Tool #11: Digital Citizen

The three points I would like to discuss with students of all ages including my children (15, 14, and 5 years old) are part of the Use of Technology outside of the school environment. Teachers are concern about the use of devices that our students have access, but what about the parents? Do the parents know what their children are doing, watching, playing, listening or writing when they are using the Internet?

Security and Safety: All students are exposed to hazards with the use of the Internet, they spend to much time playing alone on the computer (navigating). Limit the use of the computer or any other device would be a solution, but it is important to let students know that any Internet web page may contain risks and they can be vulnerable. Students should not use their personal information to communicate with people who they don't know.

Etiquette: Many people can see what we write. When students write on the Internet they need to be respectful, our words show what we are and what we think. Something very important: The effort that others have done to develop a work should be valued, if we want to use what other people have created, we must give them the credit, and sometimes we need to ask permission before using some documents, pictures, videos, images, and music that we can find in the Internet.

Rights and Responsibilities: Sometimes students spend to much time using the computer, they forget the world around them, and they are free to express what they think about others, about the world etc..but they need to know that when they are expressing their thoughts, they should be responsible, remind your students that every body has limits when using the Internet and they need to be worry about the good and the bad things that they can find or they can do .

Digital Citizen helps us :

• To be more responsible when using the Internet (Using the computer or other devices)
• To educate our students and their parents about the use of the Internet

As educators we must set an example for our students, we need to illustrate and demonstrate the use of this new technology, and we must no forget that as adults we also are exposed to dangers when using the Internet.

Tool #10: iPod Touch

The easiest of all tools. During the last school year our school had the opportunity to have more than 40 iPods for our students. Our Principal found apps that were appropriate for our students, they had the opportunity to work with over 100 apps. The apps were grouped into areas in the iPods: LA, Math, Music, Stories etc...some of the apps that we have in the iPods are: Phonics, abc cards, Kids Spanish Words, funny flash, Learn 123, Basic Shapes, number swap, fun time etc... In our class we used Apps for our specific project: Trains, some of these apps that we used were match trains, trains, abc trains, iron horse, train conductor, railroad, tiny trax and monster maker, my students really enjoyed these apps during the developing of our project...iPods helped improve fine motor skills in my studetns. I used iPods to record important lessons , students can watch the lessons and reinforce some concepts. One of the best things: Families had the opportunity to take home the iPods and children were the teachers of their own parents.

Panda Path families began a new era: Pre-kindergarten classrooms with the best in technology.

Tool #9: Jing and Skype

Screencast can be defined as an online education where teachers and students can interact trough the distance. Jing and Skype are educational tools that can be used by students and teachers, students around the world can share their culture and their academic knowledge, teachers can record lessons not only to share with colleagues but with students who need help after the school. As a preschool teacher, I would like to make videos of my students and then share them with parents who do not have the opportunity to visit our classroom, is another way to observe what the children are doing in class, I would also like to make a video to suggest the parents how to work at home with their children.

I would like to use Skype to show how my students can develop projects, I would like to share ideas of how to develop projects with other preschool teachers around the world.

Jing and Skype allow us to connect with others around the world no matter where we are.

Tool #8: Videos are powerful teaching tools

It was really easy to do the tool number 8, I use videos in the classroom to complement my science lessons. The videostreaming are divided into sections, I always look for the section that fits what I'm teaching. The last school year, these videos were a support for all the projects that we did in our class. You can find these videos at: videostreaming in library resources (springbranchisd.com/library) The videos that I'm posting are: The life cycle of a butterfly; Birds building their nests.

Tool # 7: PhotoStory about my country

For this tool, I decided to create a photo Story of my beautiful country: Colombia! I have problems with my microphone (I wanted to include narration for each picture) , so I decided to create my own music: Caribbean Latin Music.

