The Impact of Technology in Kindergarten

When I first began this course, EDUC 6710: Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society, I felt very intimidated by the things I was going to have to do to complete the coursework. As a new teacher that grew up during the explosion of technology, with cell phones, personal computers, and the internet, I understood the great significance of using technology and digital tools in everyday life and in the classroom. But even though I believed in integrating technology into my classroom, I did not have the knowledge of Web 2.0 tools to use blogs, wikis, and podcasts to use them to enhance my classroom lessons. Throughout this course, though, I gained the knowledge I need to effectively incorporate technology into my kindergarten classroom, and I am extremely excited to use these in my classroom in the future to teach 21st century skills.

Not only has this course provided me with the practical knowledge to use Web 2.0 tools in my classroom, it has also provided me with a changed attitude towards technology. While I believed in using technology with older students, I had no idea how these tools would fit in with my kindergarten classroom. However, now that I’ve actually done blogging, wikis, and podcasting, I understand how these things can be used at all levels to enhance learning. In my learning centered classroom, I passionately believe in the concept that we will never know what our students are capable of learning until we teach it. This is no different with technology. The more we expose our students to technology, the more we let them explore and work through what we present to them, the better prepared they will be to live and work in a global society.

To continue expanding my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology, I plan to continue using Web 2.0 tools in my personal life, as well as my classroom. I have already developed several lessons in which I will implement podcasting and wikis. I also plan to make technology a central focus of my continuing education in the years to come, to ensure that I stay as up to date as possible with the newest digital tools and ideas for implementation. I also have set two long term goals that will allow me to transform my classroom and school environment. One of these goals is to integrate the use of digital tools into at least one lesson of each of my 1-2 week units. A second goal deals with transforming my school climate, as I work with several colleagues to share our learned knowledge with veteran teachers in our district. It is my goal to be a teacher leader in my district to promote the development of technology skills in my colleagues. Through monthly after school classes, we hope to teach fellow teachers how to navigate and implement Web 2.0 tools in the classroom to increase student achievement.

Overall, I’ve truly enjoyed learning new and effective ways to use technology in the classroom. I look forward to completing this course of study to truly transform my teaching and prepare my students for a bright, successful future.

Podcasting with Kindergarten Students

One of the benefits of teaching full-day kindergarten is that there are more opportunities to use technology on a daily basis and expose my students to the digital tools they must learn to use to be successful in the future. One Web 2.0 tool I plan to use with my students is podcasting. My school has encouraged the use of this tool, but having never done it before, I was intimidated by it. Now that I have learned to create a podcast through my Walden University course, I'm extremely excited to use podcasting in my classroom on a regular basis. Here is the link to my very first podcast:

http://teachertube.com/music.php?music_id=965&title=Walden_Technology_Interview