Nets

My lesson plan on taskstream does address model strategies of the NETs. My lesson plan had to do with students working in pairs to complete two halves of a symetrical drawing. To do this each student would draw 1/2 of a drawing along a horizontal line of symetry (on Kidpix). Then they would switch to a different students computer and complete the other half of a symetrical drawing. This adresses:
Creativity and Innovation
b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression.
Communication and Collaboration
a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments
and media.
d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.

Getting Higher

Higher level thinking with kindergarten. It could happen. I think the trick is to let the kids take charge of their own learning. Often times with kindergarten projects the emphisis is on the end product... having it look presentable to pin to the wall for PARENTS to look at. WRONG! The students need to control their learning from start to finish and the teacher is there to help guide and focus them. I intend to creat a classroom where through an emergent curiculum students can engage in projects that are not focused on the product but the process. Exploring new ways of doing things is the key to learning.

thechnology in my classroom

It is very exciting to think about all the ways technology can potentialy enhance a kindergarten classroom. Already we use it during our learning centers. Just last week when we where studying patterns on of our four station which the student rotated through was on the computers. The girls worked in pairs on one computer and took turns completing patterens on a fun Sesimi Street, Cookie Monster pattern game. The girls where thouroughly engaged and needed no supervision. If this station where done with a worksheet the girls would have needed more guidence and redirection when they got sidtracked. This alowed me and the other teacher to give our full atention to the stations we were teaching with no distractions. It was great! I would like to find more web/software based resources to encorporate in our center based learning.
Also we have an unused active board in our room. The potential is incredible for this peice of technology but we still haven't found the time to fully learn this new peice of equipment. I can forsee using it as part of our sign-ins in the mourning. Often time we take survey type graphs in the mourning so the girls can become familur with graphing or other things and have a way to be engaged in the mourning. The active board would be phenominal for this. The board works as a huge touch screen where girls could drag their name or picture over to a centain category to mark their answers. This would be cool.

Kindergarten Software

Here it is

http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/games/game2.htm