My Opera..starting to think
Friday, April 6, 2007 2:34:53 PM
I am really glad I had those days in the Lab....
I have come away thinking that we could do a lot better by starting to put the technology under the hood a bit more often - I mean that perhaps we are overplaying the 'computers' and under-utilising them as tools for life.
I had some good discussions with students.
I think we could do a lot more with the technology to promote a culture of reading, books, etc and to help with the kids' English, and to bridge the gap between the kids and their parents in terms of education. I am thinking much more of cameras, and photos, and esp of paper and pens and stuff to make and stick etc - technology can help in all this but the activities should perhaps not always look like lessons on computers - neither lessons that are about computers or lessons that are only to do with things on computers. And how do we know what's a computer - nearly everything is starting to have them somewhere....
Jay and I chatted about how to help teachers start with Scratch - my mistake - he wanted to talk about how to help 'people' start with Scratch. For us, there might be a question about how to help teachers and kids and community members start when they don't know English very well.
Leo and I chatted about what interesting things he is always doing with Brazilian kids. We were keen to think about books, and birthday cards and posters, and mailboxes, and ...it went on. The YoungActivists have done some neat things but it is not easy. The name, for a start, is not good. But KidPower is around and we might be able to use it to do fun and worthwhile things for the kids. It is better, Leo suggests, to think of something the kids like/dislike and work from there to find qualities of such things and then to use those to improve some place/thing they are interested in.
Andres has made the Scratch web site really interesting but there is heaps more that can be done. Everyone has good ideas - perhaps it is important to be able to include more things from those who are using Scratch - even to get a web page that is in Kymer would be good without worrying that we can't yet have Scratch in Kymer - that might not matter as we want to teach English?
Tammy's implementation that let things come from the web into Scratch is likely to lead to a lot of interesting things. I'm excited about that.
And we are really lucky - we have four sensor boards to hook into Scratch - that should provide some fun for everyone. We should think hard about all the ways we can use them and have them where everyone can see the benefits of listening to the earth.
Natalie always has such good and challenging ideas - I am pleased that I don't have to deal with them all now - we'll get together later to think about them some more :-)
mmmm... so many things to think about - thanks Mitch for the opportunity!
I have come away thinking that we could do a lot better by starting to put the technology under the hood a bit more often - I mean that perhaps we are overplaying the 'computers' and under-utilising them as tools for life.
I had some good discussions with students.
I think we could do a lot more with the technology to promote a culture of reading, books, etc and to help with the kids' English, and to bridge the gap between the kids and their parents in terms of education. I am thinking much more of cameras, and photos, and esp of paper and pens and stuff to make and stick etc - technology can help in all this but the activities should perhaps not always look like lessons on computers - neither lessons that are about computers or lessons that are only to do with things on computers. And how do we know what's a computer - nearly everything is starting to have them somewhere....
Jay and I chatted about how to help teachers start with Scratch - my mistake - he wanted to talk about how to help 'people' start with Scratch. For us, there might be a question about how to help teachers and kids and community members start when they don't know English very well.
Leo and I chatted about what interesting things he is always doing with Brazilian kids. We were keen to think about books, and birthday cards and posters, and mailboxes, and ...it went on. The YoungActivists have done some neat things but it is not easy. The name, for a start, is not good. But KidPower is around and we might be able to use it to do fun and worthwhile things for the kids. It is better, Leo suggests, to think of something the kids like/dislike and work from there to find qualities of such things and then to use those to improve some place/thing they are interested in.
Andres has made the Scratch web site really interesting but there is heaps more that can be done. Everyone has good ideas - perhaps it is important to be able to include more things from those who are using Scratch - even to get a web page that is in Kymer would be good without worrying that we can't yet have Scratch in Kymer - that might not matter as we want to teach English?
Tammy's implementation that let things come from the web into Scratch is likely to lead to a lot of interesting things. I'm excited about that.
And we are really lucky - we have four sensor boards to hook into Scratch - that should provide some fun for everyone. We should think hard about all the ways we can use them and have them where everyone can see the benefits of listening to the earth.
Natalie always has such good and challenging ideas - I am pleased that I don't have to deal with them all now - we'll get together later to think about them some more :-)
mmmm... so many things to think about - thanks Mitch for the opportunity!
