ucb x359.5 NETS for students - homework 9/17

Since I am not currently teaching I chose to look at the standards for K-2nd grades. My daughter is a first grader and I am working in her classroom once a week. At her school most technology related projects begin with 3rd and 4th graders. I've noticed that some of the ideas (#1 and 2) in the NETS standards are used in the K and 1st grades but are done the old fashion way with handwritten stories and hand drawn images. I asked the teaching staff about that and their response was that student writing using traditional techniques help develop their fine motor skills, encourages pride of ownership and the writing process. I tend to agree with this assessment for the early grades. Early readers and writers are grappling with the mechanics and adding in a keyboard seems to add an additional layer they are not quite ready for. I have used basic phonics computer games with my children where they are using the mouse and maybe typing in very familiar words like their name is an acceptable introduction to technology. Up to date working technology requires money that seems better spent in the upper grades where basic reading and writing skills are mastered.

I worked in a well-funded elementary school here in Marin County where there were 4 apple laptops in my first grade class. The teachers used them to "publish" student work (typed out by teacher aides), allow students to play math based computer games and create an I Movie about the character education program at the school. All fun stuff but I can't say it affected student achievement as well as personal one on one attention. One interesting project that the teachers did was similar to idea #3 but created by the students using paper. They made their own”Flat Stanley" and sent it to a student in another country and started a dialogue with that student. Since this was first grade the student generated dialogue was sometimes dictated to an adult. The thrill of getting those hand written letters and reading them in circle time had a big impact on me. An email version of this exercise might provide quicker results but inadequate substitution for our early concrete learners. Having the experience of holding the letter, seeing the foreign stamp and sharing the pictures with their friends was may I quote a commercial -"priceless".