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Gadget Family ‘Back to School’ Website Awards 2003 |
Parents have little trouble teaching even very young children to use technology (kids can’t make the same claim about training their parents!).
By pre-school, the Gadget Kids had explored the computer worlds of Putt-Putt, Fatty Bear and Reader Rabbit, and were very familiar with Big Bird and his mates in Sesame Street.
Yet it was not until they had a real teacher in kindergarten that they developed a grasp of their ABCs and the concept of letters making up words. I suspect that they had missed the educational sub-plot of the games they played and shows they watched.
Although I am sure that early use of computers can teach children to be comfortable with technology (and to become better Play Station players), the effectiveness of technology in the general education of young children is dependent on many factors.
Indeed, research does not recommend the use of computers for children under three, and warns against developmentally inappropriate use of technology at all ages(1). Computers can improve cognition, problem solving and conceptual skills in pre-school and primary aged children - but this is very dependent on the appropriateness of the software and learning environment, and the training and skills of the individual teachers. “Without high quality and well prepared teachers, the potential of IT in education cannot be achieved.”(2)
The internet has profoundly altered a student’s approach to research and communication. Our questioning family can no longer lovingly be told to look it up in their Funk and Wagnall’s. A student given a project on Japan is likely to email a peer in Tokyo for primary source material. Internet research requires the acquisition of different skills to those we learnt at school. Though more accessible and timely, web based research has some disadvantages over the Dewey System in the school library. There is no librarian to filter unreliable content, and critical analysis skills must be learnt. An internet based educational program can significantly improve a student’s learning but “…requires changes in curriculum content, instructional practices, and assessment to take advantage of the communication and information storage and retrieval strengths of the Internet, and to appropriately assess the types of learning these strengths engenders.“(3)
So, acting as your online librarian, the gadget family has tracked down these ‘Gadget Family ‘Back to School’ Website Awards’ for 2003.
Educational Web Adventures
http://www.eduweb.com/adventure.html
Try http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/
MapMachine (Even found Alstonville !)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps
Aunty Math -Challenging math problems in story form.
http://www.auntymath.com
Melbourne Symphony Encounter —From Silence to Symphony (Excellent)
http://www.mso.com.au/edu/front.html
Questacon - National Science Museum
http://www.questacon.edu.au/kids.html
Froguts - Virtual Disection of a frog (Amazing!)
http://www.froguts.com
How Stuff Works (Classic)
http://www.howstuffworks.com
Animal Diversity - animal natural history
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu
Heaven’s Above - Star Charts
http://www.heavens-above.com
Scholastic - Where Captain Underpants meets Harry Potter
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/home_flash.asp
References
(1) COMPUTERS AND YOUNG CHILDREN
http://www.kidsource.com/education/computers.
children.html
(2) RESEARCH ON IT IN EDUCATION
http://www.iste.org/research/reports/tlcu/overview.cfm
(3) RESEARCH ON INTERNET USE
IN EDUCATION
http://www.iste.org/research/reports/tlcu/internet.cfm
(4) EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER - Internet Resources for Children and Teens
http://ericit.org/weblinks/weblinks-02-03.shtml
(5) 700+ GREAT SITES FOR KIDS
www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/amazing.html
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