Ms. Daly's kindergarten

https://www.loom.com/share/9898238438ee440fb5f9e95714091342 Lesley, This is the link to my new PECHA KUCHA. Since Powerpoint went over 7 minutes with the transitions, I re recorded my presentation using Google slides and Loom.

In the TED talk A School in the Clouds Sugata Mitra seems to pose the idea that teachers are not necessary and antiquated .Schools were created to keep the "bureaucratic administrative machine" running.  He suggests our education system was designed to create students who could produce handwriting, read and do basic math "like a secretary in the west." He speaks in a playful tone and when you get past what could be taken as derogatory, the suggestion that changes need to happen in education are valid.  Certainly education needs to be different than the 1800's. Our world is vastly different. I disagree however that just sticking a computer in front of a child is the ideal way for a child to learn. We saw this spring when we were thrust into the world of online learning, that some children found success and others struggled. Some children engaged in the content provided online and some families requested paper and pencil activities as the computer was not a good...

In the TED talk Connected But Alone   Sherry Turkle discusses the idea that our growing dependence on technology such as cell phone to use apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter has changed people in such a way that we look for connection on technology  in order to control the message that we put out about ourselves. Face to face conversations leaves people feeling anxious  and have gotten to the point where kids suggest that Siri (the cellphone voice ) might be a better friend and listener than a real person. "We get so used to be shortchanged on conversation and to getting by with less that we seem almost willing to dispense with people all together." This seems a sad commentary on where we are as a society and we have all seen kids hanging out together not looking at each other at all. Perhaps worse is this : I know in my home we are not immune to either of these scenarios. I try to have dinner with my kids "tech free" as often as possible (when they are ...

I have to admit that this was an exercise that made a little uncomfortable before I went through it in total . Listening to Lesley's slidedeck was both a relief and concerning at the same time. I found relief at the thought that Disney could be both pleasure and critique. I was uncomfortable about learning that the launch of the princess "empire" was in 2000. One look at Disney Store online shows just how much money there is in the marketing of princess culture.   My girls are 25 and 23. We were the target of that launch and we owned every princess dress ever made. I don't think that Alyssa and Emily wore clothes for years. They lived in their princess dresses. Though of course I realized that Disney is and was a marketing machine, Lesley's story of the executive who looked at all of the homemade costumes and calculated the branding and marketing strategy is uncomfortable. That said, I am so proud of my girls and where they are in life. Alyssa just bought her fi...

I had been exposed to Seesaw in previous TESOL classes at RIC several years ago and always thought that I would like to try it, but in the busyness of teaching every day and caring for my own children I never really took the time to explore it. Fast forward to teaching virtually in 2020 and my district decided to use Seesaw as the learning platform for pre-k- 2nd grade. In addition to twice daily face to face meetings with my students, I would be assigning and evaluating my students' work via Seesaw. I quickly signed up for a pd and dove in headfirst.  I created a PowerPoint tutorial which I have linked to my Padlet here: https://padlet.com/edaly7/ikdtzoxk9z0vwi89 Seesaw was a useful tool to help me connect with my students during virtual learning by  assigning work and allowing me and my teacher assistant to provide feedback in real time.  

I have been playing around with the idea that I want to increase parent and family engagement based on the belief that students learn best when when families are involved and connected. I saw that in particular this spring during virtual learning when parents struggled to help their children based on lack of understanding of expectations. Our kindergarten team worked to develop clear kid friendly "learning targets" for the final trimester. What I learned when I shared those with parents is that they were "parent friendly" too.  I would like to create and expand on those clearly defined learning targets based on the first and second trimester. I will use Padlet as a digital tool to share with my families. I would also like to use Padlet to house student and family friendly content and resources to support learning.