Wraping it up

Wow...here we are at the end of the semester and I have survived. Very incredible learning has happened this semester in this class. First of all, I want to thank you for having the patience when you  have a student like myself in your class that struggles with the tech world.  I appreciate you so very much and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have learned so much from you and one thing I will take away from this class is a wee bit more confidence when I have to deal with technology in my class. The first time I walked in your class I was terrified and my self-efficacy was low low low.

I am not where I would like to be with that but I have improved and that is amazing and I am pleased. I will use some of these resources such as knowing how to look up teacher blogs! That was a huge help because I had never even blogged before I walked in here and now I no longer think it's too advanced. I also will take away on how to judge if a website is reliable or not! Very helpful to know this!

So, above all, as I mentioned above I don't have the fear that I had when I first started and that was my main goal I wanted out of this class. I feel now that I can handle a little bit more and I feel like I can take away some of these resources into my own class. Thank you Jeff! You are a great teacher and tonight when you told us to be safe when we are out running, or doing our thing by digging in our cars which we all do, I thought that was so kind and loving. You are also so funny and I enjoy your humor! Thanks for a great semester!

  

walk through wiki

This website was interesting in the fact that it has ideas and suggestions on how to use wikis in your classroom. I especially like how it told the difference between a wiki and a blog because I was confused on that aspect. The both seemed similar to me and this site helped clear the difference up. Another thing I think is helpful on this site is the abundant use of activities and rubrics. This is helpful for first year teachers like myself. This site has advice for "newbies" meaning new teachers and what we can do to survive our first year teaching. Some advice are, but not limited to, is finding a mentor, get with a professional organization, panning ice breakers for your first day etc, I find all of these to be helpful. The website where you can find these helpful hints among others is the link I provided here  http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/activity/celebrate-hispanic-heritage

One thing about this site that I wish had a little more is information on teaching Spanish. There are a couple sites that I found on say and repeat the Spanish alphabet and one activity I found on Cinco de Mayo. I would like to see more options under this topic. I would also like to see lesson plans under this website which I did not find. All I found were very basic activities for the elementary age group which is great, but the site says it offers hundreds of lesson plans and unit plans which I need help on constructing so that was the only aspect I wish this site had more of. Overall, this was very helpful and I enjoyed looking through this site. I can see now the advantage of using a wiki verses a blog in the classroom and one major positive aspect was the collaboration of a wiki.

Blog #3 digital story telling

     I am super intrigued by this topic and this has sparked a major interest! As I was surfing through the site and looking at the examples I watched a few of them and there were 2 that spoke volumes to me. One was on the perspective of a girl who left Japan's culture to try and find herself in the American culture. Her story of the clash of the 2 cultures and how it effected her, and how it was digitally set up was gripping! I downloaded it to show my students. I'm having trouble e-mailing it because it is a big file so I need to find out how to do that. The other digital story that I could relate to was one about how an English teacher used the rapper Tupac and used his perspective on American culture in his class. This was fascinating and I encourage all teachers to watch that one! No matter what subject you teach you can learn from this one and apply it to your subject. The ideas behind digital stories is fantastic and so fascinating. This is an attention gettter that's for sure and this method seems practical in a sense that all educators can have access to it. As far as I can tell you don't need special equipment to be able to use this feature in your class and that is always a plus. I can see myself using this. (I hope)
This video here is about the clash of 2 cultures that this young girl has experienced and within that she tries to find where she fits in. I could explain to my class that I have experienced similar situations in trying to find how I define myself through blending 2 cultures. I like these digital story telling techniques because it allows the students to be creative.

The second video I would like to share is the one on literature and the perspective of Tupac the legendary rapper and his perspective on the American dream. This is another tie from a cultural aspect I can use in my classroom. This English teacher has a great idea that I plan on bringing to my Spanish class soon.

Course expectations blog #2

    Well here I am half way through the course and I have learned a tremendous amount in this class. I do have to say that I feel a wee bit more comfortable in our class. I still struggle with a few aspects of this technology world but I think I may be getting the hang of it. Some things that I have enjoyed learning about are all the ways to find out if your website is a reliable one or not. That was interesting, but I do wonder about those websites that you can purchase miscellaneous items on. I often want to buy things and I don't know if the web site is safe or not. This is something that I hope we can touch on. Other things I have enjoyed learning about are the sites where you can store and share your pictures on. The website Picasa is so cool! I like that you can create a short slide show of all your pictures! I have tons of pictures of my students and I have wondered what to do with them. This gives me a great idea to show to all my classes. I look forward to what else this class has to offer and I am eager to learn. One thing I do wish we had in our class though is PC computers. So far I am not a fan of Mac only because I don't have experience with them, but I hope that will change as I get more accustomed to using them. :)

Web site evaluation

This was an interesting activity and one that I have been interested in finding out how to do. I have always wondered how to be sure of good reliable websites. My website is called Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators www.schrockguide.net. It is about how to use technology in the classroom.
I would recommend this website to anyone who is interested in this topic of how to integrate technology in your classroom. This person, Kathy offers her services to the community to educate teachers and anyone else interested in using technology in their classes. She offers anything from workshops where you can come and listen with others,or she offers her service to come to your school.

I recommend this website because during the task of evaluating this site, it met most of the requirements on being a reliable website. It was very professional and also included pictures of Ms. Kathy and she provided a link for anyone who is interested in obtaining her services. Another reason this site appears to be reliable is because one of the questions from the task was to see if the author's qualifications suggest that he/she is an authority on the subject and the answer to this is clearly yes. If you go to this site you will find links to a tremendous amount of articles and books she has published along with her full resume.  This makes me feel more confident that she is not only knowledgeable, but this site also gives me a good feeling that this site is reliable if I can go to the link and see what all she has published. Also, you did not need to download anything to view this site. No special browser or plug ins needed and this site is free to view.  It was very easy to navigate around and that is especially important for someone like me with limited technology experience.

The only things that I had trouble with was finding when the site was last updated. I could see that she had posted an award from this year but I couldn't see that the actual website was updated nor could I find the copyright. I also couldn't figure out who the actual author was. Clearly the website was talking about Kathy, but it was not written in the first person format.
Overall, this website seems very reliable and usable. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested.

Course Goals

I hope to learn a great deal in this class. Technology stresses me out to be honest. I really hope I can apply some of what we learn in my class. The generation of kids now are way more advanced than I am and I would like to keep up and be current with today's technology, somewhat. So far, most of what we are doing is brand new to me. Especially working on a Mac as well...that is yet another thing I must get use to because all I have ever worked with is a PC.
I do look forward to feeling more comfortable in this class and feeling better about my knowledge when it comes to technology. I find a lot of the new ways to integrate technology is interesting. For example the white interactive boards and the Wikis for class. Overall, I hope to gain a better understanding of technology and how it can work for me.