I created an iMovie with my students pictures but I had some problems to post the movie, I am reading the tutorial for iMovie to fix the problem.
Enjoy my video: Colombia, tierra hermosa/Colombia, beautiful land.
In prekindergarten, students are fascinated when they see their faces in videos, slide shows, pictures, and movies, storytelling will help students to create their own stories and develop their ideas about a topic.

www.colombiapictures.com

iMovie: free play music-Endless Road

Tool # 7: PhotoStory, Colombia, tierra hermosa and Dias Felices: iMovie

A new way to plan activities: Wikis-Tool #6

Wiki is great for planning. In our school we use wiki to create our lesson plan, each subject area has a page, on that page we write our objectives and activities for the next lesson plan, we can review each page editing and saving, at the end of the week our lesson plan is ready using wiki. In a classroom, teachers can create a page for each work station, students can write what they have done in each station, they may review and edit the page adding new knowledge and sharing what they have done in the same center. In some wikis, teachers give us examples about how to plan a lesson for a specific unit (Example: Insects) They created a page for each subject and wrote objectives and activities according to the unit: Great!

New Online Services: Tool # 5

Finish tool # 5 was a long process. After 4 hours of being in the computer I realized that I had a delicious account, diigo account was easier to create. I have seven tags on delicious which are bundled:LOD (Language of the day), blog is one of my tags, this tag include 3 bookmarks of websites related to education: www.colorincolardo.com: A Bilingual site for parents; www.educators.com; and www.bilingualeducation.com, in the last web site I found a comment related to the term Hispanic, it was a very good explanation for those who think that Spain does not belong to the hispanic world. I loved it also because I found a picture relate to the Soccer World Cup with the word Goal written in 81 languages, the picture was created in Wordnet/created for@miguelrios (is beautiful and is in my delicious account) In diigo I found a website about literacy centers in a early childhood classroom: www.literacycenters.com, in order to have my diigo account I created a new account in tweeter, I am a follower of 12 people interested in topics such as women health, sports, art, design, and teen doctors.

My recommendations: Write your user names and passwords that you used to create any on-line services, keep it in a safe place, because sometimes our memory fails.

These new online services are great tools to keep our information organized: Before, I had everything in my favorites, now I know that I can sort the websites that I need, and I can make groups. It's great to know that when you need something you can find it easily.

Google Docs and Google Reader: Tool # 4

Google Docs is a great tool when planning lessons. After a teacher creates a lesson, this can be send to all teachers who are part of the team (The teachers can review the lesson an edit it for changes) The lesson will be turn into a single document with the collaboration of all teachers . In Google Readers we can share with others what we wrote in our blog and also, read other documents and make/share our own comments, is an easy and secure way to communicate and gain information about something that draws our attention.

Document that I posted in Google Documents: Autores e Ilustradores and I shared this power point presentation with 4 colleagues.

Having Fun with Tool # 3

I finished the tool number 3, it was fun ! ( I used Word it out, and Glogster/edu)These ads will serve to clarify the curriculum I am using in my classroom with technology support (SBISD Curriculum), in addition, to explain that my class is a Bilingual Class where students learn without forgetting their culture and first language. With the images, I'm trying to illustrate everything a student performs in an Early Childhood Classroom.

BUILDING A LEARNING COMMUNITY Tool # 2

1.A learning community will help us to learn from other educators and professionals that work around children. Analyze and share other way to teach lessons will make us grow professionally. Learning from others makes us more humble.

2. I like the part that says that the comments should invite to a conversation. For me, one of the best ways to start a conversation is raising questions about what is read, also adding a positive comment to a post. If we want to correct something (nobody is perfect) it should be in a humble way, without humiliating others.

Getting Started with Tool #1

The first time I tried to create a blog I was really scared. In order to get an idea about what a blog was I decided to open google and ask: How to create a blog? I read all the steps, this help me to understand that the blog is a page to share ideas, and comments (Invite friends and people around the world ) as teachers we can share lessons and classroom activities. My second step was to read the e-mail that Karen sent to us (watch the video)After a few days I decided to start, but there were to many steps to follow and remember, I used two computers, one to read and the other computer to create my blog. I'm still working (It is 11:59 p.m. ) but my goal is to finish my blog "today " or tomorrow (before 2:00 a.m.), believe me, I'm not tired , I'm exciting with all the technology that is front of me, I'm ready to learn new things, and share everything I know using a BLOG.

Teaching Young Children

Teaching young children is one of the most wonderful things I've done, they are ready to learn and their little brains are ready to receive new knowledge. The little ones are artists, they can make big things using their hands, their minds and everything that is around them. Observing how kids can focus in learning activities that include all subjects areas to develop a project approach is amazing, children can develop projects that came from their own minds and this is what makes a good learning project.