Nadel Center for Early Childhood Education

The Big Idea: Little Bloggers

2009-04-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, the cartoon is a little over the top, but here's my big idea: preschoolers as bloggers. "What?" you say. "Preschoolers can't type, they don't know how to go online, and most of them can't even read yet!" I know that, but we don't hold off from reading kids books or showing them movies or putting them on the phone with Grandma until they learn to read or to operate the remote control or to dial a number. We scaffold them so that they can participate in our world -- and our world now includes the exciting form of communication known as blogging.

We encourage young children to crayon a picture and to dictate a description that we write down for them. We staple several of these pages together and call it a book. I propose that, through adult mediation, preliterate kids can blog just as easily. It's fun, it's cute, it's au courant, but even better, it gives our kids an interactive showcase for their work, a sounding board for their questions, and a forum for expression of their thoughts.

As with the creation of those old stapled books, the ideas would come from the kids, and the technical support from the adults. In the classroom and during computer time, we prompt the children to answer the ultimate social media question, the question that everyone on Twitter is answering, "What are you doing right now?" We also ask them to tell us what they've been doing lately, what they are excited about, and what they are wondering. In addition, we enhance our curriculum by leading discussions on theme-related topics. The children's responses to our prompts are recorded as an adult takes dictation, makes a list, or even turns on a video or audio recorder. This content is posted to the classroom's password-protected blog, where friends and relatives can read and respond.

Here's another cartoon that's a little over the top, but it makes a good point: keeping in touch is important. This is why Twitter and Facebook have become such a craze. By sharing the little things we're up to, we bond more closely with each other.

Preschool blogging at NCECE would allow families a glimpse into the classroom and even more importantly, into their children's thought processes. By posting comments on the blog, the sharing becomes a two-way street. Because blogs are available any Internet computer (or phone), distant grandparents and other important adults can participate in this sharing too.

Highlights from the various classroom blogs may be posted to the public NCECE blog which is open to response from the wider world of educators, children's authors, and other online kids. In fact, we can encourage such social exchange by inviting other preschools to set up their own blogging projects. By reading and responding to the blogs of peers from local Jewish or secular preschools, or from classes across the country and the world (Israel, perhaps), our kids can participate in the global conversation that makes "Web 2.0" so exciting for their grown-ups.

What is blogging, anyway?

2009-04-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

The web page you are reading right now is a blog. That makes me, the writer of these words, a blogger.

Everyone has heard of "blogging" but many people aren't sure what exactly the term means. Here is a short video from Common Craft that is both informative and cute. Watch it and you, too, will know what it means to blog!

Inspiration

2009-04-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

This spring I attended Palm Beach County School District's educational technology conference, and was inspired by the ideas of speakers David Warlick and Dean Shareski. So inspired, in fact, that I'd like to try out some of their ideas at our school!

Warlick spoke about the "new literacy." He said that the 3 R's of "readin', ritin', and 'rithmatic" have been supplanted by the 4 E's:

Exposing what's true (i.e., finding valid information within the overwhelming stream of fact and opinion, and opinion disguised as fact, available online)
Employing the information (using it to learn or do something)
Expressing your ideas compellingly (sharing what you've learned)
...within an Ethical context (avoiding plagiarism, copyright violation, etc. in your expressing of what you've learned)

Basically, this means that in this Information Age, we don't just accept everything we read. In very Jewish style, we must examine information, absorb it, and retell it in our own way!

Shareski, true to his name --"Share(ski)"--, spoke about the new digital culture of sharing. On his blog, Ideas & Thoughts, he says "It’s not about the media [as in "social media"], but the social. We crave to be social. Socialization is good, it’s right, it’s human. It’s more about quantity than quality." He encourages us to share what we think, what we read, what we see, what we learn, and what we create.

The ideas of these two social media experts can converge here on our own NCECE blog. I'd like to help our kids learn that when you have a question, there are lots of ways to find an answer, and that there may even be more than one answer. I'd like them to learn to collaborate both in looking for answers and in expressing what they find out. And I'd like them to connect with peers and with caring adults, beyond the four walls of their individual classrooms, who can give them feedback and cheer them on.