Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Reflections

Image generators are very cool to use with students pictures but I am very excited to use google tools with my team next year. Jing is something i will try to use next year with my teaching.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Tool #11 Digital Citizenship

Teaching how to use technology is not only about teaching the concepts is more about prepare them for a society full of technology.
Early childhood is the right place to start talking about the norms of behavior we expect in this new world of social interactions through technology.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Tool #10 Exploring Mobile Technology And Apps


Last year one of my favorite free apps that we used in the school with the ipods was iWriteWords Lite that is very appropiate for PK.

The Brainpop featured movie is another vey good if you like Moby and you use Brainpop or Brainpop jr.
Check this sites for reviews and research about apps:

Tool #9 Sharing Information Through Jing & Skype


Last year I was part of "The Flat Stanley Project" and our classroom used the skype to communicate with other two classrooms around the country. We found that experience very constructive. The students were able to interact with other students miles away from our classroom, that was incredible!
I found Screencast and Jing very useful and I am planning to incorpore that for teaching how to use the ipods.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Tool #8 Video Resources

Video & Web is like a marriage made in heaven! I can't image my life without youtube or streaming video. How different is my class when we see a video of a tradicional spanish song or a place in the world, there is no fee for a field trip to the national zoo videocam.
I attend to Rushton Hurley at ISTE 2010 and he talked about the importance of digital videos in our classrooms, but not only as viewers, he mentioned about the power of creating and sharing.
This is one of the videos that I liked from his presentation, the production of this video made a big wave in you tube (this is the news about that)




This other is about how to use Imovie using a green screen in response to some questions about how I made my video in tool #7 post.

Tool #7 Digital Storytelling

I am using Imovie. The green screen feature is very good!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Tool #6 Wikis

Wikis are an excellent to collaborate. We used a wiki to work last year in our team planning. One of the good things about this is you dont need to use email as a way to communicate between the members of the wiki but one of the limitations is when two persons are trying to update at the same time. We are thinking to use some of the Google tools for next year.