This photo was taken by Matthew Jording (mjording) found at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjording/3605378715/in/photostream/
I chose this image because this girl is doing so much more than we can see. She is learning so much that if she realized just how much, she would suffer from information overload. First of all, she is using a great amount of sensory learning to explore this flower. She is obviously smelling it but she is also touching it, getting a feel for the texture of the petals and how it differs from the texture of the stem or leaves. She can see the flower, recognize the colors and parts of the flowers (even if she cannot name them). She can hear the sound of bugs that are attracted to flowers such as these (even if she cannot see them) and though she may not notice she can probably taste the air on her tongue. She is also learning quite a bit about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Science in early education is basically the art of asking a question and searching for an answer. For example, her question might be "I wonder what this flower smells like?" and by smelling the flower she is searching for an answer. Technology in early education is simply the tools we use. In this picture the little girl is using her hands as a tool to bring the flower close enough to smell. Engineering is the way we solve problems which goes back to bringing the flower close enough to smell. The flower was too far away so she solved the problem and brought it closer.
Finding a photo on Flickr was surprisingly easy. In fact, the hard part was choosing from the many numbers of pictures that I could write about. I had a difficult time getting the picture into my blog because the only way I knew to save the photo was not available but it allowed me to email the picture to myself (after signing up for an account which was very easy) where I could save it and then upload it into the blog. I love the slide show view for the pictures because I can look at them all on a full screen without having to go back and forth. I think I may have found my new favorite website.
I think that you've got a firm grasp on the various methods of learning. This is a vital skills for teachers. Adapting your methods of teaching to each student and to the class as a whole will help them to absorb the material. Do you think that this picture that you chose was taken during school hours, or outside of school time? I think that is a lot of fun to creat stories from interesting photos. Is that one way that you might use lickr in the classroom?
ReplyDelete