FINAL REFLECTIONS ON ELEVEN XXI CENTURY TOOLS

For me is really hard to say which tool is my favolrit. Each one of them has or will have a tremendous impact on our students learning, but depends on the way I will use such tools.

In ogther words, today I have a Tool Box, but nothing more than that. The way I will be using them into my teaching activity will show me as a traditional teacher (teacher centered instruction) or, an I rather prefer this one, being a techer as facilitator.

This training brought up to me a lot of ideas, and a huge amout of storms to disipate with my work in kids benefit.

Thank you for gthis amaizing job you did bringing such terrific training tool for me.

Tool # 11 Digital Citizenship

Citizenship reflects the interaction of an individual with a community base in a social contract to handle, properly, the safe relations among each individual in community benefit.
With almost unlimited ways to interact with others, including those peers at the school, within the School District, and beyond, one of the main thing we need to be aware is students security, and teach them how to act technological responsible.
A series of indications to conduct a responsible use of technology, a permanent monitoring of their activities and actions from us as a teachers at school, as well as their parents at home.
Etiquete of course will be usefull to conduct them with maners, but the most useful way to keep my students on task with out need to insist to avboid unproper internet sites nor mobile applications, is on one side applications disponibility, activities monitoring, and a stron CLASS MANAGEMENT. I need as a techer to set high expectations, but also to set clear objectives and very clear consecuences when he/she fails to commit the digital citizenship.
I think a good activity for the first week of school will be to write our own SOCIAL CONTRACT, further more a STUDENT'S PLEDGE

Tool #10 Exploring Mobile Technology and Applications

With the classroom inclusion of gadgets like the Ipod Touch and the Notebooks. The learning take an other step into the XXI century.

There are a lot of applications, most of them free, while others face price tags from $0.99 to $9.99 or up, but everything at rezonable and affordable investments.

I participated on an Ipod Touch Training this summer and I really enjoyed, and also seed a curiosity over the great possibilities of this kind of technology into the classroom. First of all kids could use Italk to record his/her reading response, or oralk quiz, and other assesments to drop later into ":DropBox" at my PC.

There are different applications related to Social Strudies topics like some to review names of US States and capitals, others which includes facts and brief stories about US States.

There are other apllications who presents the Day in History, or facts and trivias about US Presidents.

Dictionaries, software to draw, and an inmense number of any kind of applications which will give students the benefit and power of data at the top of the fingers.

Tool # 9 Sharing Information Through Jings & Skipe

Skipe will be a nice tool to use to communicate students from my classroom to other classrooms within the disctrict, the city of Houston, The USa, or other locations around the world. Primarely, and as a Language Arts and Social Studies Teacher, the posibility to share writing samples and learn from other peer students around the world, read aloud with others and for those who need to improve their level of Mother Language (spanish) a very nice oportunity to interact with students of his/her ages in other places and learn also about other cultures.

Jings will be very usefull to present short videos of how to do things that for sure will be a round of frequent questions from students ar even from peers. I made the following video to explain how it could be seeing

I had experimented dificults on upload activity so I decide to upload my Jing Exploration usin my wiki at: hbe4grade.pbwors.com
Review on de sidebar at Navigatoir the folder JING AND SKYPE...click on it and you could select the Jing presentetation...Hope you enjoy

Tool #8 VideoSources

Sharing information, images, and now video had never been so excited and so sipmple as it is today. and for sure will be easinr and more powerful in any moment from now.

Kids will review inimaginable support sources with out need us as a teachers, so the idea of teachers as facilitators is right here at the touch of the mouse or the use of a pc, or an Ipod...etc.

I like it

Tool #7 Digital StoryTelling

With this tool we could work with kids without the need to be one on one, but supporting with material he/she could be using permanently on bilingual source centers at the classroom through the technology iteration.
IS also an opportunity to share our lesson plans with peers, and or to model lesson within the district.
I like it, as well as the preious six tool...with this the horizont of being teachers as facilitators began to make sense and a reality

Tool # 6 WIKIS

This tool is simple great. I used last year briefly and was hard to continue with it due to limitations on the number of computer available at my classroom, but kids could read about the subject we are exploring during any given week, but also review flipcharts of recent topics they learn or need to be learn in more deep.
I want to share the related Wiki using the following url, hope you like it.

http://hbe4grade.pbworks.com/

See you soon