Week 10 - Section II: Ideas for using Twitter for teaching and learning.

The best way to get the most out of  a product is to use it. Using Twitter is a two part process. The first part is as a consumer, where we follow people, read their tweets, and learn from them. A lot of people stop there, which is easy to understand since that is the easy part. But the best part happens when we share, when we create and not just consume. One important thing about Twitter is to be connected and create a network. Follow some of the people we find interesting, exchange ideas and conversations with others using the #hashtag conversations we are involved in, and when appropriate, take it to the next step, connect with them, either via other social media, email, or at a place  you are both attending. Sometimes from behind the glow of modern devices, we forget to continue to forge our networking relationships in more conventional ways, too.

In Education is very important to share our resources. If we always find interesting things on Twitter, such as lesson plans, we have to share our awesome resources, too. Along the lines of the "get what you give" idea, the more we feed into the community, the more robust it will become and the more it will grow and become useful to us. There are many resource sharing sites that are conceptually great fail when not enough people contribute to them. We do not have to be a chronic Tweeter to stay regularly involved,  but it is important to check in, reply, and participate to keep the community going.

As educators we can take advantage of Twitter in many ways. For example when in a field trip, we can stay informed sick kids and parents of all our activities since we leave school. Smart phones allows us to keep them engaged with pictures and descriptions of the lessons learned. Other idea could be directed to the parents of K-12 students interested in daily classroom activities, so they can follow teacher tweets discussing some of the lessons learned and any progress on projects with one quick and handy trip to a dedicated Twitter feed. It is a good idea also to apply Twitter ideas mixing fun and education ideas like to go on a scavenger hunt. We can get students moving and organize a sort of Twitter scavenger hunts. We can even see if other classrooms or professionals want to get involved. This activity can easily be applied to a wide number of grade levels and academic subjects.

Jorge Villarreal

Week 10 - Section I : Learning from Hashtags

Using the hashtag #onlinelearning I found a very interesting tweet about the future of the online learning for students as well as for teachers.

https://twitter.com/helloammba/status/791268233949089792

The future of the online learning.

As technology is rapidly changing the world around us, many people worry that technology will replace human intelligence. Some educators worry that there will be no students to teach anymore in the near future as technology might take over a lot of tasks and abilities that we have been teaching our students. I think that Education will never disappear. It will just take up different forms. Similarly to the personalized learning experience, students will be able to modify their learning process with tools they feel are necessary for them. Students will learn with different devices, different programs and techniques based on their own preference. Blended learning and flipped classrooms form important terminology within this change.

Students are having more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. Online learning tools facilitate opportunities for remote, self-paced learning. Classrooms will be flipped more each year, which means that the theoretical part is learned outside the classroom, whereas the practical part shall be taught face to face, or online interactively with a teacher behind the screen. In the next years, students will incorporate so much independence in to their learning process, so mentoring will always become fundamental to student success. Teachers will form a central point in the jungle of information, so our students will be paving their way through. Though the future of education seems remote, I think that the teacher and educational institutions will continue to be vital to reach an academic performance.

The scope for innovation is truly vast. The web contains the biggest store of information available to anyone in the world, and the internet is the widest-reaching communication medium. A considerable amount of valuable information is already available. Today institutions are thinking of innovative ways to incorporate digital content into learning programs. Online learning will continue to offer unparalleled opportunities for interactivity and open communication among students and teachers. I think that the future of the online learning has already started.

Jorge Villarreal

Week 9 - Reflection

Using Edmodo for teaching and learning

As educators we can use Edmodo for teaching and learning as a way to enhance the experiences that students have with what we would already normally be doing in our classrooms. Posting assignments on Edmodo gives students a chance to see written reminders of directions and due dates that we have stated orally.  Putting assignments online also gives us the chance to attach files, link websites, and many more tasks. Posting our learning targets, success criteria, and assignments for parents and missing students creates transparency and helps absent students get caught up.  Students never have to worry about losing an assignment.  It is helpful for us to have saved and organized digital copies of assignments that our students turn in.  Sometimes we can have conversations with students through Edmodo that would be uncomfortable for students to initiate.  Linked parent accounts create total transparency and trust regarding such conversations. We are all connected in an Educational chain, students, teachers, parents, and a large professional community. The Edmodo student management, give us the necessary resources for us that have more than one class and subjects, ensuring a very efficient workflow. It also helps us assign instructional content and create assessments, with the advantage of a grading tool which parents and students can access.

A Paperless Idea.

One of my main problems teaching is the way I manage paper-based assignments, quizzes and all the written work related. Sometimes I cannot find one or more student work and is when I get in trouble trying to be fair with my students.  I can use Edmodo to generate a digital file to store all the students related work. I can also establish a three way communication teacher-students-parents to improve the teaching and the learning experience in and out of the classroom.

