Even though technology is changing and it is improving some aspects of Early Childhood, we as educators shouldn’t stray too far from the basic way we teach our students and communicate with our parents.
Although email, text and now storypak is a great way to communicate, we shouldn’t forget that face to face communication builds the best relationships with parents.
I am not saying that other types of communication can’t be helpful and easy, I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be our only form of communication.
Because technology and other ways of teaching students have changed, it is important to go back to basics when we teach our students.
Dittos and patterns can be an easy fix, and it doesn’t take as much time as it would if we cut them out ourselves.
We want our students to use their creativity, but we are giving them machine made items to decorate, not items that we took the time to make.
That was one of my concerns with my booklets “Creative Space” was that; teachers would not appreciate the activities because they had to prepare them.
Creativity produces more creativity, when you are creative you connect to your creative side.
We know our students, and we know what they need, so when we create the items ourselves, they fit the needs of the students.
I’m not saying that patterns and dittos shouldn’t be used; I am saying that it shouldn’t be our only form for creating projects and writing assignments.
I want our students to see how hard we work for them by providing items that we made or cut out by hand.
This might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but teachers are inherently creative, and when we walk away from this, we become lazy and look for an easy way of doing things. And then we find that students are being taught from dittos and bought patterns; we are not encouraging them to create.
My biggest concern is that technology is going to take Early Childhood in a direction that it can’t escape. I miss bulletin board paper, with all the bright colors used to transform bulletin boards into something individualized and unique, and the fun boarders, calendars with colorful leaves with numbers or small Christmas trees and hand-made signs for the month.
When everything was prepared and put up, it screamed Early Childhood fun, it was color everywhere, and it showed the parents and students how hard the teacher worked, it showed passion and enthusiasm
I’m not against technology, I think we should always be moving forward with new discoveries; I just think with early childhood, it is important to remember the things that worked in our classrooms and not to stray too far from that.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/9280170/Learning-to-be-part-of-a-selective-online-crowd/
*Darla the Teacher*
