Week 6 Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre using Pinterest

Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre         

Week 6 Pinterest

I will begin to say that I have utilized pinterest to obtain creative ideas.  Pinterest offers a wealth of ideas, topics and provides a platform for collaboration.  However my experience in pinterest was very limited.  I would only come to the webpage to look for crafts, decorations and ideas for projects.  I learned how to create a board and how to look for your friends to share pins and boards.  Another thing that I had to go look for was to change my settings from everyone could follow to only the pins I am following.  This happened because I realized that I had a pornography follower and I was panicking on how to remove this person from following my board.  I finally was able to block that user.  This is where technology is scary at times specially when you are a novice using these web pages.  I started to worry even more because the account I created is linked to my work e-mail.

The tutorial about pinterest offered me with a more thorough understanding of its contents.  For example I now can see how I can use it to look for innovative technology gadgets and devices.  One of the pins I came across offered educational apps that I had never seen.  Pinterest is a resource where I will be searching for innovative ideas to implement in the classroom.  For instance I also came across a game called Osmo.  It caught my attention because it showed a tangram and as I looked into it more I discovered it mirrors what the kids are doing.  I have already gone to buy one and tested it with my own children to obtain a better overview of what this game offers educationally speaking.  I really liked all the different activities the package offers, from forming words, using numbers and geometric figures.  I have already suggested it to my principal to buy at least one per classroom.

I find it hard for my pre-k students to use pinterest.  However I see this virtual pinboard benefiting me in implement new technology initiatives. As I continued to navigate pinterest I learned that more than just boards this virtual pinboard offers a great deal of teacher expertise.   Now that I am more familiar with the platform I can say that I was not using it or extracting educational material and resources that would benefit my classroom.

Another way that I will personally use this website is to collaborate with peers.  I did not know that it works similar than face book where you can follow and send pins to your friends.  Finally this is another great topic that I would roll out to my teachers.  For the most part I know many of them are pros at pinterest, however there are those that are not as experience and the entire process from creating the account, create your profile and settings are some things that they can benefit from.

Velia Aguirre Pinterest Account

Hello this is my pinterest account.

https://www.pinterest.com/vaguirre13/technology/

Hello this is my pinterest account


https://www.pinterest.com/vaguirre13/technology/

Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre Sharing Evernote Notebook

Hello,
In the link below I am sharing a recipe that I learned to make some time ago.  The dessert looks more complicated than it is.  However I have included the ingredients along with the directions.  You can select the flavor of cake according to your taste.  The combination of chocolate cake with flan gives it an exquisite taste.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed starting a notebook and categorizing them.  Evernote will definitely be an awesome tool for my notes and notebooks.

https://www.evernote.com/pub/vaalvidrez/recepies

Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre Evernote

Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre

TED 5372

This is the first time I use evernote and it has been an interesting experience.  I’ve had to go and watch the 2 hours tutorial several times as it contains a lot of information.  This is the first time in a long time that I felt lost at many points of this journey, however it is leaving me with lots of learning.  Evernote is a digital notebook that can store a lot of material and from any of your devices, which makes it more enticing.

I teach pre-kindergarten and find it difficult to include this application for my students to learn or use it.  However as I watched the tutorial I was envisioning using it for my teachers.  At my campus I am the technology leader and I lead a tech cadre that serves as the backbone of our school to help me deliver training with a common goal of building capacity.  With that being said, I would utilize this application for teachers to use it in three different ways 1) Professional Development, to teach them about evernote 2) Planning, to plan using evernote 3)Collaboration, to collaborate and share their ideas and lesson plans by creating a public note book.

Professional Development:

Rollout evernote:  I am responsible to provide trainings to staff members every month.  This application is the perfect material for me to teach to my tech cadre and in turn roll it out for October’s training.  The tutorial is a great resource and I am almost sure my teachers will be first time users to be able to obtain the free trial.  I also will look for other means of providing resources such as youtube tutorials about how to navigate through Evernote.  The tutorial offered with the free subscription is self directed providing ample opportunities for teachers to watch it and learn at their pace. 

Planning:

Teachers plan every other week and Evernote is the perfect tool to create notebooks of the planning that took place all year.  Lesson plans can be well organized utilizing this application.  The teacher can have the option to organize their planning material by week and semester and even by year.  This application provides them with the opportunity of having their own library of material in an organized manner. 

Collaboration:

Teachers can collaborate by sharing lesson plans, material and valuable educational material by creating a public link thru Evernote.  I am positive that my teachers will find it very resourceful to share a lesson plan in their absence either with a substitute or with a colleague to have it ready for a substitute teacher.  They can also share the URL with other stakeholders such as students or parents.

I really enjoyed learning about Evernote.  This class has been exposing me to new ideas, tools and resources not only to implement in my own teaching but also to deliver this in the form of trainings to my peers.  I am glad that finally there is a class in my degree plan that addresses technology and builds the confidence that is required when dealing with technology.

Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre

TED 5372 Week 4

I will have to say that this journey into blogging and feedly has been exciting and somewhat confusing.  This is the first time that I use this platforms and the experience from creating and navigating through these accounts was a bit challenging.  As I encountered difficulties I could not stop and relate to times when teachers or staff members have a hard time with technology.  As with anything practice makes perfect and the more I have read the more understanding I have about the feeds and the collaboration these platforms provide.

One of the Ed Tech blogs I choose is Education Week, which again it encourages teachers to be brave and courageous in reference to technology.  The post refers to “grit” in the classroom setting.  This caught my attention as in my campus my Principal has been urging us to have grit.  I made a connection on how this blog is encouraging teachers to try new tools of technology and model this is the only way to achieve the goal “You have to be what you want to see”.  I learned through this post that us educators should be brave and have the willingness to try new things and as this will give us the opportunity to build on resilience to fix what goes wrong.  In this post I found valuable information to implement in my campus as a technology support teacher.  The information you find through these blogs is endless.  This is a resource that provided me with insights of the many topics and ideas I can obtain to increase the quality of trainings I provide to my colleagues. The following is the link to Education Week blog: http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html

            Another blog that caught my attention is Edudemic.  In this blog there are a multiple topics that provide support, ideas and material for teachers to apply in the classroom.  For instance one of the topics I read is about the constructivist classroom, where the focus on analyzing student’s wrong answers provide more in depth teaching.  I related this to pre-k, which is the grade I teach, and how when I see student’s work and I ask the student to talk about their work it really opens my understanding behind it.  It is easy for us educators to assume that the student is not comprehending a concept but if we stop and take the time to look for the logic behind there answers is when we find the meaning and the logic on the student’s part.  I found this very interesting because it is so true.  I have learned from personal experience how by talking to students about their answer you will find out how accurate their answer is based on the logic they applied.   The following link provided me with necessary insights for us educators to think about quality teaching.  Rather than concentrating on right answers, student’s performance on test and we should invest time in understanding the reason a student arrived to the incorrect answer.  Gaining this understanding will lead the teacher to find a more effective way of teaching the correct answer

http://www.edudemic.com/constructivist-classroom-knowing-wrong-answers/

            I never imagined the gains and the wealth of knowledge I would find in just one blog.  This is a great resource that I am planning to roll out to my campus.  This is an amazing tool for all educators to utilize specially when in search of ideas to implement in the classroom.

Week 3 Blog A complete Guide to Using Blogger in School

A complete guide to Using Blogger in School

The framework Richard Byrne presented in this great article and tutorial is an excellent resource for us teachers to implement.  I am a pre-school teacher and although I have read and seen blogs it never crossed my mind to create one of my own.  As certain as it is that a blog is something not really suitable for the grade level I teach, it definitely can be a mean of communication between the teacher and the parent.  As I read the information I can think of the many activities offered at my campus and the many questions parents have in regards to those activities.  A blog would serve the purpose of informing the parents and for them to have the information readily available at the tip of their fingers.  It could be much more effective than providing parents a flyer that ends up being misplace and causing the parent to feel frustrated in search of dates and times of the event.

In reference to the framework I will think of it as if I would teach a fifth class.  The fact alone of incorporating a blog space for students is a very exciting experience.  Considering how engaged students are when using technology for learning purposes this is a great way to allow them to be creative and be producers of their own work.  Not only are they able to produce and create but also the opportunities that a blog offers for others to participate by adding ideas and expand on a topic are priceless.  

Distribution:

As far as utilizing blogging for distribution I would say based on a theme, unit or project, I would inform parents and students the expectations, guidelines and perhaps even provide them with the rubric.  The distribution component will definitely allow all stakeholders to have a uniform understanding of what is being requested.  I feel this is an awesome way to create a strong bridge with parents and it allows for parents to be involved in their children’s learning process as well.  It brings home closer to school and creates a partnership between educator and parent by providing important knowledge to support their children at home.

Discussion:

For the discussion portion it goes the same way, this allows students to ask any questions about an assignment.  It provides a sense of a learning community with peers and the mutual learning happens automatically.  As I was reflecting on this portion of a blog I could not stop thinking on how in the area of technology it moves students to modify the ways on how students interact with a purpose “education” rather than only using blogs to socialize.  The dialogues that take place in an educational blog support student-centered learning environment.  It also assists the educator in facilitating these platforms to move away from traditional learning to a blended environment.  I would have students reflecting on each other’s work and provide constructive feedback to one another.

             Demonstration:

        This is a great opportunity for students to view their finish product.  I would have students reflect on their publications and encourage them to continue growing on their postings.  This is also an opportunity for the teacher to expand on student’s knowledge of blogging and assign projects utilizing the platform. The rewards of reading their own work and provoking thought among their peers will engage students to persist in using blogs.