas stove to boil water on for tea round out the scene.

I’ve met some people who absolutely PANIC when the power dies, or their latest techie gizmo/gadget dies. Freaks me out when those people are… teachers.

By: Doug Noon

Doug Noon — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:51:04 +0000

Thanks for this little trip down the tech Memory Lane. I remember the last time I used a 16mm film projector. The kids turned around in their seats and watched the projector, which was way more interesting than the awful “educational” movie it was playing. All these schoolish tech tools become anachronisms as time goes by, and new things come into vogue. What doesn’t seems to pass is our dependence on books, paper, pencils, social affiliation, and the mysterious belief that machines will make life simpler.