Week 6 Reading Blog -

User – What do I do with this?

1.1 Clearly describes how the concepts are connected to & supported by social Relationships & contexts

Keywords:  Technology, Emergent literacy, Classroom instruction, learning standards,

Cooperative curriculum approach,

What?

The two reading I have selected for my second week are the following two journal articles:

·      Handy Manny and the Emergent Literacy Technology Toolkit

o   Hourcade, J., Parette Jr., Boeckmann, N and Blum, C.

·      Shopping for mathematics in consumer town.

o   Wolff, A and Wimer, N

I chose these articles because they both talk about the practical side of learning and teaching.  Wolff and Wimer said it best when they said, “learners need to know how various concepts learned in class can be applied in the real world”

So What?

Handy Manny and the Emergent Literacy Technology Toolkit

Jack J. Hourcade, Howard P. Parette Jr., Nichole Boeckmann, Craig Blum

This article makes an analogy between ‘Handy Manny’ and early childhood educators of today. Manny is the leading character in popular children’s shows; a handyman who uses talking tools to accomplish particular tasks. Manny is a successful handy man because he has a deep understanding of his trade; he knows the individual traits of his tools, and the circumstances in which each tool is to be used.   Today’s early childhood professionals should be like Manny, today’s ‘educational handymen” we should practice and acquire knowledge and skills needed to utilize classroom technology, the hardware and software tools of the technology toolkit, to reinforce emergent literacy curriculum in the early childhood setting. Incorporated in the toolkit are Software and hardware devices that can be used to introduce and improve key emergent literacy skills.

Shopping for mathematics in consumer town.

Ann L Wolff and Nancy Wimer,

This article is about a project, ‘Consumer Town’, which was developed by high school classes, (consumer math and child development) and a preschool class. The teachers joined forces to use a cooperative curriculum approach. The project was designed to stimulate student’s interests (high school and preschool) while they applied their maths skills and integrated the curriculum with other subject areas. Consumer town’s aim was to helped the preschoolers attain learning standards and get involved in hands-on learning while inspiring some high school students to regain yearning to learn.  It is important for learners of all ages to appreciate the concepts learnt in class and apply them to real life situation. This encourages them to be independent, lifelong learners.  Over the entire project was a big success, the children and teachers all learned from each other.

Now What?

Implications for Practice

These two articles, particularly “Shopping for Mathematics in consumer town” have shown me that learners are practical learners. Often times we need to simplify our teaching by showing our students the connection between what they learn at school and the practical, real world application of this knowledge, information.  I really appreciate how the students and teachers “became like a one-room school-house as students of all ages learned from one another”.

While the other article, “Handy Manny and the emergent . . .” showed me the importance of not only being well informed on the subjects that we will be teaching but up-to-date on the other tools that assist us with our teaching. Then knowing the appropriate time to utilize these “tools” (Hardware – videos, computer screens, audio, digital cameras etc. Software- Microsoft, PowerPoint, Clicker 5, etc).

Bibliography

Hourcade, J. P. (2010). Handy Manny and the emergent Literacy technology toolkit. Early Childhood Education Journal (27), 483-491.

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/docview/228490016/fulltextPDF?accountid=10910

Wolff, A. a. (2009, May). Shopping for mathematics in consumer town. Young children , 34-38.

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/docview/197640000/fulltextPDF?accountid=10910