Reflection on Integrated Technology

Blogging:
I feel like blogging was a great idea. I wrote all of the reviews in Word first, simply so I could organize them in the manner I felt was most appropriate. I then posted them on Blogger, and I think that this is a great technology to use. Children can type, therefore they can blog. By being able to set up privacy features, the children could respond to one another’s and participate in discussions on the web. I think this is a great idea, and I hope to one day have the opportunity to incorporate a similar task within my own classroom.
Wordle:
I think wordles are the coolest things! When we did them in class, I immediately knew that I wanted to do one for a book. I think that they are really fun and they help show kids the importance of the words you use. Without having full sentences, students see how one word choice can affect the entire meaning of the wordle. I really enjoyed using this, and it’s the technology I implemented with my student. I think the options that are open to you with this technology are limitless, and my student really enjoyed writing her reflection and posting it in Wordle.
Voicethread:
I enjoyed using this for the project we did for Dr. Jeffries. I think that some of the technology was difficult to use, because we struggled with the microphones sometimes and had to use the telephone connection and type responses. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed using the headphone microphones because I had never used one before. I think that with the proper set up, this technology can easily be implemented in a classroom and therefore can expand the technological advances our students make. I think with all the technology there is, Voicethread is one that’s really neat because students can see the efforts of their work and hear themselves speaking, which also improves verbal communication.

Kathy’s Hats: Trudy Krisher

Nonfiction
Kathy’s Hats is a biographical story about a little girl with cancer. She grew up wearing bonnets to protect her from the sun and match her outfits. She loved wearing hats and expressing herself through her clothing. Once she was diagnosed with cancer, everything changed for her. She starts pinning things on her hat to make them different and “happier.” When she found out that the cancer had gone into remission, everyone in her class wore hats to celebrate the good news. I feel like this book would be a great addition to my classroom. Cancer is word that children fear the meaning without understanding and properly knowing what all it is. I think that if children knew more about cancer and how children who have it behave, it would become less of an issue and more of a rallying point in the classroom. I know of many students and teachers alike who are affected by this illness, and younger children especially could benefit from this book as a read-aloud.

The Great Ships: Patrick O’Brien

The Great Ships is a nonfiction story about some of the great ships of the world throughout history. It spans history from the Gokstad Ship over a thousand years ago to Blackbeard’s infamous Queen Anne’s Revenge to the Enterprise naval craft. The book describes the time period in which seventeen well known vessels were used and their uses. It goes into detail about the major battles ships were in, their purposes within the navy or world culture at the time, and even has an index at the back where it tells where they are now. I think this book would be great within a classroom because it’s perfect for mechanics, the expansion in technology and invention over time, and even has a reference to North Carolina with Blackbeard and the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I think this book would be great to implement in a social studies curriculum and would be a perfect reading book for a student who is interest in nautical life.

Saints and Angels: edited by Carron Brown

This book was so interesting! The book discusses the major saints of the Christian and Catholic faiths, specifying dates that are important and correlate with the Saints. There are pages for all the major saints within the Catholic faith especially, and broken down among different groups, such as the Holy Family, the Gospel Writers, martyrs and so on. I think this book would be great for use as a reference when discussing different holidays from different religions. I think that multicultural holidays are a great way in introduce children to different cultures and have them aware of a cultural mindset far before it is normally discussed. I think that opening their eyes to a facet of a well-established faith would also allow them to delve further into other cultures, allowing them to see different aspects of a lot of different cultures. I’m not sure if I would read this book aloud, simply because of the content, but I do think it would be a neat book to have in one’s library for students to reference when discussing other cultures, including religions.

Jouanah: A Hmong Cinderella adapted by Jewell Reinhart Coburn with Tzexa Cherta Lee

Multicultural and International Literature
This international story is one that I think would be great to use as a comparison. The story is that of a young girl, Jouanah, who’s father remarries and she finds herself the forgotten child of a man who no longer can love. She endures her tragedies quietly and kindly, and therefore she lives a life wherein she lives to appease others. She is rewarded when she finds a gift from her dead mother and goes to the New Year’s celebration, where she meets the village’s most honored man and they finally end up together. It is a Southeast Asian version of the classic Cinderella tale. I think this story would be great for three different reasons in the classroom. There is so much a teacher could do with a comparison piece on this version and the traditional American version. One could also use this story to illustrate some of similarities between cultures, especially useful if a new student from another culture joins your classroom. A third idea is the one that this could be used as a small window into another culture, using the artwork and illustrations to show how people in Southeast Asia once lived.

Anansi does the Impossible: Verna Aardema

This international tale is one that I read when I was younger. The story regales the tale of a small spider who wants to know all the tales of the Sky God. The Sky God feels like this is an impossible task, so he feels confident in assuming that the small spider cannot fulfill his lofty demands for the price of the stories. He talks with his wife, who helps him figure out how to catch a live python, a real fairy and 47 hornets. He pays the full price the Sky God set for the stories and receives them at the end of the tale, after completing tasks men could not do. The story is exciting, the illustrations are beautiful, and the children will love the onomatopoeia that is developed throughout the story. This would be a fantastic read aloud for younger children especially, who would really get into the characters and sounds portrayed.

A Life Like Mine: Unicef

This book is one of the most interesting ones I read for this project. It is broken up into the Survival, Development , Protection and Participation of children around the world. I think it’s really neat because this book goes out of its way to discuss the ways in which children around the world live day to day. The book describes children’s lives in all major continents, from many religions, socioeconomic statuses and ages. I think this book is great because students could look up a specific child in an area they were interested in or were studying for in another class. It’s a true life story and would allow them to really see how children live in other parts of the world. I think what is also neat about this book is the fact that there is a section where it tells what students can do to help other children in other parts of the world. There are fantastic graphic descriptions and photos of the children they are reading about. I think this book would easily integrate into any classroom K-5 if the teacher used it properly and read it aloud in younger grades.