Throughout this course I learned many important things that I could use for my own benefit and for my students. I was able to become more familiar with Power Point. For starters, I learned how to use speaker notes which I had never used before and I wondered what that space below the slides was used for. AMong other things, I learned how to use Excel better, make my own website, blog, etc.

However, the bigest thing I've learned that I've benefited from the most, is learning how to use the Developer tab in Word 2007 to make documents and templates and then protect them. In my church I teach a bible class and I made a template for that as well as a template for my school where I teach French. There are many more things I'm planning on doing with this Tab but it is amazing. The fact that I can use page bordering also to make documents look more official is awesome. I've already used this to make a lesson plan template both for bible class at church and for teaching.

The final thing I learned and enjoyed very much was to make a website.

Check it out: ortiz-robles.webnode.com

During our last class it was interesting to see different students' presentations. Throughout the presentations I noticed two things: 1) Teachers do not know enough technology and 2) increasing communication between teachers and students via e-mail and text.

Throughout the presentations one of the students mentioned how research was showing teachers themselves do not know enough techonology. There are many interesting activities out there that support learning for today's students but not enough teachers would know how to set up all the technology involved in carrying out these activities. Not only this, but teachers would also have trouble finding a spot in curriculum to implement technology. This is something that bothers me when I think about my own teaching but it may just be a matter of letting the older, more traditional teachers retire. Soon enough we'll have a brand new generation of tech savvy instructors.

It is rather unacceptable for students to communicate with teachers via telephone. This type of communication is usually seen with students that are college/university level. Furthermore, there are still teachers today that can not upload an attachment to an e-mail to send work home for a sick student! I had a situation recently where one of my students was ill for over a week and I sent work to her mother's work e-mail and the student was able to come to class without falling behind. Had it not been for the parent and myself communicating via e-mail, the student would not have been caught up.

Our students' presentations included many great activities but without teachers learning the proper technology necessary, they are useless.

PSA Video Project

So about this video project - the first time it was mentioned in class - or the first time I saw it on the syllabus, I thought to myself "I'm going to make a video?!" I thought it was an impossible task but I soon saw how easy it was after the class where we got to make the skating video. I thought it was very neat and easy to understand.

For our video project, I worked with Carrie and Chauncy and I had a really good time. We decided to do our PSA on older men interested in chatting with teens and establishing a sexual relationship with them. At first I thought it was kind of crazy but I liked the purpose behind it. One of the most challenging parts was making our video fit into 90 seconds!!! It was harder than I thought! Now that we're done with it, I think I admire whoever was able to do it in less than 90 seconds....kudos to those who did it in 30 seconds!

The filming part was not too hard...We were able to film quickly and it didn't consume too much of our time. The most interesting part to me was all the mixing. I truly enjoyed it! We were able to mix in all the music perfectly. Although some parts of it were choppy, I think we did a very good job, considering it was our first time doing a project like this.

I am proud of how much I've learned in this class and I think I can use videos like these in my classroom. Honestly, I wouldn't mind using it in my personal life as well to make videos of my children. They're great memories!

VIDEO!

It is true that video is a powerful tool. I often realize that my students are extremely visual. One of the things I could have done previously in lessons, was incorporate something from united streaming or from a different website containing teacher tools. I say this because with every lesson that I teach in a unit in my foreign language classes, there are videos that the students must watch. These videos are so outdated! The students do not identify themselves with the youth in the videos and it gets somewhat boring. I'm thinking for each lesson of a Unit I should find something for the students to watch and present it with my data projector on my laptop to the whole class. I'd be afraid to assign anything like this for homework because not all of my students have internet access from home.

I recently did a project with my family on it because it involved all the vocabulary for that chapter for the students. I didn't use it as introductory material but I did use it as a review of information they had learned throughout those few weeks. They enjoyed it (it was in the form of a PP presentation) but I think it would have been neater if I could have made it in a type of slideshow format that looked more like a video - like what we did in class the night we used the MACs. I think this would have held their attention even more.

