My Final Project

Hopefully this is what Dr. Joyce asked us as final project. I am so nervous because this is like my first time doing this. I only have one year of teaching experience and it was at college level in Mexico. I was not required to elaborate a lesson plan based on standards or maybe yes, but it was in other kind of criteria perhaps for the education level I was working with. Hopefully I did right. At least, I could think about two technology tools that definitely will be critical to assure a learning of the lesson within the children. Children at third grade are exploring technologies; I can see that with my son. Actually, he was my inspiration because I asked him his opinion and he told me that it would be awesome. By the way, he also asked me why I am not his teacher because his teacher does not have computers. And I told him that probably they are computers at his schools, but limited somehow. He replied that yes, they are and are only for staff use. Oh! That's not a good thing. I will go and check. In case he is saying the truth, then I will provide him the opportunity to connect his knowledge from school with the tools I learned in this class here at home.
Here we go...
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0dg2aeWggmpMG5aU0RLN1RzcWM/edit?usp=sharing

My last reflection from my technology class

And that's it, we're done. I really enjoyed this class and really I learned too much! I want to thank my professor and my classmates because they provided me very enriched information about different technology learning tools. Honestly, I was surprised for all the tools I discover because some them I did not know that they existed. Others I knew them, but never tried or simple, I ignored their features and how much helpful they would be in a academic lesson.
I considerer my self a fan of the technology; I admire how future has brought amazing ways to be closer than everything. It is like nowadays we have the world in our hands because with a computer with Internet we can go to everywhere. For teacher specially who teach kids, this is like now they can bring the real world to their classrooms and children are not limited to photos and descriptions provided by textbooks. They can SEE, HEAR and in some cases FEEL the reality through some technology learning tools.
However, I also believe that the use of technology should be limited enough to avoid a human interaction. I agree that we can talk in person with someone at the other side of the world. My point is that teachers we should evaluate when and how technology should be used in order to also ensure a human environment in the classroom. Since I believe in critical pedagogy, I should recommend that it is essential to bring in the real world as real thing as much as we can and in those cases that it is impossible, then we have the technology so we cannot be limited.
The most important is to know our resources; technologic and non-technology resources have to be known and controlled by teachers. Unfortunately, some sites or sources are restricted precisely, because of the ignorance of some people. They intent to apply and manage the security policies on networks/Internet access because they do not know that in fact, those technologies emerge at the same time that they demand how to be protected in case of a misuse. Thanks God I am on my way to become higher education teacher, community colleges and colleges/universities are more indulgent in this topic.
Besides my technology learning tools acquired with this class, I cannot leave aside the great book Dr. Joyce used for this class. Teaching Digital Natives is amazing!!! It is exactly what it goes according to my thoughts and feelings. Prensky focuses in the engagement between technology and critical pedagogy. I enjoyed reading how to bring technology as a way to help students to discover and re-create themselves. I agree with him that technology should be embraced as part of the daily life as teachers as the best assistant to create a truly learning phenomena within the class. In few words, I want to thank also for this book that definitely taught me: How to do partnering and that they are not limitations for do that but our own attitude.

Thanks Joyce!!!!!!

Cecy

My first Storybird

I liked so much Dr. Joyce shared with us this wonderful tool. It is very entertained and innovative that stimulates creativity. It is a very useful tool that teachers can use to make more interesting and dynamic a reading class. Also, it would be excellent as tool children can use to motivate creativity while improving writing and reading skills. A difference of other technology tools we learned during the semester, this one took me a little more time to understand. From my perspective, I would not use it for children on grade K-2. It could be frustrating to them because from my point of view, the accommodation of the content depends on the ability to move the mouse. I experimented on sometimes that it was complicated to fix the images until I find the trick to position them and drop it in one specific point to avoid that was set up no much big or not too much small. This is why I think that it should be used by students with more control of the use of the mouse.

However, for me it was a great experience. I know the assignment required 20 pages, but I run out of images related to my topic.  I hope Dr. Joyce can evaluate that even I missed some pages, I learned how to use it and find the benefit of apply it at classroom as an alternative to improve literacy skills.

http://storybird.com/books/what-is-love-350/

 

Cecy

Trying Google Form

Using Google Form..

Very useful and friendly to learn and use....

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zYLEkgRfNcFYqTxEp7-5QP9NljvAjwhPdU-R2JZJiyQ/viewform?sid=4e251d3c54fb9dc7&token=g8XpKT4BAAA.mn00VlAEGED9UZMRev-W1Q.vqZ_dH60otUaDPC6mCG2Gw

Helpful and creative tools

Today we learned some tools that educators can use to add some creativity to their lessons. We learned how to create a mind map using gliffy.com. We learned how to create forms by Google Docs. We learned about Google Earth application and some of the features that can help us to travel around the world. And also we learned how to use wordle.net to create word clouds. I think that those tools are very practical, easy to use and very helpful for teachers. Mostly time teachers have to be creative and find alternatives to make their lesson plans dynamic so their students would not get bored. Moreover, Google Docs feature is an excellent resource for teachers. This application allows to create and organize several academic resources for their own use of teachers and to get interaction with students and/or parents as well.  It is very helpful when sharing documents and to give permission to others to make modifications. This is very supportive especially in distance education or on-line classes when students and teacher can meet in person.

Class activity: my activity was to create a word cloud...here I share my assignment...it was easy, fast, and nice :)