Event information »

Event information »

Class Information:

• Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at Dana Middle School: 5504 W. 135th Street, Hawthorne, CA 90250
• Festival begins at 8:00am
• Price: FREE!

Questions: Email to info@it4kids.org or use our online contact form
Register @ http://it4kids.org . Tel: 310.920.0107

Author: Sara Mead
Original Article post at: newamerica.net

Cutting edge technological innovation isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when we think about early education. Many of the things we associate with young children’s learning—caring adult-child interactions, alphabet blocks, the caterpillar-in-the-jar—are decidedly low-tech. For better or for worse, early education seems like one area unlikely to be revolutionized by the kind of technology-driven productivity increases that are transforming modern life.

But things aren’t always as they seem—and that’s certainly true of technology and early education. A new generation of technology-driven innovations in professional development, assessment, and curriculum and instructional materials have real potential to improve the quality of early education teaching and learning.

Consider the example of www.freereading.net, which offers a research-based, forty-week early literacy intervention for kindergarten and first graders. The curriculum, along with a rich variety of supplemental resources and activities, is available for free on the internet. The State of Florida recently approved www.freereading.com for use in its public school classrooms. By using this free “open source” curriculum instead of a costly commercial textbook, school districts can free up funding for other activities that improve the quality of early education, such as professional development or more customized supports for struggling students. Teachers add their own ideas and activities to the site’s resource bank, disseminating effective practices to a broader audience and building a professional community of early educators online. Moreover, the internet allows www.freereading.com to offer resources ordinary textbooks can’t—for instance, videos that allow teachers to watch and learn from effective teachers implementing literacy activities.

Online video sharing has tremendous potential to improve professional development for early educators. My Teaching Partner, created by researchers at the University of Virginia, is another website that provides resources for early educators, including an activity bank, video examples of high-quality teaching, and a 36-week language and literacy instruction program. MTP also uses videoconferencing and online video sharing technology to provide individualized coaching and professional development for teachers. Teachers record video of themselves teaching and send it to a coach, who evaluates the video and edits it to provide feedback and help the teacher evaluate her own practice. Teachers and coaches discuss the video and set goals for improvement via videoconference, and the coach can direct the teacher to resources and videos in MTP’s online library that address skills she needs to improve. Online videosharing and videoconference technology provide an efficient way for a limited number of trained coaches to provide professional development and support to many teachers in far-flung locations.

Teachers use handheld computers to assess students and customize instruction to individual needs. Teachers can also use technology to help customize instruction in the classroom. Teachers in Montgomery County, Maryland, use handheld computers to monitor students’ achievement on a real-time basis, map students’ abilities back onto aligned state literacy standards, and plan instruction to meet students’ needs. A growing number of school districts nationally use similar handheld devices to administer one-on-one and observational assessments of young children’s learning—a task that this technology makes far less burdensome and time-consuming for teachers.

Technology holds particular promise for early education because it enhances teachers’ ability to customize instruction to individual students’ development. Young children’s development is highly variable, and while early educators must work to bring all children to the same high standards by the end of third grade, doing so effectively requires customizing instruction and support to each child’s unique developmental progress. Technology, such as Montgomery County’s handheld computers, or www.freereading.com and MTP’s activity banks, can provide teachers analysis and resources that help them better customize instruction to where students are developmentally. This makes teachers both more effective and more efficient. That’s important because early education is a labor-intensive industry, and technology that makes labor more productive is highly beneficial.

Technology is no replacement for the core of quality early education—verbally rich, emotionally supportive interactions between children and adults. But technology can help improve teachers’ ability to create those types of interactions, and it can help them better align them with standards and customize them to children’s needs. That’s quite an accomplishment.

Event Detail:
“Come share in the season of giving! Please bring an unwrapped toy, book, or gift certificate for a foster child (ages 1 to 17 years) in the San Gabriel Valley. There will be live holiday music, and light refreshments will be served.”

