First of all Yum, any adult or child for that matter can truly be enticed with candy! When we started the class I was definitely one of those people who envisioned spreadsheets as the uniform chart mathy looking things. But as we learned in class there is more to spreadsheets than boring! A simple task such as sorting M&M’s is fun as well as interactive. This simple in-class experiment really helped me see what I could do with spreadsheets in my elementary classrooms. Not only does a class task such as this help children with math it also assists in developing skills in computer literacy, creativity and depending on how you plan the lesson writing skills as well. Now there is one problem, I am learning many wonderful things but when it comes time, will I use them? I hope so, because I think that computer skills are necessary in the world today. But on the other hand it does take time as well as a bit of creativity to come up with a child friendly project. I guess I really won’t know what I do until it is time for me to teach and manage my own classroom.
Stephen Ransom said,
February 9, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Sarah, your feelings are accurate in that much of what we learn about, especially in this class, has no real practical application… meaning real kids to try out all of this stuff on. In an ideal world, there would be a practicum attached to this class where you would write lesson plans for various applications and curriculum goals and actually implement them with children in classrooms and computer labs. When you actually get into your own classroom, you have to take baby steps – meaning that you can’t impletment ALL of the great ideas you have learned about at once. You will be overwhelmed and burn out before the year is over. So, think about one instance where you might integrate spreadsheets. See how that goes. Follow it up with another. See where it leads. Don’t get discouraged if it flops. It is not failure that defines poor teaching. It is the fear of failure and failure to improve and learn from mistakes that defines it. Pace yourself in all of this. Remember the story about the little train that could?
Kristin Merman-Smith said,
February 13, 2008 @ 10:19 am
Sarah-
I agree with your blog in terms of how will we take this information that we are learning and use it in our classrooms. Since I plan on becoming a high school English teacher, using M&M’s and spread sheets seems to be something that I can never work into my English classroom. However, using the program Excell for grades can work, or making charts, graphs, ect. through Excell can work.
With younger students you can introduce them to the world of Excell and show them right off the bat that it is not as scary as it looks. But, you are right, it does take time, creativity, and knowledge in order to pull as task like the one we did in class off. I’m nervous about one day planning my who class around computers or the internet and then spending more time teaching the students how to get to the right places and find the right things that the whole content of the lesson will be lost and become a computer class. I have never been a teacher, but, I wonder how teachers gage their students knowledge on computers so that they can teach them something new, while sticking to the content. hummm…. =)