EALR: 1. INTEGRATION: Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems.
Component: 1.2 Collaborate: Use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Grade Level Expectation: 1.2.1 Communicate and collaborate to learn with others.
Lesson: Weather and Calendar During this lesson students will review today's date. Learning the days of the week, months of the year, and year. After the calendar, we would move onto discussing the weather for the day.
We would use the SmartBoard Technology to learn these concepts. There would be a calendar in which students are able to write the number for the date as well as circle or choose the day of the week, month and year. All the students would be able to use this technology to learn calendar date and weather concepts.
Here are examples of both calendar and weather SmartBoard tools:
I really enjoyed Ken Robinson's talk on cultivating creativity in education. I agree with him in that creativity has been pushed aside in education. When reflecting on my own thoughts about my own personal journey throughout education, I also fell in the mindset of putting subjects into a hierarchical list. I was taught that math/science and literacy/language were much more important than the arts. Arts and creativity were subjects that were extra, an add-on to the other subjects that mattered more.
In my own classroom, I see a struggle in creative thinking and use of imagination. I think there are more issues than the lack of cultivating creativity (too much exposure to things that are already fully created-no imagination required), but in seeing this, I can only imagine what it would be like in their future. It would be a very sad world if all creativity was lost.
We live in an era where information is very easily accessed. I think that it's important to let our minds be creative in taking this information and using it creatively. I agree with Robinson when he said that "creativity, which I define is the process of having original ideas that have value-more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things" (2007). This is something that I believe we need to focus when teaching our students.
Another aspect of this is to look at each student in a holistic way. I loved his story about Gillian Lynne. I think when we expect a student to fit in the typical mold of being good with the mind (math, science and language), we forget that all they need is an outlet for their creativity. We should know this, we are all made differently. It would be a boring and lame world if we were all the same. Why has our education system encouraged us to teach students to become the same person with the same goals? We need to be preparing our students to be the best that they can be and were created to be. I am a true believer in that all students have the capability to succeed as long as their talents and skills are nurtured and encouraged.
As Robinson said, we need to "see our children for the hope that they are. Our task is to educate their whole being so they can face this future" (2007).
EALR: 1. INTEGRATION: Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems.
Component: 1.2 Collaborate: Use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Grade Level Expectation: 1.2.1 Communicate and collaborate to learn with others.
