End of Tools Reflections...

I am definitely excited about all the things I have learned as I created my blog and researched the different tools. There were some things that I was familiar with,but, so many new things I learned and that I can't wait to begin using. I would like to use google docs when planning with my team. I think it'll make it much easier to share ideas. Tool# 5 is definitely great. I feel so much more organized now, and all my websites are much more accesible and easier to find. I am looking forward to create a digital story with my students. I would like to create one at the end of each unit or lesson, at least monthly. My teaching techniques have been transformed. Now I have so many different ways to integrate technology in my classrooms. I will be able to provide my students with more activities that will accomodate their different ways of learning. Each child is it's own little world and learn in a different way.

Tool # 11 Digital Citizenship

When discussing digital citizenship in prek I would explain to them that there are safety rules when we using tehcnology the same as we have safety rules in the classroom,home, playground etc.... One thing I would like to make sure my prek children know is that they need to have a balance. I would suggest to them to set up a timer for 30 minutes so that they control how much time they spend on the internet. It's important that they know that they need to participate in a variety of activities, even when at home, and that spending too much time in the computer is not good for them. Another rule I would like to remind my students about is that when they are at home sometimes other windows open (popups) and these sometimes ask for personal info, such as adress etc... They should know not to share their info with anyone in the internet. Also, don't believe everything you see online, sometimes is best to ask your parents if unsure about something you found. If for any reason there's something you feel may not be ok for you to watch, look for an adult and ask for help.
Usually,in school, digital citizenship is well supervised by teachers/aides, specially in pre k. Eventhough we will have digital citizenship rules in the classroom, I will also like to teach them the above rules for when they are away from school.

I also found some good tips for digital citizenship in this website :
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/Internet-Safety-Elementary-School-Kids-Tips

Tool # 10 Exploring movil technology and apps

WOW!! Apps for kids too. Technology is definitely moving forward. It amazes me all the things we can teach to our students using technology. I do not have in ipad, iphone or itouch, but, I am definitely going to do my homework and go to the apple store to explore the apps I can use with my students. Through our tools blog, I have been revewing the free apps we have for our school district, fling free, can be used with our pk students, it helps them practice their eye -hand coordination. Also, revewing the free apps, I learned that some may be downloaded onto itunes, that will allow us to also use these in our ipods at school. Being new to this technology and to SBISD, I will be exploring how can I help my students learn to use the different educational apps available to them.I will be updating this tool on my blog soon as I learn more about this devices at my apple store field trip.:-)

Tool # 9 Assignment

Since our school have the ipods, Jing would be great to use with it. I would love to give my students the experience of talking to pre k students in other countries through Skype. Share ideas, maybe have them ask questions such as: what do they do for fun, games that they play, etc... Also, students could be asked to make questions about an assigned topic, then create a book together about the things they learned and also turn it into a writing activity for them. Another way in which I would like to use Skype with my students is having a virtual field trip to a place in another contry related to our theme or unit(Ex. zoo). Exchanging ideas about how others live in other countries it's great to develop language (Ex.talk and ask questions in complete sentences). It's amazing all the websites available to us. Nowadays, we can integrate technology in our classroom in so many different ways. I used skype before to communicate with my family in Puerto Rico. It's great now having the opportunity to bring that into my classroom.

Tool # 8 Video Resources

I like using the video resources available to us as teachers when introducing a lesson and also when reviewing a lesson. Some videos such as: alphabet and numbers can be used in our daily routines at the beginning of the year.Our students love technology and videos present another opportunity for us as teachers to be able to visually enhance our lessons.
Here's a link to 2 of my favorite youtube videos:

ALPHABET IN SPANISH:



NUMBERS IN SPANISH:






I also used the Eric Carle video (hungry caterpillar) when reviewing lifecycles in science.

Tool # 7 Digital Storytelling

As a new teacher to SBISD,digital storytelling it's new to me. I'm already brainstorming ideas of digital stories I would like to create with my students. It can be used in every subject. I am definitely excited to have the opportunity to create this stories and share them with our students and parents.

Tool # 6 Wikis

Wikis are a great tool. I think it will be helpful, specially in our team, since we are a group of several pre-k teachers in the same school it will give us a new way to collaborate and make the best learning activities for our students by working together through wikis.

Tool # 5 Tagging and Social Bookmarking

It's great to have learned about social bookmarking it will help us have new and relevant information to help us create great lessons plans and allow us to integrate technology in our classrooms.

Delicious it's a great tool. I just signed up and I love it. It has helped me organize all my websites and teaching ideas from web sites that I have collected throughout the years in a much more organized way.
Here's my link:
http://delicious.com/sinse75
Hope you enjoy this links that I've added to my delicious account and hope you find them helpful. I will be adding more this week. Check frequently so we can exchange great ideas to make learning lots of fun for our students.

Tool # 4 Cool Google Tools

As I learned about the google tools I found out how much easier it will be to share lesson plans and other documents with my teammates.It will absolutely be something that I am looking forward to implement the upcoming school year.

For Tool # 3 I created This poster at bighugelab.com

Tool # 3 Image Generators and Mashups

I'm so excited to learn about how to generate mash ups. Though Flickr I can create photo albums of my students and share with the parents and school community our most fun activities.I can create slide shows and videos for my students to enjoy. I would love to create a theme based album to help us review our study units. Also, I can integrate all the lessons by creating a slide show or downloading a video created in class related to what we are teaching in the different subjects.Students always love to see themselves in pictures and videos.
More ideas and updates to come as I learn from this wonderful sites;
www.dumpr.com
spell with flickr
comic strip generator

Tool # 2 Building Community

Technology is a great way to vary our teaching techniques. We can address the different learning styles of our students and also keeping them much more engaged and interested in the new technology.
I will be posting to this blogs and hopefully many more to come:

Technology in the bilingual classroom

Becoming Pro Tech

Using Technology to Teach

Amigos del Salon 12

Education is the key to the future

Tool# 1

Creating a blog was fun. At the beginning it was a little diffficult to understand, but I kept trying to work on it until I figured it out.I am looking forward to exchange ideas with my teammates.I am excited to see all the new technology I will learn about and how to integrate it in so many different ways in my daily teaching.

My Voki