Reflection second part of the course

As I mentioned in the previous reflection, since we are digital natives it is very difficult when teaching us new technologies that we do not know any of them. Even so, in this subject we are taught from a different approach, which is to adapt them to our classes as teachers. Therefore, despite knowing applications such as excel, audacity, virtual platforms... We knew them in a different way and the use of them that we can make today is much more useful.

I have learned how beneficial many digital platforms can be for both students and teachers. A clear example of this is Edmodo, since we are used to using this type of resources as students, and the truth is that I personally had never considered using them as a teacher. The podcasts on the other hand are a new discovery for me, although it is obvious that I knew the audio recordings I had never stopped to think about how useful they could be in education for things as simple as reading a text, teaching pronunciation... And the truth is that with resources like Podomatic it is very easy to adapt them to the world of teaching and include them in any classroom.

I can not say what is going to be more useful in the future, but for example the use we have given to Excel, I think it can undoubtedly make it a great ally for any teacher. Since a large part of the work of the educators is based on the evaluation and qualification of the work of the students, I believe that a tool like this that can do the calculations automatically can be of great help.

What I liked the most about the course I think has been, as I mentioned earlier, the approach that is given to new technologies in education. I think that many times throughout our training we have been told about technology, how important it is to include it in the classroom and the advantages it can bring, and although we have been taught to use a large number of applications, it has never been done in a way that can be useful to create materials, teach a class or transmit any kind of knowledge. In this course we have mainly learned to create materials with different platforms that give us different results and I think this will be very useful for us.

EDMODO

Edmodo is an educational platform with an operation very similar to that of a social network. Among its main virtues is that it is a free space, in Spanish and in which minors can be registered. On the other hand students can join the groups as long as they know the access code. They can download files, consult events, view grades, send documents to the teacher, etc.

Click in the following link to visit my EDMODO 

 and use this code: 5r6h7s

PODCAST

A podcast is an episodic series of digital audio or video files which a user can download in order to listen to. These recordings can be very useful in the educational field so that students have audios with which to work both from home and in the classroom, these audios are recorded by their teacher and therefore are appropriate for their level and task.

Podomatic is a website that allows you to easily find, create, distribute and promote podcasts, both audio and video. In this way teachers can upload files so that their students have access to them.

Below I propose an idea to work both resources in the classroom:

This is a poem about many animals that live in, by and around you. It repeats the sound of words, too. Poems that repeat the sounds of words are called rhymes.

Click on the following link to hear my PODCAST - ANIMALS

Here it is the poem you have just heard, now try to answer the following questions. You can hear the poem as many times as you need.

Animals live in many places – in water, grass, and trees.

Some hop, some jump, some climb, while others run with ease.

Animals can swim in lakes or fly high in the sky.

Smaller ones crawl in the rocks for a shady place to lie.

Whales dive deep to look for food in an ocean or a sea.

And bees buzz among the flowers, gathering nectar happily.

If I could be an animal – perhaps a deer or bear,

I would live wild in the woods and run from here to there.

Can you tell which words rhyme or sound the same? Does bear and there rhyme? How about sky and lie?

Think about more words that rhyme and try to make your own poem. Your poem needs to be at least 4 lines long and it also needs a title. You should have your first two lines rhyme. The third and fourth lines should also rhyme.

EXCEL

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application which is available in Microsoft Office. It is an application used in financial and accounting tasks, with formulas and graphics.  In education area it is used for evauation, since it allows teachers to insert formulas with which to obtain percentages and results of their students' grades. Moreover, some virtual platforms give you the option of downloading scores in Excel so it is easy to calculate the scores downloading them from the platform and pasting them.

Click on the following link to see my 

EXCEL DOCUMENT

Reflection first part of the course

In general, I have always had a great interest in new technologies, we have the technology present at any time and that is why we depend on it.  It is said that we are ‘’digital natives’’ and for that reason this subject could be a great help for our future, it can help us to improve our digital skills. Despite having wide knowledge about computers and their applications there is always much to learn, so I think that this subject will be very enriching.