A Learning Community Idea.

The objective is to form a group of teachers or staff or both that share common academic goals and attitudes, who meet semi-regularly to collaborate on class work. The group have to meet every specific period of time and we can use Edmodo to post their minutes of the meeting and then any follow up or discussion that occurs between meetings. Also we can use  Edmodo to post to the entire staff important documents such as blank field trip permission forms and such that all staff or educators need access to. By posting them in Edmodo they remain in all libraries and are accessible by all the people in the learning community.

A Cultural Exchange Project Idea.

A Cultural Exchange Project give students the opportunity to learn about other world cultures by connecting your classroom with classrooms around the globe via an Edmodo group created by Teachers. Cultural exchange programs expose students to people from different cultural, religious, geographic and socio-economic backgrounds and in so doing provide the opportunity for students to develop a greater understanding of diversity in USA and worldwide. They allow students to interact with and learn from people who are different from themselves and to participate in new and unique experiences beyond their own communities. Cultural exchange assists students to develop positive relationships with others, understand a broader range of perspectives, and develop the knowledge and skills needed for participation in our multicultural society.

Jorge Villarreal.

Week 8 - Prezi Presentation

Week 8 - Reflection

Self-directed Learning using Feedly

 

Mental Health Problems Students Face

I read an article written by Amanda Green posted in The Edudemic blog this month about mental health problems students face. The title attracted me a lot because I have seen some cases as an educator so I decide to know more about it. The article talks about the important role the teachers have to identify some signs and symptoms to pay attention to. As educators we spend so much time with students, particularly observing them in social and educational situations, so we can provide invaluable help in identifying possible mental health issues, so we can work with parents to help students get the help they need.

According with the author mental health issues can start in very young students or emerge later with teenagers. We have to be alert because sometimes it is difficult to detect that there is a health problem at first, so we think that everything is normal, but in other cases we notice something like the child suddenly starts yelling at you or you find yourself stunned and shocked when the child begins saying upsetting things you would not expect from a child their age. Maybe the child grades has suddenly dropped, and the child just does not seem interested in doing anything about it. In other cases the child has started skipping school. Children might be having dramatic mood swings from one moment to the next, or  maybe they are starting doing things that they haven’t done in a long time.

Parents and teachers know when the children are not acting like themselves and may be they are going to need help. The article establish other important signs and symptoms to pay attention to:

• Appearing withdrawn or wanting to be alone all the time.
• Appearing overly anxious and worried. Or just having a lot of fear.
• Losing sleep or having nightmares.
• Losing or gaining a lot of weight.
• Appearing depressed, sad, or irritable a lot.
• Appearing aggressive or violent. Or breaking rules more than usual.
• Self-harming behaviors like cutting, scratching, head banging, or otherwise hurting themselves.
• Thoughts of death, wanting to die, or talking about suicide.

The article establish that as many as 15 million children in the U.S. could be diagnosed with mental health disorders. However, only as few as  7 percent of these young people actually receive the care they need.

At the end, the article list the Most Common Mental Health Issues For Children, according with the APA (The American Psychological Association) :

1.     ADHD, (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)

2.     Anxiety

3.     Depression

4.     Autism Spectrum Disorders

5.     PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

6.     OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

7.     Tourette

8.     ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)

9.     CD (Conduct Disorder)

10.                        Eating Disorders (Anorexia/Bulimia)

http://www.edudemic.com/student-mental-health/

The Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom

I read an article written by Amanda Ronan posted in The Edudemic blog last April about the pros and cons of Technology in the Classroom. The article talks about how in the last decades, technology has taken the front seat in Education and society is becoming quite dependent on the technology. It is the technology which helps in enhancing the skills and preparing children for the future.

Technology could provide a high end environment and an interactive learning experience. There are numerous means in which teachers could use technology in their classroom. Technology in education is playing a crucial role in enhancing the skills and knowledge of the people across the Globe.

It is known that the using technology in the classroom, has been a controversial debate for the last couple of decades. Parents, teachers, policy makers, and students alike have weighed and argued the potential benefits versus the risks and consequences of classroom technology, not only referring to the devices many students personally own, but also when referring to the integration of tools into the everyday education experience.

