New Zealand
Curriculum(1995, p. 6) defined that “Technology is a creative, purposeful
activity aimed at meeting needs and opportunities through the development of
products, systems, or environments, Knowledge, skills, and resources are
combined to help solve practical problems. Technological practice takes place
within, and is influenced by, social contexts.”
In my first
reflection, my topic is paper cutting. I was link to social and cultural
contexts to set this activity. I introduced the “chung hua” to everyone. This
special cutting skill is one of important symbol in my culture. I want to share
this technology to all the people. The feedback of the first reflection was
good. They all agreed cutting paper is part of technology. Children learn the
paper cutting is great for brain development and enhances intelligence. It is
also about safety. In the feedback, Rachel mentioned that is what age group I
was working with. This activity I was set up for 3-5 years old children. They
love the challenges and enjoy the work after they done it. Jiayin suggested I
need to explain what is chuanghua and what are the technologies happening here.
I think I already talked about that. But next time I will put more words to
focus on those questions and let my reflection clear to show it to every
readers.
My second
reflection is dancing with music. Mash(2002) said that, “Technology has
always been a central part of children’s lives, and that the role of the
teacher is to ensure that any technology, is introduced into the EC setting
carefully and critically.” Dancing can develop motor coordination, improve
physical fitness, cultivate aesthetic emotion, fostering children’s
imagination, develop self-confidence and team work. I believe that technology
is an important part of the living being. Ash believe that “dancing takes good
coordination and problem solving, when introducing children to dancing they use
all the strength and movements in their body”. Jiayin found that we will realize how technology
important to us through finds the more benefits of children to learn
technology.
In my third reflection, my topic is
play dough. Through the group member’s feedback, I found that I need to improve
a lot. I want to say play dough need some ingredients in the production process.
We mix these singer ingredients in different order. After few minutes, play
dough will done. This is technology. Compared with other things in the making, play
dough do not need a very long time to finish and it didn’t need too many ingredients.
It is easy to make because of common ingredients. And it will not lose children’s
interest and patient too fast. When children play with play dough, they using
their imagination to make different shapes of play dough (eg: food, flower, ice
cream, etc). Te Whariki Strand 5 Goal 1 said that “their play is valued as
meaningful learning and the importance of spontaneous play is recognized,
children develop the knowledge that playing with ideas and materials, with no
objective in mind, can be an enjoyable, creative, and valid approach to
learning” (Ministry of Education, 1996). In the feedback, Jasmeet mentioned that
she totally disagree about flour is used in the centers to make play dough
because of the Maori culture. I discussed the point with my Associate Teacher
before, we found that it quite hard to say which one is right, which one is
wrong. In the centre, we can see play dough bring a lot of fun for children and
they love to put the play dough in their mouth. I think it is much better to
use the real ingredients than a toxic non-food based mixtures. If we cannot use
flour to make play dough, we can’t swim as well because water is for drinking
because this was not respect Maori culture. In my centre, we let children know
we are not allowed children to sitting on the table and do not play with food
when they are eating. I think we need to keep balance of it. Sometimes can
existing.
Overall I found
that technology was around us.”Technology is about helping people and solving
problems” (Smorti, 1999). Technology has brought us a lot of convenience, but
we also need to keep balance of using it or not.
Reference List:
Marsh, J. (2002). Electronic toys:
Why should we be concerned? A response to Levin & Rosenquest (2001). Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood,
3 (1), 132-138.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Early Childhood
Curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa .Wellington,
New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2008b). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington:
Learning Media.
Smorti,
S. (1999) Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19, 5-10.
