I assisted the media teacher at Pratt School in Prospect Park last year. There were only kindergartners and first graders in the school.
Some of the things that I saw being taught there: How to listen to the teacher and remember an assignment. They would gather, sitting on the floor, listen and watch as the teacher described the assignment, then went to their computers and attempted to do it. Their assignments were such things as making pictures with specific objects in them, selected from the program's various elements, learning the difference between capital and small letters and how to make them on the computer, using their imaginations to tell a story with pictures. The first graders learned punctuation and grammar skills, actually put together a slide show about themselves, with a description of themselves (picture drawn with a drawing program), their likes and dislikes, etc. AND they all loved it. Half of their hour for "media" was spent in the library, selecting books to take home, being read to, and checking out the books on the computer, which remembered whether they had returned their books. I am not a teacher, but I saw these children learning in a different way, and liking it a lot. It was a very diverse group of children, with caucasian, black, Somali, Tibetan, Hmong children equally entranced with the computers (and the books!). Betts Zerby ===== Elizabeth J. Zerby Minneapolis MN __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