The Ronan's article establish the next pros and cons about using technology in the classroom:

Pros of Technology in the Classroom

1.     Data and analytic reporting

2.     Just in time information

3.     Differentiated instruction

4.     Different learning modalities

5.     Assistive tech for special needs

Cons of Technology in the Classroom

1.     Replacing teachers

2.     Distracting

3.     Easier to access others’ work

4.     Disparity of access outside of class

5.     Privacy

                http://www.edudemic.com/education-technology-pros-cons/

Week 7 - Reflection

Using Google Drive for teaching and learning

The most basic way to describe Google Drive is that it is an online file cabinet where you can store documents and other digital files. Think of the word “Drive” the same way we would think of the word "hard drive"  on your computer, except that Google Drive is cloud-based application, in other words it exists online, so you can upload a file into Google Drive from your home computer, then open your Google Drive on your work computer and get into that same file. It’s accessible from wherever you have Internet. I have used Dropbox app, and it is almost the same, with the big difference that once we are inside Google Drive, we also have access to a collection of tools we can use to create things. Many of these perform the same functions as tools we are already familiar with. For example  Google Docs is a word processing tool (like Microsoft Word). Google Slides is a presentation tool (like PowerPoint). Google Sheets is a spreadsheet tool (like Excel). Google Forms is a survey creation tool (like Survey-Monkey). So Google Drive is not just a place to store things. It is also a place to make things. This means we and our  students can use these tools to do any kind of writing assignment, take tests and quizzes, and create slideshow presentations all inside the same platform.

One of the challenges we have as educators is to manage and organize documents with a class full of students. Using Google Docs which is very easy to learn as a tool for our students to make their writing assignments could make so easy for teachers to collect and control all student works. The students work using Google Docs and the teacher could use Google Forms to collect assignments. In other words Teachers create and publish a Google Form to be used as an InBox. When it is time to turn in a Google Doc, students complete the simple form and submit a link to their Google Doc. The information submitted by students automatically populates a spreadsheet to be used by the teacher to keep track of all the assignments and also to quickly access those assignments for review and grading.

Another idea is to create some kind of self-grading quiz. If we use this kind of quiz we can provide students with immediate feedback. This can increase student motivation, so we just have to create a simple self-grading quiz with a Google Form.  We create a quiz with a few multiple choice questions. Students take the quiz themselves to submit the correct answers, the app pops a simple formula into the spreadsheet end to let the app do the grading for you.  This immediately publish the spreadsheet of results. We have to teach students how to use the find tool to quickly find their score and significantly raise the stakes to increase student motivation.  It would be better if  we require students to sign in with some sort of unique identifier that protects their privacy.

Week 7 - SURVEY

Create a survey using Google Forms.

The survey I created is about Customer Satisfaction of the Longoria Bank new accounts department service.

This is the link of the Survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdg7ZEYwv55bVyPqVR1OowKcpoMswHVEgnqdWAQc6rBuuJRig/viewform

Week 6 - Reflection

Using Pinterest for teaching and learning.

I had heard about Pinterest before but now that I know a little more about it I realize that is s perfect technological tool to share and comment on visual material, which could be photographs, sketches, videos or web pages. I read that in the last couple of years its presence in the network has an incredible growing, and I think it is because its structure is more versatile at the time to compile content, organize and store ideas, so it is easy connect and comment on other people's work. Also one  important thing is that using this tool you can forget all about copyrights issues. You can attach images from other people’s web pages, or re-pin content from other people’s boards.  In fact sharing content from other people is actively encouraged. This tool is about the social activity of interaction and sharing and gaining followers, rather than keeping ownership of your work. When the Pin It button is used to select pins from a web page, the pin automatically includes a link to the source web page, so you can remember where you found it, and other people can go to the source for more information.

There are a lot of ideas to use Pinterest.  Educators of all levels and grades have a growing presence in this social media. After I have created my Pinterest account I immediately create a board with courses and learning material that I am needing for this term where I included the Lynda.com video clips. It is an excellent way to organize content that I access frequently in one place. I do not need to remember addresses or web pages to access what I need quickly.

Another idea could be create boards on Pinterest to concentrate research and reading material in one point. One important thing using internet is that our students need to access secure and reliable sites. As educators (K-12) we can create Pinterest boards to give our students a secure and structured list of resources where they can find the information they need about some specific topics that we need to cover in our lesson plans. The web is too wide and there are many unreliable sources. Sometimes it would be good to restrict what you want them to look at, so we can create  boards with all the information they need so they can concentrate on writing and reading, rather than searching through masses of information.

Teachers can design research projects to improve student knowledge in any subject such as World History. For example, if the research project is about The Great War, each student can create a Great War board where they can pin research, YouTube videos, and pictures from both Pinterest and around the Internet. When they’re ready to take their project to the writing or presentation stage, they’ll have everything they need in one organized, visually , and easy to access place, and the best if students use this kind of tools like Pinterest for research it could foster both digital literacy and modern research skills.

Week 6: Pinterest Boards

Using Pinterest to create boards

Hello everyone:

This week I created an account on Pinterest.com. Then I created a board, collected pins, and found some educational boards to follow. This is the link to access my educational board on Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/javamexi