Forum: Week 2- Telecommunications

Date: Sun Sep 17 2006 17:20

Author: Carney, Susan  <carneys1@student.wpunj.edu>

Subject: Media in the Classroom

Over the past week I have used the several different types of media and telecommunications in my classroom.  I have used a digital camera with my 4 year old classes to make a friendship bulletin board.  Each child's photo was integrated into his or her drawing in KidPix.  I felt that this was important because even at a young age, students should have exposure to a digital camera.  Even though for this assignment I took the pictures, the students became more familiar with the school's digital camera. I have also used print media to explain the terms "text", "graphics", and "font" to second graders.  I felt it was important to use story books to introduce these terms before we used them in a word processing programs because it was something tangible that they were comfortable with and had a lot of knowledge about.  It made it easier for them to understand what could be done on the computer. After an introductory discussion on careers, my 8th grade students were able to explore printed career magazines.  They, then, used telecommunications to access the ACT website to take online assessment tests to discover their abilities and interests.  After finding out where their interests and abilities were, they were able to access a database of careers.  It was extremely important for these students to have the ability to tap into a high quality website. My 6th grade class used a printed newspaper as a resource before creating their own class newspaper in Word.  I felt it was important to show them a newspaper before this activity because many of them do not receive newspapers at home.