Using PBS in the Classroom

The speaker we had today from PBS was wonderful. She showed us many sites and areas of the PBS website that would be very beneficial within the classroom. At first the site seemed overwhelming to me since there is so much there. Even talking with one of my cooperating teachers, she expressed to me the lack of time she had to really spend on the computer finding cool sites as this. I thought by creating a list of cool websites that is well organized, I would be able to eliminate planning time and be able to go directly to a site and find what I needed. I really liked how the PBS site covered a wide variety of subjects as well as instructional methods. Just in my few minutes of browsing the site; I was able to download videos, create an account for my tutee (for 588) on the Island, and save cool certificates and worksheets to use later.

As an early childhood educator, I really liked how easy it is to navigate the site. Sometimes it's hard to include student usage of the Internet during a lesson since the students can be at such different levels of ability on the computer. This site is very user friendly though and I could easily see students being able to navigate it quite easily with minimal teacher assistance. I also liked the overall way that the site is attractive and interactive. Most of the activities would be fun for the students and I could see them wanting to go back onto it again and again.

During our class today, I was constantly brainstorming ways to include what we learned into the classroom. The activity I really would like to use in the future is the PBS Kids Island feature. It is so cool how the teacher can watch exactly what the students are doing on there; how many times they visit, what activities they do, how much they are progressing in a certain skill, etc. It makes the students more accountable while also allowing me as the teacher to see what they need more work on. I decided to try it out and like I've mentioned, I have already started an account for my tutee since I thought this would be a good way to give her a 'break' and learn at the same time. I would also like to get her feedback on it and see if it students her age in the future would enjoy it.