Life-Long Learner

I did it! I made my first digital story on Photo Story 3 and uploaded it to blip.tv.

Check out <a href=”“>Timeless.

Have a glorious day.

During my blogging journey on the giant learning curve of technological literacy, I’ve come across a few glitches. Today’s glitch is access to high speed internet in rural Saskatchewan.

Part of the reason that I decided to take the online version of ECMP 355 – Computers in Education through the University of Regina was to experience learning online. This is important to me as a pre-service teacher who may be seeking employment in rural Saskatchewan. I believe that new learning opportunities will be available online for rural students in the future, and it would be best if I understood what they are going through in order to provide as much support as I can.

My glitch comes in the form of unreliable high speed internet access. Due to a number of natural challenges (wind shaking the rotor on the tower attached to the house, objects getting in the way of of site of the tower, etc), the satellite signal is not consistant. As a result, I’ve been calling friends last minute to ask if I could borrow their computer to attend the live classes and praying that when the internet does come up in my home, I will have enough time to get some work done. As a result I am a tad bit frustrated.

Thankfully a Berenstein Bears moment has provided some insight – something good can come from something bad, we just need to find it. So here is my something good – reflection and future planning. If I am frustrated now, how will my students feel when we are incorporating the exciting world of technology in the classroom, but they are unable to access it in their own homes? What am I willing to do as a teacher to support their learning dispite the challenges that they are facing – no computer at home, inconsistent internet connection, other commitments, etc.?

Some of the solutions that I thought of include:
-Allowing the student to use my computer in the classroom outside of class time (ie. breaks, lunch, before/after school, etc.). I could be available to assist when needed, and/or I could use the time for prepping. Would I go as far as to meet in the evenings or on weekends? It would depend on my family commitments, but I like to think that I will be flexible.
- Allow for class time to work on assignments.
- Allow for extended deadlines for assignments.

Based on my own experiences of learning online and talking to some students in rural Saskatchewan, I think technology will open many doors for learning, but as teachers we need to look at the resources of individual students to ensure that they have all the opportunities available to be included in the learning journey.

With that said, I welcome the thoughts and solutions from others for working with and supporting students who may not have access to the technological tools that we incorporate in the classroom.

Have a glorious day.

In my search for more information on brain development and technology, I came across a presentation on February 9, 2008 by Dr. Patricia Kuhl, Co-Director of the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. The one hour presentation is called ““>Childhood Development: Early Learning, the Brain and Society.

Dr. Kuhl gives a brief introduction of the influence of academics, business, and society on understanding brain development and early learning in the United States. She goes on to discuss research results that identify that infants have the ability to differentiate between the sounds of 6000 languages within the first 6 months of age. After 6 months, the brain then starts to hard wire in the native language and sounds that are essential for learning foreign languages begin to drop off.

One of the results that she presented was that infants do not actually learn language from audio or television. They need social interaction in order to learn. “The social brain does improve (certain) cognitive skills such as making executive functions and direction of attention.” She also mentioned research is showing that though learning becomes more challenging as we age, if we use the same principles of early learning with adults, adults will be able to learn in ways that we have not incorporated before. I believe that this supports the philosophy of learning through play and interaction as a personal investment in learning (AKA learning through doing).

Dr. Kuhl also references an article in the New York Times (Nov 26, 2006) by Paul Tough called ‘What It Takes to Make a Student’ which references the ‘No Child Left Behind’ legistation of the Bush administration and the current achievement gaps in education.

Her closing remarks included a very interesting comment: ‘50 years form now we will be judged not by the children that succeed, but rather the children who are left behind.’ A scary thought indeed.

I encourage you to take the time to watch the presentation, but if your time is limited, try the experiment that she does with the audience at 47 minutes on synchronizing sound and visual language. It is very interesting.

Have a wonderful day.

Well, a new day has begun (at 4:40 am actually) and I’ve decided that I need to rethink what I am learning about blogging and what my motivation is when I am blogging.

So I started with the presentation of my blog. I was thrilled to discover all of the interesting and very helpful tips available through edublogs.org. For example Gail Desler has developed a wonderful introductory resource on edublogs. Another great resource was on changing your display name (which I needed to upgrade desparately). There is so much to learn about blog presentation. Anyways, to assist any of you who are like me and learning about blogging and navigating edublogs, I encourage you to visit The Edublogger. I found it very useful to personalizing my blog.

My next area of focus is the motivation behind my blogs. To date, I’ve been floundering. I set up this blog account as a direct result of my ECMP 355 class at the University of Regina. I understand that I am to use the blog to reflect and communicate online through a social and professional network. So occasionally I would include random thoughts, reply to other blogs, and link to interesting sites or videos that I may have come across. This is all well, but I need more structure, so I’ve come to the conclusion that I will post two kinds of blogs: journalling my blog learning process (including challenges and celebrations) and posting interesting educational finds.

So as Part I of The Blogging Journey, I am quite happy with all that I have learned today about managing and manipulating my blog presentation.

Take care and have a wonderful day.

In a previous blog, I had asked a question in reference to technology and brain development. My search for answers has been a bit challenging online, but I did come across this article by Dr. Bruce Perry on Using Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom. Though I suspect that the article is from the late 90’s (he references Nintendo), Dr. Perry makes some comments about how it is important to engage and challenge children using technology that is developmentally appropriate in an interactive way. He speaks about the importance of teachers as facilitators and how parents and teachers need to look at the overall development of the child in order to select appropriate formats for that child. I think this is especially important since the majority of the brain develops between birth and age five or six. How the child is engaged and stimulated is going to affect how the brain is hardwired, creating a foundation for further learning.

Enjoy and I’ll continue to share as inspired by Dean Shareski any information that I find relevant on this topic.

Have a glorious day.

Well, the long weekend is here and the craze has hit. Between getting a garden in, visiting with family and friends (with lots of cousins for my son to play with), birthday parties, and the seeding season on the farm, I find that I’m sneaking to the computer when I think no one will notice. Last night, my sweetheart actually had to ask me to shut down three times as I tried to catch up on reading the latest posts. Apparently the midnight hour had approached and our mornings come very early.

So here I am, posting again as my son enjoys a lively chat with his stuffed animals. Thank goodness for developing imaginations. Which brings me to my question – is there research in the development of the brain around the transition of using imagination and creativity with 3-D forms to using imagination and creativity with 2-D (computer technology, video games, etc) forms. When does a child have the foundation to switch gears and conceptualize creativity in a 2-D form? I think some of the these answers would be beneficial within the realm of early/elementary education. Though I intend to look further into this question, I am going to ask all my blogging friends to think about this and send me your thoughts. If you come across some interesting information, I would greatly welcome it. As I find answers I’ll send them out.

Take care and have a fabulous long weekend.

Well, I just finished watching online, on ustream, the George Siemens’ keynote address at the TLT summit in Saskatoon on challenges in technology. It was quite stimulating and at times entertaining – the qualities of a good keynote speaker.

Though I could follow much of the information around sustained systemic change, networks and ecologies, role of the teacher and role of the learner, I was most facinated with the Hole in the Wall project.

(On a side note, I was the person who asked who the researcher was during the chat, not realizing that I wasn’t logged in even though I was registered – brain fart moment.)

It is amazing that the children learned not only how to use the computer without any instruction, but taught other children how to use it. I also think it was interesting to find out that the children learned English with American accents without ever being in contact with American teachers. It is fascinating how the brain works.

Overall, the online presentation of the conference was a very interesting experience for me. I look forward to what others have to say about it.

Have a glorious day.

Recently I have looked a number of videos referencing Theo Jansen that has been shared by my good friend Sara. An example includes: