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Turtle Diary's Pre-K Simulations: A Powerful Tool for Early Learners

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If looking for a rich, interactive way to support preschool learning, Turtle, Diary is a standout. Their preschool games section offers dozens of games designed specifically for young children, covering math, language arts, and science.  Research supports using interactive simulations as meaningful tools for early learning. Bradley and Kendall (2015) note that computer-based simulations help young children develop conceptual understanding through guided, low-stakes exploration. Similarly, Coopilton (2022) emphasizes that game-based environments can foster early critical literacies and imaginative engagement, skills foundational to deeper learning. Turtle Diary’s design aligns well with these benefits. What is Turtle Diary's Pre-K Simulation Like?  Turtle Diary's Preschool Games are not flashy virtual worlds but instead consist of focused, animated games that reinforce essential early-learning concepts. This fits well with Bradley and Kendall's (2015) argument that stimulati...
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ClassDojo vs Kahoot! A Case Study Comparison of Digital Tools Used in K-12 Digital Learning

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                                                                                        www.freepik.com   Introduction The rise of educational technology has reshaped how teachers, students, and parents communicate, learn, and participate in K–12 education. Two widely used platforms,  ClassDojo and Kahoot!  illustrate how digital tools can both enhance and complicate the educational experience. These platforms not only support classroom management and engagement but also require new digital literacies for safe and effective participation. Drawing on frameworks from Davis (2021) and Robinson and Robinson (2021), this blog post explores how these platforms shape communication, influence information consumption, and engage users in the digital classroom. As ...
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Digital Storytelling in Early Childhood Prekindergarten Classrooms

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https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSr9TJQttGDuakYiWM1w-YrtZjLcnFwwT0xQw&s Topic Introduction In today's early childhood classrooms, literacy evolved beyond traditional print and encompasses a variety of modes, including digital and participatory formats. Young children engage with and create meaning using images, sound, movement, and technology, alongside conventional reading and wiring activities (Yuksel-Arslan et al., 2016). As a preschool educator, I am particularly interested in how digital storytelling tools can enhance children's roles as active storytellers rather than passive listeners. By integrating the concepts of new literacies, multimodal learning, and student agency, digital story-making emerges as a powerful method that enables children to design, narrate, and share their ideas through diverse forms of expression. This approach bolsters emergent literacy skills like vocabulary, narrative structure, and print awareness, and also fosters crea...
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Designing Beyond the Screen: in Pre-K Classrooms

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www.deviantart.com T his week's readings deepened my understanding of what it means to design learning that goes beyond the screen, especially in early childhood settings like Pre-K. At this age, learning is deeply sensory, physical, and social. While digital tools have their place, young children need experiences that allow them to explore, move, talk, and create with their hands. As Leander, Phillips, and Taylor (2010) explain, learning happens across spaces, not just on devices, but through interaction with people, objects, and environments.  This perspective was echoed in the Alki Journal (Tolliver, 2020), which emphasized that digital literacy in early childhood should always be paired with physical engagement and social interaction. Tolliver argues that screens should enhance, not replace, the fundamental ways children make sense of their world through play, exploration, and storytelling.  Hsu & Wang (2017) also contribute a crucial view: rethinking how language lear...
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Rethinking Literacy in the Digital Age: A UPK Director's Reflection

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  Reframing Literacy as Social Practice Knobel & Lankshear (2007) invite us to expand what we mean by literacy. They define literacy not as isolated reading and writing skills, but as "socially recognized ways of generating, communicating and negotiating meaningful content through a medium of encoded texts withing contexts of participation in Discourses". In other words, literacy isn't just about mastering letters, it's about belonging to communities, sharing meaning, and creating together.  What strikes me most is their distinction between the "new technical stuff", digital tools, and the "new ethos stuff", values like participation, collaboration, remixing, and distributed expertise. This shift reminds us that simply having access to technology does not automatically transform learning, it is how we use these tools within a culture of shared meaning making that truly matters. It challenges educators to move beyond surface-level integration an...
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