Blog Post #11

Little Kids...Big Potential

In Ms. Cassidy's video Little Kids Big Potential I was absolutely impressed with her students. I was amazed to see how well the students could navigate on the computer. I know throughout this semester we have been concentrating on the use of technology in the classroom, but I still find it shocking that students are now so comfortable with technology at such a young age. I do however think that it is great that students in only the first grade are being introduced to the world of technology. Students in Ms. Cassidy's class are going to have an upper hand to students who are unfortunately not be encourager to dive in to technology.

Ms. Cassidy's uses many forms of technology in her class room. Before EDM310 I had not put much thought into what forms of technology I planed on using in my classroom. Now there is not doubt in my mind that I will have a class blog. Through the class blog there are so many more deferent forms of technology that can be used. The students in Ms. Cassidy's class seemed to really love the class blog, I believe it is a great way to help the students with writing and spelling not to mention they are also starting to building typing skills. I think that Ms. Cassidy's is concerned with her students safety and has specific guide lines that she conforms to. She has been very lucky in the fact that she has not had any issues with parents not fully supporting her use of technology in the classroom. I could see how some parents might find this a little scary because the use of technology is so new to so many people.

Before watching this video I would have thought the idea of using a DS in the classroom would possibly be distracting to the students. Now I see that it is another great way to get the students excited and interested in learning. Twitter is also another tool that I would have in the past not understood why it is an important tool for teachers to have. Though a first grade student may not use it in the classroom, it is a great way for teachers to connect and share ideas. Technology is rapidly growing and being used more and more each day if we do not start educating students today they are going to be left behind.Things have changed so much since I was in grade school, and they are only going to keep changing.