And after a lifetime surrounded by different types of technology is normal to reach a point where we already know certain things that we work in class, such as Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint...

I have learnt to use many different resources to create materials that can be very useful in foreign language classes as well as in many other subjects.

First I learnt what does a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is, a very useful tool with enables us to have direct access to every web page or application we usually use.

Another useful tool that I have learned to use is Mendeley, a program which allows to manage and share bibliographical references and research documents, find new references and documents and collaborate online.

I will also liked to mention Hot Potatoes, a program in which it is possible to create different materials such as, crosswords, activities to relationate, texts with gaps…  And the best thing about this tool is that you can perform the exercises online without having to complete them on the same device in which they were created.

Finally, Storyjumper is the last tool that I would like to highlight, in which we have created virtual stories choosing the characteristics that each one wanted and carrying out the actions that we ourselves chose.

I think that the most useful for me as a future teacher will be the resources that serve to carry out activities with which to learn vocabulary. The simple memorization of words is very boring for the vast majority of elementary students, which is why teachers seek different resources such as games, stories... As we all know, using digital resources in the classroom always arouses the interest of children and therefore increases their motivation towards learning, so the use of these resources story jumper, hot potatoes... I think it will be really useful.

On the other hand, the least useful can be those resources that we can easily substitute for others that we already have. For example, I think that the quizlet tool can be effective for learning vocabulary of children but I think we can replace it with other simpler, such as eBeam if we have interactive whiteboard that nowadays is present in most of the classrooms.

Finally, what I liked most about the subject so far is that the resources we use are simple, for all kinds of subjects and free. I believe that this makes what we learn more useful throughout both our academic training and our professional experience as teachers.

STORY JUMPER

Story Jumper is a fun online platform to create children's stories or books, a  free resource for teachers and parents. The whole creation process is very simple, even having predesigned templates, with many elements and images to include.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

QUIZLET AND HOT POTATOES

Quizlet is a tool to create cards with educational content including text and images. The interesting thing is that, once created the cards that will be very useful in the classroom with interactive whiteboard. It is a tool especially suitable for language subjects since it also offers audios of the words and texts used.

Click in the following link to see my Quizlet:

QUIZLET - CLOTHES

Hot Potatoes is an application to create a wide variety of educational exercises that can later be done both through the web and in the application itself. Here are some examples.

In case there is a problem to see all the details of the exercises here are their links:

JCross - Crossword

JMatch - Matching

JCloze - Fill in the gaps

THE WEATHER INSIDE ME

Gap-fill exercise

Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!

It’s easy to talk about the weather outside, even if it changes all the time.

But it’s hard to talk about the weather inside me. Sometimes it feels like people don’t understand.

Do you feel like that too?

Some days my mind is full of and . I feel like I can do anything.

On other days my head is full of and . It’s hard to listen to what people are saying or to remember things.

I sometimes wake up feeling like it’s and wild in my head. I feel tired and grumpy.

And sometimes it feels like it’s inside me. It can be a drizzle making me feel sad, or a storm making me feel angry.

Sometimes the weather inside me doesn’t match the weather outside.

Sometimes my inside weather doesn’t match how I want to feel or how I think I should feel.

Is that okay?

Yes, of course it is.

The best thing to do when we feel like our inside weather is strange is to tell someone we love, and talk about it.

They’ve got inside weather too, and they’ll understand.

Feelings

Matching exercise

Match the items on the right to the items on the left.

	??? Fear Happiness Anger Disgust Sadness
	??? Fear Happiness Anger Disgust Sadness
	??? Fear Happiness Anger Disgust Sadness
	??? Fear Happiness Anger Disgust Sadness
	??? Fear Happiness Anger Disgust Sadness

Crossword

Complete the crossword, then click on "Check" to check your answer. If you are stuck, you can click on "Hint" to get a free letter. Click on a number in the grid to see the clue or clues for that number.

						1
2			3
4
			5					6
				7

Across: 2. Synonym of animated 4. Synonym of isolated 5. Synonym of tired 7. Synonym of reasonable

Down: 1. Feeling sorrowful 3. Synonym of curious 6. Synonym of sincere