Last night I met with a large and vibrant team at City Children's Centre. A community based centre which is dear to my heart as I feel I was 'raised' as a Teacher in one myself from 1997 to 2003. I was fortunate to graduate and join a co-operative and inclusive early childhood community centre like City Children and it was there I really learnt about Te Whariki as a lived experience. In my last years there as supervisor I practiced beside my daughter Hannah, a really special time for us and then I took a new path into primary training and teaching. I believe my courage, strong value base and pedagogy on partnerships with parents and whanau came of age in this collaborative atmosphere, so when I visit City Children I am reminded of my roots and of the hard mahi of kaiako in early childhood. Yesterday was no exception, after a long day this team committed to finding our more about Foundations for Discovery talk about 21st Century Learning and the myriad of technologies which have come into our lives. One story of holding cellophane over a black and white television to give the illusion of colour cracked me up...another of a participants father who was mocked by his Math Teacher when he shared his knowledge of a machine's ability to do calculus "This boy is crazy!"... the huge brick telephones which we saw those labelled as 'yuppies' using and swore we would never buy one...and just what a Blog is?... all great snapshots on Information Communication Technology infiltrating our lives Unfortunately I couldn't get on the internet and show this team some very exciting new technologies, concrete walls don't allow that lol, one day soon wireless will beat that too, so I have sent them these links one to sixth sense technology... a wearable computer YES! the time has come for computers to work with us and not ourselves crouched over them :) and the other link to Shiftables...programmes taken out of computers that you can manipulate, I get very excited by the young boy who uses these to add characters to a story board and create his own movie, amazing! and now I share with you all. Thank-you to City Children for always reminding me where I am from and I hope I return the favour by exciting you about this journey we are setting forth on.
Thank you Janine it was a very exciting workshop for me. I look forward to the rest of the year where the toddler room teachers will be able to introduce ICT to the children in a basic way and understand what they are doing.
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