Lets Celebrate!!!!

It is getting close to that time of year again; here at Edinboro the halls are already decorated. The student center has its Christmas tree up; the railings have big red bows tied on. Soon we will be covered in feet of snow. This time of year is always my favorite and I start to think of all the fun things we use to do in grade school during the holidays. All that is changing now, schools are starting to break away from the old ways. They no longer celebrate just Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and other holidays like that. Why is this happening? Because educators are now starting to notice the negative affects some of these parties can have on children in their classroom. The child who comes from another country may celebrate something other than Christmas or may not celebrate anything at all. What happens to this child? They get sent somewhere else in the school away from the party and away from their friends, almost like they have been punished for using one of their basic freedoms. Think about what happens to the child whose family can’t afford to buy a Halloween costume or buy cards for Valentine’s Day. Again the child has to be excluded from the group and this will negatively affect the child’s self esteem. So what is being done to fix this issue in schools? Now schools are getting rid of celebrating typical holidays and making the switch to doing things like fall fests and winter fest so everyone can partake in activates. I completely agree with the changes that are being made and in one of my classes here at school we were given the chance to recreate two holidays of our own choice. I am happy to say that as a class we had come up with some very creative ideas. But if any of you reading my blog need help thinking of a twist for the holidays here is a web site you should look at. http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/index.htm

Talk To Me!

Boxes and Toons

In my last class we were again introduced to two new resources to use in classroom. Museum Box and Go Animate 4 School are two new tools demonstrated for us in class. Museum Box is a great tool, it’s a twist on the regular power point presented in 2D it can be used in all subject areas like English, math and history. You can create your own box with embed your videos, audios, and pictures onto the box. The account is also free, which is a major plus for teachers. Go Animate 4 School was also an interesting tool. Creating a story board to present to a class during a lesson is a cute idea especially for younger students. The only down fall to this program is that costs 99 dollars per class per year.

New Tools

In our last SEDU class on Tuesday three students shared with use technology that they found to use in the class room. The three tools shown to us included the wordle, popplet, and story jumper. All three presenters explained the ups and downs of using these tools and showed examples they created. My favorite tool was the popplet. It is a free and creative program that I could see being used in all subject areas. It is also simple, which is very important when working with young child. Some of my favorite qualities about this product are that it’s private. This is important when working in a school because you want the kids to be safe and you want parents to know that their kids are safe. I also like the fact that students can continuously post, and students can upload pictures and videos to the discussion. The downs sides to a popplet are you can only create six popplets on one account and we could not figure out how to share it with other people.