Carol Henderson’s blog

In the last 20 years, this is an area that has changed in education as much as the curriculum.  When I was a child, success in school was assessed through tests and projects.  On your report card, you were given a numerical mark for each subject area, (arithmetic, language, history etc.) an average was calculated, and that was your final mark. The second half of the report, your conduct, courtesy, and attendance were also graded as excellent,  very good, good, fair, and poor,  So not only was your academic work assessed but your personality traits were also assessed.  We seem to have steered away from that now and I believe that assessing those areas has some validity as well. Especially when so much work is done in groups and assessed on the final product of the group.  When you have not demonstrated that you can work together with other people or have not learned the basis of sharing information without being too critical of others, it will affect how you problem solve later in life.  If you cannot get along with people, your group will tend to isolate you  and not ask for your opinion as much.  This will be problematic later in life in most areas of business.

In Kindergarten, we use modifiers as a way of assessing children.  The range includes, always, usually, sometimes, rarely and never.  The children are assessed on a number of learning expectations set up by the Ministry of Education and then children are tested orally on their performances in these areas of the program.  We also allow our students to write on their report card what they think they have learned the most  and what area they think they still need to work on.  I always find it interesting to hear them assess their own strengths and weaknesses which can be very different from what we observe as teachers. 

Some teachers administer a more structured programme where others have a more play centered programme.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses but I think a combination of the two is most beneficial in an inclusive atmosphere that seems to be where education is headed.  Our classroom has a hearing impaired child and an autistic child both participating and learning with some modifications.  The children have adapted very easily and will go out of their way to help these two children when they sense any change in their demeanor.  This to me is intuitive learning and will serve them well as they mature.

Hi

After reading chapter 7 on exploring microworlds, I went to the resource websites assigned to do some exploring for myself.  I registered in the tappedin site and actually joined a group for special ed students which is what I do for a living.  There were so many places and links to explore that I could have spent many more hours than I did.  I also checked out Moose crossing and thought to myself that some of the kids at my school would have a ball with this activity.  Creating their own pets or designing their dream bedroom came to my mind.  Because I work in an innercity school, most of this creating would be a fantasy for them.  I see them designing their own bedrooms with a basketball court inside of it and a stage for doing kareoke.    As you got older, I think, you may have remember in school creating this virtual bedroom or playroom and perhaps work toward being able to attain it.  You may go into engineering or architecture so that you could learn to do this professionally for a living.  There are so many practical applications to these learning spaces that I am surprised that more schools are not using them as a teaching tool on a regular basis.  I wonder  in 20 years, when my children's children are in school, how they will be learning and playing.  Will there even be a "school" for them to go to?  I can see them doing science experiments in virtual labs and creating their wardrobes on a site and them e-mailing it to a dressmaker to make up with all of the sizes and shapes on the computer model.  The interactive physics site would be fabulous, especially for boys, since even in the kindergarten class they mimic car crashes using big blocks to build ramps and then letting the cars fly down these ramps and crash into lego buildings that they have created at the bottom of the ramp.  Right now kids are all about the videogames and I have to say that they are bigger and better quality every year.  Even the new trend of WEE games where you stand up in your living room and interactively play tennis or baseball using your T. V. screen, provide a lot of fun and hand eye coordination.  At least you get up off the couch and physcially move around so that impresses me.

I have to ask though, will all of this technology come at a cost to our children?  When I was a child, The Jetsons was a cartoon about a family living in the future.  Robots did the housework, George went to work in a spaceship, meals were prepared and just floated to you and it seemed too idealistic.  We dreamed about what living in a world like that would be like.  What do children today dream about today when they think ahead to what the world will be like when they are 20 or 30 years older?  Virtual hospitals where you diagnose your own diseases, virtual pharmacies where you create your own perscription....something to think about eh????

Carol 

Websters defines technology as a technical language, a technical method of achieving a practical purpose and the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort.  I admit I was at a loss at the beginning to answer the question about my personal experience with technology until I read this definition.  I guess my first experience that I recall would be a radio at my grandparents home that we would sit around and get weather reports and listen to shows.  From there I moved up to a small black and white television that brought in 2 channels, to a typewriter in highschool.  We never owned a car in our family until I was in highschool and shortly after I learned to drive.  My first experience with a computer was when I began to work in a bank and after 6 years they brought in a "machine" as they put it, that would allow us to eliminate writing up customer passbooks and inserting them into this big machine and it would be printed up for us.  Wow, was I impressed!   My husband began his first job at IBM in the early 70's and we bought the first personal computer IBM made in 1981 for $15,000.00.  We finally got rid of it 10 years later but it still ran programs and our kids were the only ones who knew how to use a computer by the time they started kindergarten.  Since then, I cannot keep up with all of the technological advancements in so many areas. Cell phones, Ipods, blackberries are just a few of the everyday objects deemed "necessary for human sustenance and comfort."  If my grandparents were alive today, they would be amazed.

I have made it on to my blog and now I will look forward to looking for other's words of wisdom.