Thursday, April 28, 2011

Inspiration

I created this awesome way to arrange my ideas of what assignments I created and related to NETS-T. I used images and text to express my ideas. All of them were connected with arrows in order to form this thinking map. NETS-T: III



Sunday, April 24, 2011

Journal #9


Miriam Vidaurri
Journal #9

“Teaching Green” NETS-T: I, II, III, IV
Walters, J. (2011). Teaching green. The Journal, 38(4), Retrieved from http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1105/journal_201104/#/12

Summary: The article is one of the most interesting articles I have read so far in this course, because it provide with interesting information that I am concern off. The article is about how to teach our students about protecting the earth and becoming green, it mentions six different sites that are helpful an interesting. The main thing that attracted my attention was that they were divided by the grade appropriate level; it is an easier way to see which one will work for your grade level. I like that it explains how it is helpful for that level, and provides a short and detail piece of information about the site. Now, I will be able to teach any grade about becoming green by navigating through the websites and found lesson plans appropriate for the grade.  

Q1: Which site will you use in your future classroom?
A1: I would want to use two of the websites, “The Ecological Footprint Quiz” and “The US Environmental Protection Agency Teaching Center.” I want to use the quiz one because it will be a good way to start a lesson, and see where the student’s knowledge about being green is at. It will be easier to create lesson plans, and steps to make them more are about their environment. I like the EPA website because it provides lesson plans, workshops, and ways to get grants, which all future teachers might get to need after all the educational cuts.

Q2: How being green would benefit the students?
A2: the students will benefit because they are the future of this planet which is dying due to the lack of care for it. Students need to understand that they need to preserve this planet and what it provides in order for their survival. It will take little steps to create a big impact but they will work towards the goal of not getting for granted what the earth gives us.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Journal #8


Miriam Vidaurri
Journal #8

“Point/Counterpoint: Should schools be held responsible for Cyberbullying?”  NETS-T: IV, V
Bogacz, R, & Gordillo, M. (2011). "point/counterpoint: should schools be held responsible for cyberbullying?" leaning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-march-april-2011.aspx

Summary: the article main point was to see two different points in an answer toward the question. I found this really interesting to see how both points made on the article are true. It was hard to answer the question when I try always I will end in the middle of the argument, it impossible to just blame one person or system in this world for cyberbullying. I agree that teachers are the ones that shape the students and need to be responsible in addressing the issue in their classroom. However what is going too happened when they are using the computer at home teachers will also be blame. That is why I understand why teachers should not be responsible for cyberbullying. Everyone needs to work together in bringing a peaceful environment for the children of today it will be hard but not impossible, everyone needs to collaborate as mention in the article if one from the chain fails to do so we will never stop it. 

Q1: How will you talk about cyberbullying in your classroom?
A1: I think one of the ways is to first start with the bullying in the classroom because that is where it leads to major issues and in other forms. One of the ways in which I will incorporate it is by teaching students why it is bad, and how it can be change. I will like to incorporate websites with games that are integrative .

Q2: Do you think parents can solve the problem on their own?
A2: I do not think parents are able to solve the problem by their own as teachers aren’t either. The reason is because everyone affects the life of the students and is with them throughout their development as adults. However I believe parents are the first ones that need to start working on teaching their children what is good and what is bad, a little talk about cyberbullying will help a lot.

Journal #7- My Personal Learning Network

Miriam Vidaurri
Journal #7

NETS-T: II, V

PLN: the creation of my PLN was not an easy job to do because it was complicated to choose what I wanted to be on it. I know that later in the future it will increase, but I was thinking many things were not useful and only incorporated because they sound cool. I had to look carefully to what it is that I really wanted and that it was going to help me in the future. At the end my PLN looks decent and great to help me in my future classroom. It has mainly educational sites for lower grades, interesting resources of how to use technology, bilingual sites, and educators or future ones.
PLN Twitter: My PLN on Twitter is conforming mainly by future educators from our class. They are part of my PLN because I want to see what their concerns are and how they relate to mine which can helpful to connect more and help each other. The chat in which I participated was Elemchat it was on April 16, 2011 at 2pm. The experience was good because I got to learn a lot from the topic which was “What does a 21st century elementary school look like?” It was interesting to see all the views of so many different people, and fro m all around the world. I like how many were similar to mine that they have many technology and students are not engaging more with one another in the classroom if not outside in the whole world. It was exciting to see all the answers.
Diigo:  the PLN part of my Diigo page consist of teachers founded by going through your website, they seem really interesting in topics that help educators. The pages I tagged with PLN are about creating PLN, using Twitter in the classroom, Bilingualism, and digital natives. I pick these articles to be part of my PLN because I think they will help me in different forms. The twitter one will be an easier way to understand its role in education, how to create a PLN it will be easy for me to keep updating and expanding my connections. Bilingualism I choose because I am bilingual and I understand why is important to be bilingual in this point on time, and the Digital because it talks about what myths people say and I feel like it’s important for people to see how they are not true. In the future I will be expanding more my list, with fun and interesting things.
Classroom 2.0: I decided to choose for my third source of PLN network Classroom 2.0 because I felt it was more relevant to teachers and easier to explore. I joined a discussion of how you can make parents more involve in the classroom. It was interesting to rear all the ideas provided, and make me think that how I was going to do that. I found interesting how teachers cannot make parents interact in the classroom most of the time because parents work all day, it’s and issue that can bring problems in the future of the students. I like the discussion because I got ideas for my future classroom.

Journal #6

Miriam Vidaurri
Journal #6

"Grow Your Personal Learning Network," NETS-T: II, III,
Warlick, D. (2009). Grow your own personal network. Learning and Leading with Technology, 36(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-march-april-2009.aspx

Summary: The article presents information about all the types of forming your Personal Learning Network (PLN). It mentions of how it can help create connections with educators all around the world to be able and create a good classroom experience. It mainly talks about three main types of PLN, Personally maintained synchronous connections, Personally and socially maintained semi synchronous connections, and Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. Personally maintained synchronous is the type of networks that you go to in order to answer questions that you might have or solve a problem. We can find these networks in Twitter, Skype, uStream, and iChat. Personally and socially maintained semi synchronous connections is when collaboration towards a same purpose does not happened by working together in one on one. It is when the collaboration occurs from different places around the world, and different time frame. The networks used are wikis, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections are not connections with others, it mainly connections with sources that are useful for one purpose of ours. RSS aggregators are the main tool of this type because they help found information on a topic that we have interest fast, and in many forms as pictures, articles, journals, and media. One of the most commons is Delicious or Diigo, because they are social bookmarks and can be used to store all articles of our interest and use them in the future, by looking with their tags you incorporate. The article provides a web map of many PLN plans and how they work to what of the types they are associated. At the end of the article I was able to understand more it, and how it works toward us as educators work too.

Q1: What type of PLN I think will be the one I will use the most?
A1: I think the one I will use the most is Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. The reason because I will use this one is because I like to found interesting articles online to be informed, but many times I forget where it was one that I want to use in the future. I feel that Diigo is really helpful in this concept because now no matter of my bad memory I will be able to save interesting articles for the future.

Q2: How do you think Facebook will be use in your future career?
A2: In the future Facebook will be use to be able and communicate with other teachers around the world or my own classmates from my classes. As of now I use Facebook with my cohort from ICP to keep in touch and help each other in our concerns about the program and classes. I believe is a good way and easier for everyone to use and because many people has it. Facebook will be a good source to work with people around the world for a common goal, no worrying of distance.