EDOL 533 Week Seven

Well, another week has come and gone, and I'm in the countdown mode to the Raggedy Ann 5K and Festival!! I'm trying to get all my assigments done tonight, because from now until Tuesday will be insane.
This week's focus was educational software. Since I do not have a classroom at the present time, I'm going to reflect on software I have purchased and used with my own children. I group educational software and video games into two completely different categories, though.

My oldest daughter was born in Rota, Spain and then we moved to LaMaddalena, Italy. We didn't have TV, phone, etc., but we took nature walks, played outside, looked at the stars, learned about wildflowers,swam on the isolated archipelago, and read books. When she was ready to begin kindergarten, we moved to the States; to Dahlgren, Virginia. She entered kindergarten reading at a third grade level and writing short stories.....her teachers were blown out of the water. (I laughed to myself the other night when our "chat" class talked about P&Gamble looking for B Students because they were "team players") My oldest daughter has had Duke following her since she was an eleven year old. She has won several awards and scholarships for Kentucky, has a 4.0 GPA at Transylvania University, has started and lead so many groups and organizations; however, SHE is a TEAM player. Everyone who meets her, loves her instantly! The professors can't get over how much of a team player she is in everything she does. At any rate, she never had educational software until she was in third grade and we got a home computer(1997?) Anyhow, she was working it, manipulating it, doing power point presentations by 5th grade, etc..... huge steps ahead of her parents!! Although I never purchased the TV/Video Game systems, I purchased some educational software to try. She loved "playing" such games as the Carmen Sandiego series.
SUNDAY, 18 APRIL 2010
I never got to finish my blog, so I'm going to try to get it done tonight.

By using the Carmen Sandiego educational software, both my daughters were able to use knowledge they knew and work it into critical thinking problems. They both had studied Ancient Egypt. When using the "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego" software, they were able to take what they knew about mummies, gods, rituals, etc., and use that knowledge to solve the "mystery". When ever they didn't know background information, the software was designed to teach the student the information needed; however, the student needed to use critical thinking to help the solution along.

When we first got the software, my youngest was in Kindergarten. She knew her older sister loved "Carmen", but she was too young to work it alone. We would do the problem solving together. I don't recall there being any problems or things I would do differently, but that was MANY years ago. However, I do remember they stressed about their "battery power/charge" that let them fly around the world would get low at times. I think I recall that stressing them. But they soon learned how to keep that "charge" higher.

I can definitely see myself using that software or something very similar in the classroom if we were to study world history--that was our curriculum for 4th grade and 6th grade in Florida.