After 11 Tools: Reflections

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox?

Among my favorite tools are wordle, google doc, animoto, delicious, flickr, and photostory.

Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.
I will use photostory to present my lessons for Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Stephen F. Austin. For Language Arts, I will create stories with simple lines of text to teach sight words. And my students can publish their books, or they can add text to pictures already stored for them, or they can search for their pictures. In science, I will use it for all the units of study.
I will use photostory to allow my students to publish their books from writer's workshop.

2. How have you transfomed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom?

I see endless opportunities to implement technology throughout every content area. Yet, as a kinder teacher, I feel that I have all of this knowledge, and I want to be innovative just as before, but I lack resources that allow students to take full advantage of the new techonologies. For example, it has been a challenge to present powerpoints, internet searches, etc. in a way that is highly visible to ALL my students, since I do not have a smartboard.

3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

After much pondering about this question, I have to be honest and say that I really did not have any unexpected outcomes. I was aware of much of this technology, but I had not had the opportunity to go more in depth.

Tool 11: Digital Citizenship

I'll surely need to discuss online safety with my kindergartners, since, not all but some have Internet access at home, and their parents may not be aware of all the dangers that are out there if they do not know how to safely navigate the Internet. Students need to know that they should not identify themselves or share any information with anyone. But first of all, they need to ask for their parents permission to get online. Digital Literacy is another topic that I need to cover. Students need to realize that they need to approach the online world with critical analysis. They cannot trust every source they come in contact with. And finally, students need to be aware of digital communication. The internet allows the people in the world to stay connected and to exchange ideas and information.
In order to teach about digital citizenship, as a teacher I need to take my students through the process. Kindergartners need concrete experiences. Therefore, I will have google open and demonstrate how to access an application to practice and learn their alphabet, colors, shapes, and numbers. While I'm taking them through the steps, I will be discussing key points about what digital citizenship is and the implications for our classroom.

Tool 10: Exploring Mobile Technology And Apps

These are some free useful applications.

MathTappers: Find sums
is a game that helps students make sense of addition.

pop math lite:

a way for students to practice basic math.

I can read Lite

for students learning to read and write.


Applications such as these provide opportunities for students to practice their cognitive skills using technology.

Tool 9: Sharing Information Through Jing & Skype

Again, doing screencasts using Jing.2 is another versatile way to present information in a very appealing manner to our students. This tool allows the teacher to reach even more styles of learning by differentiating the mode of content presentation.

Skype takes the students out of the classroom to connect them with other students (or virtually the world) without ever leaving the classroom. Students could share their expertise knowledge with as a way of publishing their work.

Tool 8: Video Resources

The pilgrims
http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=A700B04A-CA21-4387-BB91-F44BEC469BD0&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

U.S. symbols
http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=3E36C918-48AD-4B18-89BE-07EEBA3DE78C&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

It is great for students to get the benefit of a multi media visual in addition to the books.

Tool 7: Digital Storytelling

I am in love with digital storytelling. There are endless opportunities to implement this tool in the classroom. As a teacher, I can create numerous visual presentations for any content area. As students, they can write the text on paper, revise it and look for pictures to publish as a digital story.

Tool 6: Wikis

Wikis are a useful tool for getting students more involved in their learning process. They help to get the students engaged in a purposeful manner.

For my Kindergarteners, I am going to explore the idea of creating digital interactive books on a wiki. One website where you can create a digital picture book is www.mixbook.com.

One idea of using wikis in our team is for collaboration of teaching ideas.