Today, the children
kept asking me to read some story books to them while they were waiting for
their parents to pick them up. Young
children love to hear, make, and read stories, so I decided to turn on the CD
player and put on my favourite CD’s story `Go for a bear hunt’. After the story finished, children kept
asking `again, again please!’ Thus, I
suggested them to use their imagination to do the actions, encouraged them to
express their feelings and to speak out the words by following the story.
Functioning
ICTs such as the CD player can be used to integrate into the children’s pretend
play perfectly. Its gives children
opportunities not only to stimulate their imagination and thinking skills, or release
their feeling but build vocabularies which can be used to make and retell for
extending their language abilities. The
children demonstrated their excitment by listening concentrated and following
the lyrics from the story; they stood up and stomped on the floor when they
listened to `we go for a bear hunt, we got to the wheat field’. They held up both of their hands like flying in
the air when they said `we can’t get over it’; they lowered both of their hands
when they said `we can’t get under it’.
Sometimes, they pretended rolling the boat, walking in tiptoes, climbing
up and down the tree, feeling scary, yelling and having a deep breathe. Children were transforming the message from
the CD into make-believe themselves by acting out the actions and expressions
of the story (Liang & Johnson, 1999).
It has been agreed among some developmental psychologists and
educationalists that collaboration is especially important in the early
years. When children are share joint
attention and joint engaging in activities that provides a significant
cognitive challenge in itself (Light & Butterworth, 1992). There
is considerable evidence that ICT can be a powerful resource in helping to
support the social systems of pre-school learning environment. It proves that the value of ICT in fostering
children’s collaborative learning has been demonstrated successfully and it
does not occur as just simply by bringing children together to share the story (Crook,
1994).
After this
experience, children grew the knowledge and skill of using technology in their
play. They check the button on the wall whether
it has been turned on and connected with the CD player, putting a CD inside the
machine before pressing on the play button.
Their experiences and resulting play behaviours illustrate that they
internalize the technological concepts and are able to create the events by
themselves (Ministry of Education, 2007).
In according to Vygotsky’s notion of abstract transformation of objects
and roles in play, children use the CD player as a learning medium to transform
the story in their behaviours, in which has a direct relationship and can be
viewed as facilitating children’s literacy development and supports their
social skills and emotional development. (Vygotsky, 1978).
It is
becoming clearer that in play and literacy, certain foundational mental
processes may be shared. The ability to use and understand symbolic
representations in one context can then be transferred to another context. Children can be transformed with this concept
of using CD player for learning to the context of computer based learning. Te Whᾱriki advocates children learning through different technologies and recognise
the differentiate functions between different technologies in the setting
(Ministry of Education, 1996). Therefore,
ICT use should be grounded in
an understanding of the purposes, practices, and social context of early year
education. It also indicates ways that
ICT can support children's learning through transforming their play into
language and cognitive development (Smori, 1999).
References:
Liang, P., & Johnson, J. (1999). Using
technology toenhance early literacy through play. Computing in the Schools, 15, 55-64.
Light, P., & Butterworth, G. (1992). Context and cognition ways of learning and
knowing, Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki, he Whāriki Mātauranga mo ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early
childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The
New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Smori, S. (1999). Technology
in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19,
5-10.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher
Psychological.
Kia ora Clara
ReplyDeleteIt’s good to see how you support children’s learning at your centre. I like the way you facilitated children’s learning through ICT equipment. I also found that children really like to listen to their favourite stories and songs and they response to them by singing, dancing and moving bodies. It is really interesting.
One of the main benefits of CD player I consider is that children can listen to storytelling and songs over and over again with interesting sound effects, music and excellent narrators’ voice. This function allows children to express their thoughts, ideas, imagination by acting out.
As you mentioned, the benefits of CD player helps children to develop their non-verbal and verbal communication skills in many ways. This also encourages children to be able to discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive (Ministry of Education, 1996). What a wonderful technology it is for children’s learning and development! In addition, children are also able to understand of how CD player works and why CD player operates in the way they do by exploring it (Ministry of Education, 2007).
Thank you for reminding me of using of CD player. I actually use MP 3 more than CD player. Overall, both are helpful and effective learning resource for our children, anyway.
Ka pai!
References
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga ngā mokopuna Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-documents/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum
Kia Ora Clara,
ReplyDeleteIt was good to read that you allowed children to experiment with how the CD player works e.g. checking the switch on the wall, putting CD’s inside, and pressing the buttons. Te Whāriki explains that in order for children to construct knowledge about the world around them by learning “how things work and trying them out, and by the purposeful use of resources” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 82).
I think it is interesting that you allowed the children space to explore the CD player; I remember when my half-sister was a toddler my dad used to get angry because she would push the buttons on the CD and DVD players, and he would move them out of her reach. Now from reading your reflection and from my learning about technology, I think that a better approach would have been to encourage her interest and perhaps show her how to use it – even at a young age I feel it is important for children to be able to work things out and do things for themselves, especially in this day and age as far as using technology is concerned. Te Whāriki states that children become increasingly more self-disciplined and self-reliant and take responsibility for their own actions and learning(Ministry of Education, 1996).
I also agree with your point that music helps children’s development. At my centre, our CD player is equipped with an iPod dock – which I find we use more than we use CD’s. Have you considered some non-digital music tools that you could use in your practice e.g. instruments? This could be another way that you could include technology during music times.
Overall, I think you have included some good links to literature and it was good to read some examples from your own practice. Tumeke!
References
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga ngā mokopuna Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Kia ora Clara
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed and interesting how you used ICT to support children's learning through transforming their story book into dramatic play, it also help build their cognitive development(Smori,1999). I like how you functioning ICT such as cd player and used to integrate into children's pretend play perfectly. That is how a professional teacher prepared herself all the time and make use of all the ICT resources available at your centre.
I like how you bring those children's attention and it was clear that this is one of children's interest. To have the opportunities to express their feelings, and their concentration by physically acting the story holistically.
You also encouraged them by stimulating their imagination in building their vocabularies and literacy learning. You have done a fantastic job and used storybook to help children's listening skills, and relationship between teacher and the children (Ministry of Education, 1996).
Overall, You have done a great job bringing those children together and engaged within their interest. Tumeke!!
References:
Ministry of Education.(1996).Te whariki, he whariki, he whariki Matauranga mo nga Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Smori, S, (1999). Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19,5-10.