Seasons Webquest

What works best about this program (your webquest)?
I think that what works best about my webquest are my links. It was challenging to create a project that would be developmentally appropriate for kindergartners, but I think the games and resource links I have are great. I liked how I could use my knowledge from evaluating websites to find good sites to use for my webquest.

What do you wish you had time, energy, and money to make this project even better?
I don't believe in stifling children's creativity, but if I had more time I would include a link for project ideas. I might take pictures of drawings and paintings that students have completed in earlier years. After learning about podcasts today I might even create one to include in the webquest. It could show the students one idea of something they could create on their favorite season. I might also use video and tape students' presentations and add a few of those to my webquest.

What value did the planning sheet and peer evaluation have for your project?
The planning sheet was good to be able to get ideas down for our webquest. I think one thing to maybe try differently is to use it after final topics for the webquest have been chosen. I knew what I was doing already for mine so it worked out alright. However, I know other students were still deciding and that made it hard for them to complete the planning sheet.
I loved the peer evaluation! I like good constructive feedback on my work. The evaluation was great for me to use and make changes so my webquest would be better.

What have you learned about the instructional planning process based on the completion of this project?
It was a lot of fun and time consuming. I believe the more practice I have planning lessons the better I will become. The first time we ever try something new it usually takes longer to complete. Now that I have gone through the process of planning and creating a webquest I feel more confident in my abilities to use and make them in my own classroom.

www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=55883

This is the link to the webquest I created for kindergarten on seasons.

Digital Photography

What a great way to include technology into our classrooms! Taking those pictures for our assignment was so much fun! If I had fun doing it, I can only imagine how much fun elementary students would have. This assignment was only one example of many. Since I am an early childhood educator one of the things I'm going to use technology for is to take pictures of my students and use them for lessons about self-worth. This is something that is part of the curriculum for kindergarten, and I can't think of a better way to teach students this than using their own pictures. For my benefit, I can also use digital photography as a form of assessment. I love this piece of technology because I know many ways I can use it effectively.

Geometric Shapes!

Web Applications

As an early childhood educator I had a more difficult time trying to find web applications that would work for the younger grades I want to teach. After searching the different links I decided to just go to google and see what I could find. I first tried to search for this eManipulatives site that I used in Math 2020. As I was searching for this site I found another one that would be great for first grade!
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/manip/mn_k.html
This site is very child-friendly and covers the core curriculum for first grade math. I really like the interaction were the students can work with money because it allows them to use a tool that will flip the money over. I like this feature because it's important for students to recognize both sides of coins and bills.
As I continued my search I also found another site that would be good for kindergarten.
http://www.learningplanet.com/act/fl/aact/alphastart.swf
The students can see the entire alphabet and click on the letters to hear their name. It also shows a picture that starts with the letter. It's a good site, but I might use something else in my classroom because it's not as interactive. The site would be better if students could also click on the picture and see other things happen. One place I've been to before that I know is an excellent site is starfall.com. I would use their interactive site for learning the alphabet before I chose to use this other one I found.