Velia Alvidrez-Aguirre
Educational Technology Blogs
As a
technology teacher I am constantly looking for educational websites in an
effort to keep up to date. Another
reason of my constant search is to offer quality trainings to staff. This course has facilitated so much my job of
searching because the bogs offer a wealth of information. One of the educational bogs I choose is Free
Technology for Teachers http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/11/a-few-tips-on-using-tables-in-google.html#.WCUrPSMrLZs
this website provides video tutorials about google docs and google slides. I personally feel that videos are the best
tool to introduce trainings. For example
when I roll out the monthly training at my campus I always like to offer
websites or video tutorials for staff to refer to later in case of
questions. The tutorials can be watch as
many times as needed, it reaches to all different learning styles, and can be
saved for future reference. I have
recently provided training to staff in google drive, docs, slides and
forms. When I came across these videos I
will use them to give extra tutorial to my teachers.
Another
website thru the educational blogs I liked is Edutopia RSS. In this blog I found a lot of information on
building vocabulary through fun and games. This website provided great https://www.edutopia.org/article/buliding-vocabulary-through-fun-and-games-rebecca-givens-rolland
I became very engaged in this site because at pre-k level it is important to
expose students to increase their vocabulary and to understand the meaning of
those words. It is important however to
incorporate the learning of vocabulary in a playful manner. I feel that this applies not only to pre-k
but in higher grades as well. Even as
adults we internalize the learning when it is thru play and fun. This website presents with ideas that can
students in higher grades. Especially in
STAAR test students are required to write in a coherent manner and to use high
terminology. The website had an embedded
link to Wordle. This is a game for
generating “word clouds” meaning it gives greater prominence to frequent words
in a text you have written. This will be
an engaging way for students to writhe their mock practice for STAAR. The readings from one link to the other
within the blog continued to engaged me more and more. There is another page of literature that
makes us educators reflect on our daily teaching and practices. It made me evaluate how effective are some daily
practices imparted in the classroom. For
example calendar time, the time spent doing it and how much are students really
learning and more important are thy understanding the concepts. This website urges to assess our practices as
educators: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/literacy-practices-we-should-abandon-nell-k-duke
I truly feel that we need to follow state guidelines without
also reflecting on student’s needs. How
effective are our practices and to modify according to those needs in order to
ensure students understand the meaning of words and of any other content for
that matter.
I agree with you when you state that videos are great for training, they answer a lot of questions a person can have. My students enjoy videos, they say it's easier for them to see pictures and hear from a different source other than their teacher in a classroom. Vocabulary is very important in Science, I teach 5th and 6th grade Science and my students would definitely be lost without understanding the words they are using, I like the website you mentioned.
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