Tonight’s supper conversation, and how we used internet to teach vocabulary.
The Commandant: Sometimes they put mushrooms in salad.
Mama: Yes, they do. I think Daddy likes it that way.
The Bug: Marshmallow.
The Commandant: He said “marshmallow!”
Mama: I don’t think he understands “mushrooms” yet. (To the Bug) Do you want to see a mushroom? (Types in the keyword and comes up on Wikipedia page full of lovely fungus images, scrolls down to find some button mushrooms that we might put into a salad) See, those are mushrooms.
The Bug: Mushroom.
OK, maybe that seems rather trivial, but a thirty second exchange involving a quick internet search just introduced a new word (one for a food he previously called, “Yuck!”) to my autistic son. No searching for books, no looking through binders for an appropriate pictogram. Information at my fingertips, fast enough that I still had his attention by the time I found what I wanted. It’s not likely he’ll remember it now, but I can point them out to him next time we go shopping, or pick out a book on mushrooms at the library – or even try to get him to help cut some for salad and, if all the planets are properly aligned, maybe taste them to see if he likes them!
I know a lot of educators – both classroom teachers and homeschoolers – are not keen on using computers too much with younger kids. They may reserve computer use for fun activities that can be meted out as rewards for a job well done, or they may simply not allow computer use until the child has reached a certain age.
Our experience has been that our son interfaces really well with technology; often better than he does with people. Television, DVD’s and computers have helped us to bridge the gaps between him and other human beings. But we’ve had a lot of success using the computer as a teaching tool with our other children too. We’ve found software and web sites that reinforce language arts and math skills – and sometimes even teach them in a way that is different but complementary to how we’re teaching.
Having internet has also meant that frequently we can answer those, “Why is the sky blue?” kinds of questions on the fly, without having to be experts in absolutely every area of human knowledge. And when we can’t find the answers quickly, we end up with a practical lesson in research skills.
When we’ve been discussing social studies we’ve been able to pull up images of period dress, videos of historical events, or maps that are simply not available in our atlas. We’ve found classical music to listen to, images for our artist studies, and recordings of bird calls for our nature studies. All of this, generally from a few seconds of searching a directory or bookmarked web site.
Many educators do use the internet to search for printable worksheets, suggested readings and lesson plans. However, they may be hesitant to incorporate hands-on computer usage into regular learning activities. I can’t tell you what to do, but I can say that it works for us!
This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
- Image via Wikipedia
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Tags: autism & ASD, computer assisted learning, internet in the classroom, quick reference, teachable moments
