Tuesday 7 June 2016

Creative use of ICT in the kindergarten.






Those who know me, are well aware that I am always looking for opportunities to travel through work after being bitten by this bug over 12 years ago through the British Council's Comenius programme (now called Erasmus Plus). Between 2004 & 2011, I was fortunate to be involved in projects that allowed me to visit settings in Norway, Italy, Poland, Sweden, France & Turkey. And have also had opportunities to visit Iceland & Lithuania through separate ventures.
So, a few weeks ago, I got an email through to say the British Council were running 3 PDW (professional development workshops) across Europe, and luckily one was really geared for me - Creative use of ICT in the kindergarten. I applied immediately and waited to hear whether I was successful or not, knowing such a course was bound to be very popular. Imagine my delight when I got a place! 
So I travelled to Oslo on the 2nd of June to spend 2 full days & 2 half days engaging with other early years professionals from Norway, Denmark, Malta & Czech Republic. The premise behind the training was to try & get all the participants (46) to go home with not only new ICT ideas & skills but to have found an eTwinning partner. (eTwinning is an on line project between a minimum of 2 schools)
It is great to actually meet up with colleagues before embarking on a project.
From the very first session, I knew this was going to be a great workshop, Peter from Denmark, shared loads of easy ideas to get the youngest children using ICT to acquire new skills or reinforce new knowledge. It wasn't about children all having access to an individual tablet or device or playing loads of games but about learning how to take photos, how to classify photos or justify what they have taken etc. 
Over the 4 days we go to test out lots of different apps & resources & more importantly, to chat to each other about how ICT is integrated into our curriculums. We also had time to listen to some colleagues talking about their practice. 

Me and my new eTwinning partner, Lone from Denmark.
I came back, totally enthused & raring to get going. It is not that common to attend events like this & get something almost every hour that I was able to take back to nursery & use.
I just asked each child to find 3-5 green things around the playground.

In just 2 days since I have been back, the children have had so much fun using the iPads to document their favourite things in the playground, green things or just created a guessing game based on shoes! 5 children & I also made a very short movie using StopMotion. I honestly hadn't though this was something nursery children could do until I saw some of the movies coming out of the Norwegian kindergartens. 
A great idea that was shared was from a Danish colleague - they use BookCreator to make transition books for their children. This is such a lovely idea & I want to try it for next year.
A major highlight for me was the unexpected opportunity to visit 2 kindergartens on the Saturday afternoon. 
So, my advice to any colleagues is, to keep an eye out for future PDW's on offer from the British Council & get your application in. 
For more information about eTwinning check out this link: https://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm
Find more information on Erasmus Plus here: https://www.britishcouncil.org/study-work-create/opportunity/study-abroad/erasmus

4 comments:

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  2. Yeah, truly these are just amazing methods of creative use of ICT in the kindergarten. I can use these brilliant ideas in my Phoenix pre-k class too. I love gathering such brilliant ideas online and use in class. My kiddos love such activities a lot.

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  3. When kindergarten use ICT to learn their students that increase the creativity among the students. Thanks for the post.

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