Week 10

I am very honest, in spite of some difficulties that I have faced with technology I feel satisfied that I have learned a lot with this new techniques and I am going to apply them with my students.  On the other hand, I feel sadbecause we have finished our course and I am going to miss my colleagues, their comments, their experiences why not their technological problems and their technological achievements in and out the classroom, and how some of us have increased our knowledge about the ABCD objective, the blog creation, interactive power point, and so on.

I consider that this kind of courses are useful for teachers and students since we learned how to use technological tools such as: web skills and strategies, advices, and suggestions how to enhance and encourage students to learn English. Additionally, I think I have the base of technological knowledge and it is a good beginning to start working on it so we can see how the students enjoy this kind of presentation and feel very motivated with them. Finally, I think students will manage technologyresources easier and that will become part of their daily activities in their studies. Thanks a lot all of you my colleagues and Dona.

Week 9

Multiple Intelligences are an important guide, because they let us to know the students learning styles. As teachers we can realize which is the best way of teaching to take into account students learning styles. We can prepare our classes  by using kinds of activities we just have to see the possibilities are and then decide which particular pathways  interest students the most . As for technology, this is an extraordinary tool, especially for Visual, Auditory and kinesthetic students, clarifying of course that we can search for different activities related to it for students having different intelligence learning styles. Thus, They will  also have fun learning by using technology.

Multiple Intelligences and Technology have done the best combination to enhance students to obtain the best knowledge from them. In this way they will solve their problems easier and we will cooperate and guide that students become autonomous learners. 

Students have worked the last two weeks for their oral presentation through interactive power point , so that Students created this nice and interesting interactive power point tool. and I want to show you an example of students` presentation.

https://sites.google.com/site/webskillswikispring2011shaw/powerpoints

Week 8

Day after day we learn more and more about the use of technology in the classroom, this kind of activity was new for me, but not anymore, because I have realized that students need the best resources that  teachers can give them in each class, so that in my case at least  I could use projector through interactive power point.

When I  presented my draft project, it made me react what the students need in the classrooms to develop in a better way their knowledge, I think as teachers we are conscious that this kind of on-line tools are a better complement in our classes, however   we have to be clear about the class goals and take into account what are the students `expectations, because if you pay attention to them, students could be interested  in what they want to learn, Therefore we can reflect about the importance and the responsibility of using these tools

 

Wonderful Week 7

As teachers we have to encourage and motivate students to become autonomous learners using technological tools such as: projector and interactive power point in the learning process. The fact that students  learn in autonomous way is good, it means that they develop another abilities to take the control of their activities, they have to discipline and dedicate time to research and read a lot to get success in this kind of process, they have to take clear their goals, and they decide about the material, methods, task and how they learn.

Although, learners autonomous decide to study by themselves teachers have to give them all kinds of tools that help students to develop the most important  language skills.

My Week 6

This week was about Interactive Power Point and How to work with large groups. I found some interesting suggestions such as: encouraging students to work in groups because it is good to learn from each other, as well as Interactive Power Point through games. On the other hand  I have worked a lot and  I rushed to create the Interactive power point jeopardy game for  students´ classes. What´s more,  I was very curious about what  the students ´were  going to expect  when I present them the power point game, because it  was my first time using  this kind of tool in the  classroom.  I  presented  them only a part of my job because I couldn´t finish it. On Thursday I asked a student to bring the projector  and I brought the computer and we tried for first time.  The fact of seeing my students enjoying  it a lot made me really happy.  In fact, all of them wanted to play the game. In addition  I could realize that they got all their attention with this technological tool, finally they suggested me that we have to try it twice or three times a week. 

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

Chinese proverbs.

Week 5

To assess students’ by using rubrics give us a clear idea what points we have to consider to evaluate the students learning process. In this week I had the opportunity to check rubrics for speaking and writing skills. And I found them useful and easy to manage. Also I have learned a lot from Carl´s comments overall when he gets reflection from ourselves about “rewards and punishment”, and when students have in front of them technology resources to research and learn another language “easily and cheaply”, it means that we have to be one step forwards to the students.

  

The whole object of education is...to develop the mind. The mind should be a thing that works.

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) American novelist and short story writer.

Ending Week 4

Ending of Week 4

 Definitely as a teacher we have in our hands the chance to change the world  through given our students the best issues to be in the same condition of knowledge in this globalize world, they will solve problems easily, they will develop their critical thinking, they are going to be practical and   analytic. Children and young students will be better professionals with higher expectations.To get this condition  we must give them the tools to develop their knowledge about English language.