In the future, I think I could:
1) Videotape students acting out dialogues or plays in French
2) Make a video of things outside the school containing French culture
3) Present videos in class with my projector that have to do with the lessons being taught

So I'm going to try to be successful with the net generation - I keep telling myself after each class. On my drive home I think about how I can apply all that I'm learning to my classroom. I agree that there are many in-class projects I can do, but there are still other missions that I'm not too sure about. Many times when I offer a computer assignment, I'll get a response from students - "I don't have internet access at home." This shocks me because I like to think that everyone has internet access nowadays. I tried to remind myself the other day that it's probably due to the population that I serve. Since I work in a lower-income, urban school district, the large possibility exists that many don't even own a computer. This is where the chapter I read was right-on! Toward the beginning, it talked about the fact that we like to classify the net generation and think they ALL have access to technology or sometimes access to the same type of technology.

I'll tell you the big problem in my classroom whether rich or poor - Ipods! Cell phones! Maybe they don't all have internet access but there are forms of technology that I see are present in them. So, they are the net generation, but we can't assume they all have the same kind of knowledge. I'm supposed to be part of the net generation and I was one of those that only used internet for e-mailing professors in college. I didn't know too much about internet use - I still don't!

Keeping this in mind, in order for me to be successful with the net generation, I need to understand it's not ALL about technology (as the article was stating). Part of learning still has to be traditional as well. The difference is that today's learners are not as much auditory as they are visual so it's important to keep them engaged! I can facilitate a style of learning that engages my students and keeps them active and hands-on. Today's students are very kinesthetic-oriented.

I think if I keep these ideas in mind, it will help me serve my population of inner-city students. I don't have to make technology the CENTER of my class, but I can apply it in a manner that students will be engaged enough to learn comfortably!

RSS

Social bookmarking doesn't seem too bad! At last, I understand something I read about technology. The video made it super easy to understand - although I felt like an idiot because I didn't really know what this was all about before.



I think social bookmarking would help me as a teacher. In my department, we use a lot of websites to practice language with our students. We also take students to computer labs and allow them to work at their own pace for practice. If we were to compile a list of websites that could be used in our classrooms and bookmark them, we'd be able to look at each other's links and help each other with resources. Often, we run out of things to use in our classrooms that require technology because we don't have the resources in our school district.



Social bookmarking would be extremely beneficial to my students. We are trying to set up a program called e-chalk in our district. Students are not too familiar with it yet, but they should start using it soon. This week I had a student who was very ill and we had to keep sending work home for her - if we had our e-chalk all set up, she'd be able to pull assignments from there. I could have my diigo posted on e-chalk and she could even look at her book online through my link! This is a perfect example of how it would be helpful considering the fact that this student left her book at school - no one plans to be sick. In general, I could have supplemental assignments or optional readings because many students in my classroom need that "extra" one-on-one worktime.



If I had to present 5 ideas to my language department to use on Excel, I would use the following:

1) Creating a spreadsheet to classify the numbers in French. Students could make columns where they practice typing the digit and then writing it out in words. Students don't practice this enough and doing this on a computer would excite them more.
2) A contest could be set up where students create a spreadsheet of typical French names.
3) One thing we are currently covering in class are adjective agreements based on noun genders. Students could use Excel to classify all possible agreements for nouns and their genders.
4) Students could list French and English cognates.
5) Charting data with all francophone countries around the world. They could compile a list of all countries that speak French or have French culture and the population that speaks French. They could then create data charts of this information.

Google Apps

I definitely could have used Google Apps while in college. Although we used blackboard a lot, it would have been nice to have used a system that worked in "real-time." I think many groups projects I had to complete would have been a lot easier if I had a program like Google Apps - especially because on campus everyone is so busy and involved in different things that you can just send things out at the same time and await responses without having to meet with other students.

As far as using it in my own classroom, I'm not so sure yet. However, I think I've started doing something similar with the e-chalk program we have to take care of now. I don't have it completely set up but we do have to participate in it and our students will be able to write to us and see posted assignments. I don't know that it has the extensive calendar sharing that the Google Apps has and I don't think it's in "real-time."

I like their definitions in the video when stating that it's a package of applications that enhances google things you already use - sometimes I'm afraid of new things but when I heard this, I was at ease. I think I'd definitely try this with my co-workers. Many times we need to meet about stuff in our department but we're rarely able to get together at the same time. This all reminds me of the charter school my brother and sister are enrolled in - it's awesome! They have live video chats with classmates and teacher - it's like a virtual classroom!

In reference to the lesson plans, I tried the area of language arts since I didn't see foreign language and figured this was the closest thing. I truly liked a lesson plan for writing that I found which encouraged students to write newsletters in a Google newsletter template. I think it's cool that students can act as editors for newsletters - especially in an ELA classroom.

