Reasons To play here
Learn about the Internet starting with the CyberPlayGround Sandbox.
- Are you anxious? Don't know how to turn on your computer? Hate this stuff? Don't really want to face learning this?
- Is it totally freakin' you out? Are you afraid you'll kill your computer somehow? Hate technology but love the internet?
RELAX AND LEARN
Everybody feels this way at first. You're one of us :-) No worries, you're at the right place. Nobody knows all this stuff, relax, you're not supposed to. All that counts is being motivated. Playing around is the key to learning. Every grownup needs to start somewhere, everyone was a beginner at some point. So relax, you can start here, we take baby steps.Click to Hear a Message from
Karen Ellis
your Web Mistress
So far (2003) they say only about a sixth of the world – a mere 600,000,000+ people – currently connects to the Internet. YOU are in the majority of people on earth, you are not alone.
What is this Educational CyberPlayGround?
According to the
Special Libraries Associations Review
What it is
A wide open world of information and ideas for adults and children.
Pros
Playful collection of serious resources on learning, information and the Internet.
Cons
Time for that summer cleanup.
Philly Connection
Provided by Philadelphia resident Karen Ellis.
What you can learn from it
The playground approach to learning: it's what you bump into that counts.
LEARN HOW TO LEARN
What's on the PlayGround for Adults?
EVERYTHING! that a normal human needs to know. It starts from the basic stuff all the way up to what any brainiac would want to find.Don't know how to surf? Want to learn right now?
We take baby steps and really start at the very very beginning. Click this Tutorial Which Is For A Real Beginner."BEGINNERS TUTORIAL" Click & Scroll to Rock & Roll around the net GET STARTED with BABY STEPS. |
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THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
Having fun builds bigger, better brains says Briant Furlow. Kids and adults need the playground just as much as a classroom.
Norman Cousins and a mess of research says humor is good for your health. Why? A good question. Try this answer: it's affiliative--anything affiliative is health-giving. Or so says the tons of research done by folks in the psychoneuroimmunology area, and I believe them.
Learning takes place when you need to know something, so goofing off around the playground will lead you to what you need to know, when you need to know it. Believe it or not that is all that matters.
Play Around! Yup that's what we said, by playing around here, on your own time, at your leisure, you can train yourself. Did that sink in? Your own curiosity will bring you to it. You can train yourself - you'll figure out how to do everything.Laughter is universal. It crosses age, culture and gender and has always been considered good for us. But there is new evidence that laughter is much more than this. It leads to the playfulness of childhood and begins our interaction with the world around us. We need laughter play joy in our lives because those are those types of creatures that we are. We have powerful systems that allow us to live in the world in a certain way and if we build social structures where these are not permitted and encouraged, we won't feel well.
The Top 50
Out of a
Bazillion Reasons to play here
- Totally Confused? Find Guidance or an Opinion
Solutions & Help can come from thousands of miles away - join a mailing list or find out how they work. - Or just ask one of the Ring Leaders on the Playground they are happy to help you.
- What is a Ring Leader? - well . . . I thought you'd never ask.
- A World Wide Network of Educators and regular folks whose philosophy of netizenship is to HELP! Just like the good old days before there was a World Wide Web.
- You will find friends here and will know them by their *ideas*.
- All grade levels and disciplines and backgrounds can interact together.
- There are a vast amount of opportunities available for networking.
- Gives you and your students a chance to reach out across the oceans and connect up in meaningful ways to an incredible mix of cultures from all over the world.
- You can participate and get your information out there to others.
- Whenever a need arises for information there is always somebody available or a list you can go to. It is wonderful having such help at your fingertips.
- Camaraderie and Support for your ideas. Someone usually responds to your comments.
- Broad Base for discussion of relevant issues.
- Teaching is Universal - our trials and triumphs are experienced in very similar ways.
- Professional growth - you are exposed to many new ideas presented by people who have had similar experiences.
- Extend knowledge of use of technology - others share URL's and their homepages with examples of children's use of technology.
- Online Curriculum Projects - You and your class are given an opportunity to join others in national and international projects. You can also begin a project of your own that others will join and list it here or find other places to go.
- Breaking Down Boundaries - You will learn from others around the world without knowing the color of their skin, their national origin or external beauty.
- You can look forward to retaining old bonds while making new ones.
- Teachers should obtain everything they can get their hands on. These groups help in this effort.
- You'll always have someone to talk to about a school problem.
- If you want, you can delete them when they want to talk about THEIR problems!
- Need to find out what kind of technology stuff is out there? Go to The Education Vendor Directory
- Do you need to find out Who Sells exactly what you need?
REASONS FOR
Teachers, Administrators, School Board Members, and PTA to play here
"Ditto" -- See All The Above :-) there is no difference.
Start with a Tutorial for Beginners - Basics to Brilliance
- No kidding this will help you start from knowing nothing to being totally with it. It's painless, private, nobody has to know how you got this smart!
Bottom Line: It's personal. If you want to know something, you'll learn it - nothing can stop you! That's called motivation and it works every time.
For the most part all the administrators don't have to take any classes in technology as part of their graduate degree programs, because most states do not mandate it.
Read "A bit of guidance for those of us who are called upon to help someone use a computer".
Statistics on Professional Development.
In the 1998 figures for the item "the integration of educational technology in the grade or subject you teach" 62% of full-time teachers get less than 8 hours of training in this area. It is no wonder that in a follow-up survey on how teachers rate the value of professional development only 21% felt the training benefited them "a lot." Add in the lack of access to modern multimedia and Internet technology in the typical classroom and it's apparent that teachers don't have the tools to teach creatively and also don't receive enough training to effectively use technology.
ABOUT EARTH BOUND REAL URBAN PLAYGROUNDS
"We live in a world of problems which can no longer be solved by the level of thinking that created them." ~ Einstein
- "Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts."
- "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
- "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
- "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands as the cradle of true art and true science."
- "Any fool can know. The point is to understand."
- " I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious."
- " Knowledge is limited. Imagination is more important than knowledge. I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination encircles the world."
"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
HOW TO MAKE THE PRINT BIGGER SO YOU CAN READ IT.
You can make almost any website have a large, primary font by changing the Font and size in the preferences of your browser. Just go to Preferences and choose Font. Change both the fixed and variable width font to a font link ARIEL, TIMES, or Comic Sans and set the size to about 14,18 OR BIGGER.