In the last week fourth  we could  researched a lot of information, which it is useful to get a good learning for teaching English skills.

Week 4: Multiple - Skills Web Sites

Teachers can use some interesting and useful websites to teach and encorage students to produce english language, in these websites we can find different kind of activities to develop the english language skills. most of them are very motivated for students and teachers, too. However as teachers, we are responsable of the stdents´ success, because we are the guides, and we have to give them all the technological resources in order to help them and in this way we provide students some important tools in their learning process.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world" -Gandhi

My week 3

My Week 3

I felt happiness when I finished week three because I have learned the importance of listening and how we have been using some technological resources. I consider that listening is one of the most important skill due to I had the opportunity to put in practice songs that encouraged the students to discover what they have heard and get main ideas from them.  Visit these links:

http:// www.musicalenglishlessons.org/index-ex.htm#repspeech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRHGFyfAXes

Delicious it is a great experience because you have the opportunity to file your URLs and share with others helpful information.

My second week....

I have realized how important is to know about technology sources nowadays, actually these week has been very productive for me as a teacher and I have learned that teachers must prepare didactic material by using hi tech resources in the class and we shouldn´t stop preparing ourselves day after day. “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, then the teacher is the most important” Bill Gates.

In spite of good and widely digital resources, students need the teachers ´guide and It´s our responsibility to get and apply new things  for increasing students´ Knowledge, of course without forgetting  to motivate them  every day, I mean all the time. As  teachers, we must prepare the best strategy to get their attention and  must give them all  these sources so that they could improve their creativity. I´m very convinced that technology is one of the best solutions in education.

On the other hand ABCD method is new for me, at the beginning I was not very clear about it, but now I got the whole picture. ABCD method will be easier and useful to apply, due to I see my goals in a better way. I think my mind has opened in this week, because It´s very interesting to know new things, practical and applicable in our students

How teacher learn technology best

By Jamie Mckenzie

When it comes to teachers learning and valuing the effective use of new technologies, some schools are discovering that the kinds of training programs offered in the past may not represent the most generative method of reaching a full range of teachers and their students. The key term is "generative" - meaning that behaviors and daily practice will be changed for the better as a consequence of the professional development experience.

Fortunately, some schools are now identifying approaches more likely to encourage teachers to employ these technologies on a frequent and sustained basis to enhance student learning.

Lead districts are finding that adult learning, curriculum development projects and informal support structures are proving powerful in promoting recurrent use aimed at deep curriculum integration.

After two decades of providing software classes to teachers, we need to explore different approaches — those honoring key principles of adult learning while placing both curriculum and literacy ahead of software and technology.

As will be explained later, adult learning strategies are fundamentally different from training strategies and usually more promising because they are tailored to the learning styles, preferences and needs of teachers in ways more likely to win their commitment than the approach more typical of training models.

In some places, eager planners have "put the cart before the horse" - emphasizing the purchase and installation of equipment without providing sufficient funding for the staff learning required to win a reasonable return on the huge investments being made.

We have evidence from Market Data Retrieval (MDR) (1999) that the majority of American teachers enjoy fewer than five hours of technology related professional development annually, and most of that seems to be training.

In many schools, the failure to fund and design robust professional development leads to "the screensavers’ disease" — the educational equivalent of an accountant’s red ink — as hundreds of computers sit idly glowing throughout the day and the district’s investment proves a huge waste of funds.

This challenge should be about using new tools to help students master the key concepts and skills embedded in the science, social studies, art and other curriculum standards. It is not so much about powerpointing, spreadsheeting or word processing. The focus should be on teaching and learning strategies that make a difference in daily practice — on activities translating into stronger student performance. As a result of these practices and the use of these new tools, students should be able to . . .

• read, reason and write more powerfully
• communicate productively with members of a global community
• conduct thoughtful research into the important questions, choices and issues of their times
• make sense of a confusing world and a swelling tide of information
• perform well on the new, more demanding state tests requiring inferential reasoning

This article will outline how teachers learn technology best and how districts may promote such learning to avoid "the screensavers’ disease."

(Note: This article first appeared in the January, 2001 issue of Electronic School, a publication of the National School Boards Association and is © 2001, J. McKenzie, all rights reserved. It also appears as a chapter in Planning Good Change.)