I also decided to look under the "fine arts" category since we teach a lot of culture in foreign language. I found something that had to do with photography which I haven't really taught but I thought it was very interesting. Students will use a program called Google Earth (which I am actually somewhat familiar with) and they will create a Google Earth tour based on a photograph they have chosen (which I didn't know you could do!) The idea of this project is to get students thinking about the importance of American photography, while allowing them to appreciate the geography and location that were captured in the photograph.

Week 2 Readings

I was pretty shocked at all the terms I read that I wasn't familiar with. I like to think of myself as somewhat technology saavy but I guess that's not true compared with today's youngsters. Some of the student's perspectives in Educause seemed to be frustrated. My language doesn't differ much from theirs in some aspects - I can use debit cards and credit cards and in fact, sometimes it's hard for me to carry cash. I just don't do it anymore. I wa super surprised by the fact that a professor did not read e-mail....I think this is a bit extreme but I guess it still happens. I've never done twitter, or flickr, or any of those terms mentioned. My goal is to start podcasting because I like what I read in the articles - students can truly be creative. Blogs are super convenient - now that I've started using one, I can see why. I agree with the students when they say they won't forget their homework at school, it can be done on Sundays or whenever you're sick too! I believe teachers need to become more familiar with these practices if we expect to FACILITATE instruction.

In reference, to GoogleDocs, one of the articles was right on the money when stating that today we have more internet producers than consumers. The internet used to be something far away that everyone could use but no one knew how to create. Now you have GoogleDocs allowing you to create and edit text while sharing with real-time users. I am completely unfamiliar with this program but think I could learn to use it.

I hope that my students never feel like that student did in EduCause.....sitting only 4 feet away but feeling light years of separation between them.

Class 2

As I read about the Net Gen tonight, I realized how much I'm a part of that. While I read the introduction of the text, I noticed I have an advantage as an educator because I'm young and able to use much of the technology that is available to students today.

First of all, I got flashbacks from college when I read the second chapter which started by explaining a college student who wakes up and checks how many IMs he missed while sleeping! Not only that, it mentioned the fact that he no longer goes to the library to research, but prefers doing online research. This is so true! I think this has a huge influence on how our students today learn because I remember in college, I had to get help from professors to research - thank God for online journals! One of the things that educators need to remember today is that students are very visual and kinesthetic thanks to all the techonology that is available. Students today can be texting under their desks as the teacher is lecturing and they don't even have to look down at their phones to do so! This is why it's so important to keep them involved.

One of the important things that I read is the classifications that were created to see how many students had internet access. It seems as though students from even lower income families may still have internet access. They may not have it as much as higher income students do, but it's there. If they don't have internet access then they have other technological things like PSPs, Ipods, Xbox, Playstation, Wii, and more. The main impact to me was the distance learning because I teach courses like this at my church - this truly benefits adults that work full-time to support a family but still want to earn a second degree. Technology should not be looked down on as much as it is with today's students, because it has also encouraged more groups to study, and it has facilitated instruction for many.

Wow - is all I have to say for the Natives article. Many of the things are true - learners are different today. However, I do think the article was a bit radical. I'd like to stick somewhere in the middle of all this. Truthfully, although learners have changed, they are still human-beings and love human interaction and having discussions in class. There are normal things in their lives and they don't ALWAYS prefer to text or chat, they do still love to see their friends in person and do things older people that are "non-digital natives" or "digital immigrants" have done. While I was reading, I remembered one of the chapters in our text which explained how a poll was taken and many students were still 50-50, they liked both teacher lecture AND interaction. I think this is very true. We don't need to teach ONLY TECHONOLOGY, or ONLY TRADITIONAL LECTURES, but we need to provide a balance. We also can't create a generation of robots that can't communicate with others unless it's via something techonological...

Someone once complained, "I don't know why these kids today can't function if they don't have calculators....they can't even do math in their heads anymore!" I would have loved to reply, "Would you walk 15 miles to get somewhere despite the fact that cars exist?" or, "Would you opt for a surgery w/out anesthesia?" I think there needs to be a balance but the older generation also needs to accept that today's kids aren't dumb, they just have a different way of learning and have a few more perks available to them.....

1st day of class

*sigh*

And I thought the last course I needed for certification would be easy....