“To RSVP or for more information, please contact the 57th Assembly District Office at 626-960-4457, or send an email to Jorge.Marquez@asm.ca.gov”

Date: Saturday, December 20th 2008
Time: 9:30am – 12:30pm
Venue: La Puente Community and Youth Learning Activity Center
Address: 501 Glendora Avenue, La Puente, CA 91744

“Technology plays a significant role in all aspects of American life today, and this role will only increase in the future. The potential benefits of technology for young children’s learning and development are well documented (Wright & Shade 1994). As technology becomes easier to use and early childhood software proliferates, young children’s use of technology becomes more widespread. Therefore, early childhood educators have a responsibility to critically examine the impact of technology on children and be prepared to use technology to benefit children.”

• Used appropriately, technology can enhance children’s cognitive and social abilities
• Appropriate technology is integrated into the regular learning environment and used as one of many options to support children’s learning
• Early childhood educators should promote equitable access to technology for all children and their families. Children with special needs should have increased access when this is helpful
• The power of technology to influence children’s learning and development requires that attention b e paid to eliminating stereotyping of any group and eliminating exposure to violence, especially as a problem-solving strategy
• Teachers, in collaboration with parents, should advocate for more appropriate technology applicati ons for all children
• The appropriate use of technology has many implications for early childhood professional development

Full report: http://www.naeyc.org/about/positions/pdf/PSTECH98.PDF

Where: Steven’s Steak House – 5332 Steven’s Place, Commerce, CA 90040
When: Thursday, November 13, 2008 – Doors open at 6pm, sit down dinner at 7pm

Please come out and join the members of the Homicide Bureau for a night of great food and side splitting laugher, as Ruday and his friends entertain you.

Proceeds benefit: IT 4 Kids (Information Technology Foundation for Children) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Homicide Bureau Baker to Vegas Team and The Annual Baker to Vegas Barbeque.

Cost: $35.00 perticket or $350.00 per table. For tickets contact:

Homicide Day Desk: 323-890-5500
Homicide Bureau – Melanie Delaney: 323-890-5515, Jim Gates: 323-890-5590, Traci Gonzales: 323-890-5633, Gil Carrillo: 323-890-5572, Larry Brandenburg: 323-890-5651
IT 4 Kids – Roland Del Rio: 310-824-1800 ext: 146

“… As Citicorps to Bear Stearns to Countrywide compete for front-page headlines, left to isolated local news stories is the nationwide slashing of public education funding.

The “trickle down” impact of failing to properly educate children — increased incarceration, a growing class-based achievement gap, and the exodus of skilled teachers from the profession – has gone largely unreported. And this is particularly true in California, where schools face the deepest cuts while Governor Schwarzenegger travels the state vowing not to preserve school funding by raising taxes.”

“While the United States Treasury throws a publicly funded life raft to millionaires, the nation’s economic policymakers ignore the growing school funding crisis. Teacher layoff notices are being handed out, plans are being made for increasing class size, and school districts across the nation are desperately seeking money-saving strategies.

But based on media coverage, one would not think that there is any impact to school cuts. The school funding crisis fits the category of “what else is new,” while the unexpected financial crisis at institutions like Bear Stearns constitutes ‘news.’”

“The ultimate irony of the media’s linking of the fortunes of the rich to the greater good, and its downplaying of the school funding crisis, is that the failures of Bear Stearns and others sends exactly the opposite message. Hedge fund profits, taxed at a ridiculously low 15%, did little to help schools in their heyday, while their backing of reckless mortgage investments contributed to the current education crisis.

In other words, what has been good for the rich has not been good for the majority of schoolchildren, or for the majority of the nation…”

The event is to raise money and awareness for children with developmental disabilities.

Register a team or join a team. Each team can have up to 6 bowlers. If your team fills up, you can start a second one if we have room. Any left open slots can be filled by our organizer closer to the date of the event.

For more information, visit: http://bowlathon.net/event/mychals2008/about