Journal Post 5

Journal Post 5
EME 2040

Chapter 5 Informing Young Children on How to Use Internet Search

What do students need to know about Internet searching? 1. Introduction 2. Informing parents and students 3. Inform students about authors and references on the Internet. 3. Books for students to read 4. Creating books

The students that I would like to teach are either in kindergarten or first grade. Before letting the students work on computers, I would introduce the basics of the computer. Children nowadays know a lot about computers, but they need to really know what each part of the computer does. This is a video that is Part I and it is basic information. If you would like there is a Part II, you could watch on YouTube. This way, I know all of my children are aware of the parts of the computer and what their use is.

A lot of parents rely on the schools to get their children informed about the use of computers, but in all reality, parents need to make sure they know what their children are surfing on the web. When the teachers and parents work together to educate the children, the more successful they will be! The public schools already have software to keep the computers "safe" for the students to use at school. The parents can use software such as NetNanny, it helps the parents have control of what their child sees and it also emails the parents if the child/children visit inappropriate site/sites. This will give the parent in control and the children innocent of pornography and other inappropriate sites. I would also inform the parents about, "The American Library Asoociation (2007) has assembled a useful collection of online safety and security resources for children entitled 'Especially for Young People and Their Parents'." (Maloy 112)

Next, I would need to know how I can inform my kindergartners or first graders what they need to know about Internet searching. Since this is such a young age, I will keep it age appropriate. I will go over the information about what makes a good website. This will get the students to ask questions and tell me what they know about the topic. I will talk about the importance to try to use websites that they can rely on and what to look for in a good website. Most of the websites that will be used, will be bookmarked on their computers. There are two important things that a young student needs to know is how they can tell if it's a good website. I will create an easy to read rubric (laminated so they can write on it), with a grading scale of the information they need in order to know if it is a reliable website to use or not. An example is a rubric would have an author as an important factor to have so I would score it either one being the worse one and four being the best one. If they don't find an author than they know it will be a one and so on. This would be used for students in first grade.  I found another video on YouTube that will help children know about Internet searching.

I found a couple of books for children to read or parents to read with them at home. There really wasn't a lot of good books out there for children (I think I might write one). One of them is called, Internet for Kids, A Beginners Guide to Surfing the Net by Ted Pederson and Francis Moss. Second, The Kids Guide to Research by Deborah Heiligman. These books are to help the student and the parents about researching the internet in a more one on one level. I have found, Good Computer Kids on YouTube is another great way for children and parents get more information on a child's level; for teachers too.

In conclusion, teaching VPK (Voluntary Prekindergarten) has helped me to understand what the children need to get informed about certain subjects and finding different ways of doing so . When I get to teach in a higher grade, I will continue to do some things that I currently do in my VPK classroom. I create books that will help them to remember or use as a guide to help them. I would create a picture book (for the beginning introductions) about the computer. It will have pictures of real parts of the computer and under each picture what it is called and what it does. It will include other things such as reliable and informative websites; some will be bookmarked. Also, the step by step of how to use a computer and key terms. This will help ESE (Exceptional Student Education) and ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) students too.

Resources

barnes and noble

Maloy, R. W. (2014). Teaching Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship. Transforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed., p. 112). Boston: Pearson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcAQdf_ZBd0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=510R1jbfvDk