Last Tool

1.  Eleven tools has truly been a productive learning experience.  I have certainly learned a lot this summer.  It is difficult to pick my favorite tools but I think that I will use all of them throughout the year. Google docs, edmodo and wallwisher will give my students the opportunity to practice reading and writing  while staying focused on our objectives. I will definitely begin by taking advantage of those tools first!  I have already planned several activities that are ready for my new students.  I'm so exited!

2.  Many things will change this coming school year and of course that includes the vision I have for my classroom.  Some of the technology will have to be incorporated into my daily lessons. For example;  research stations on the iPad,  Videos, documents, blog comments from students, I will have to begin by including lessons on Digital Citizenship, how to handle and properly take care of our new technology equipment. My lessons for the first weeks of schools will have to include how to use the tech tools i'm planning to use with my students.  Although students have already experienced using Ipads at our school library; They will need to learn new technology expectations in our classroom. 

3.  Frustration is the word that comes to mind when I first started working on 11 tools.  Now I can say that is was a wonderful learning experience.  I truly enjoyed learning about the newly discovered tech that is available to enhance our teaching and students learning.  My students and I will benefit from the 11 tools.  It has truly been an eye opening experience. 

Digital Citizenship for children

Digital Citizenship

Parents will definitely want to know how to keep their kids safe online.  I think parents would benefit more by attending parent workshops instead of just an informational meeting about internet safety. Students impress me  when it comes to how fast they learn to use technology but most parents are clueless.  I feel clueless compared to my daughter's tech knowledge.  

 Parents should be encouraged to understand how their kids are using technology. Not to block it or control it but to embrace it and explore it with them so that they can better engage in a family conversation about the use and misuse of technology.   

What will keep students  safe online is much more than learning to regurgitate a set of adult prescribed rules, after all, students are naturally curious and with that in mind, we also need to empower them and guide them to protect themselves by teaching critical thinking, media literacy and online ethics.   I need to learn it too!    OMG!  LOL!


Critical thinking can also go a long way towards helping kids avoid risky, aggressive or disrespectful behavior by helping them think through the implications of their actions. Whether it’s posting something that could embarrass them later or saying something hurtful to a peer or teacher.

Tool #9 Assignment:

1. This summer has been great when it comes to integrating technology into classroom learning. I feel that i'm just beginning to explore the true potential tech offers for teaching and learning. Properly used, technology will help some students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based world. Also, it will be easier to motivate different learning styles. Therefore, it is important that we tie technology to the objectives. Effective tech integration must happen across the curriculum in ways that deepen, enhance the learning process and help us support our curricular objectives.
2. Students need to be accountable for their work stations or they will only do enough to get by then play the rest of the time.
3. I recently learned about Edmodo.com and I feel extremely comfortable adding assignments that will support our grade level objectives and it will definitively hold students accountable for their work. Also, Edmodo can be accessed using the ipad.
4. In "This Day " Students learn about important people in history while at the same time practice their reading skills. Adding important facts about those important people in history on a chart or interactive bulletin board would hold students accountable. Also"Word Solitaire" is really fun and students work on vocabulary, to hold students accountable I would have them make a list of all the words they come up with and they would have to write down their score too.
5. Studenst can use the ipad for research, use the calculator to check math problems, use the dictionary to look up vocabulary words and definitions.
6. http://www.edmodo.com/#

THE IPAD

This new technology had me stumped in the beginning, but after many many hours researching and basically playing with the IPad, I can now see the benefits of the IPad in the class room. There are many applications made solely for reference, such as the Spanish to English Dictionary, the Weather Channel application, The Built in Calculator, The Scientific Calculator, and more. These applications are amazing, but the real gems are the vast educational games available for download. There are dozens of word games that help enrich a student's vocabulary in a fun way. Also available are many strategy and mathematics based games that encourage outside of the box thinking. Social Studies will be more interesting as students research important people in history. I'm already thinking how I will use the new technology to enhance the one way dual language program. I'm already thinking of new ways to make research centers more interesting.  

Google DOCS

https://docs.google.com/a/springbranchisd.com/#home

Just at the very second when I was getting ready to give up trying to understand what Google Docs is all about, my 18 year old daughter said, "mom!  I'm working on a Group Presentation at this moment".   MIRACLES EXIST!   I quickly run to see what she is doing and I was amazed at how students were able to interact, make changes, discuss and complete an assignment.  Here is how it works.
A student or a group leader, creates a document or presentation to work on with other students. The student who creates the document has the ability to control who is able to make changes to the document and who is able to view it. Once all group members have been added, students are then able to work on the document together online, through Google Docs. As they are working on it together, they are able to chat with each other at the side to discuss, add or delete any changes.  I'm beginning to like technology even more!

I hope my link works  : )

Fantastic!

I finally got the slideshow gadget to work. I'm excited to share this little portion of my life with my students. This was definitely a challenge for me, but finding the solution was very rewarding. At first I tried to put up the slideshow using Blogger and spent most of my time trying to figure out the program unsuccessfully, finally after playing around on "Flickr", I realized that just like my avatar, I could copy and paste the URL from the given slideshow on "Flickr" onto my URL/HTML gadget instead of the SLIDESHOW gadget. After that it was a simple game of rearranging my gadgets! I'm extremely glad to have this step over with and now on to the next Step! See all of you there. :)