Final Blog

How do we inspire others to change? Should we? Does the way that we teach need changing? Are students the same or are they changing? What do we want for ourselves and our own children? How are you going to use technology in the classroom? (Be specific.)

These are all very serious questions that we need to define a personal philosophy for. We can inspire people to change certain aspects of themselves in many ways. They may change the way they act because they see the person they admire change as well or do it differently. They may change after being shown different ways of doing something instead of relying on the one way they have done it all their life. Take math-there is always more than one way to check your answer and arrive at the same conclusion. The only difference is the different methods you used in order to get you there. I believe we all are capable of inspiring others to change the ways they act or what they believe in. But the only reason to have someone else change is because you feel that they are doing something in a long and complicated way. It's like being a child, when you find out something new, you want to share it with the world. There will be people that tell that child to go away because they are bothering them, but there will be others that will want to hear every word they say. So there will always be people who want to hear about new ways of doing things and people who have their own way of doing things and don't want to fix what isn't broken. I believe that's completely okay. But I would want to hear about the new way of doing things from everyone in order to decide for myself what I believe will work and what won't.
I'm a big believer in differentiated lesson plans and teaching with the goal of having the student understand the material and being able to talk about it with another student. But the way to do that can be done in many different ways. Just as long as those two goals are met, I don't see why we can't try other ways of teaching. Of course, the way it is now is okay. Students today are more connected technology-wise than other students, but it doesn't change how we should teach them. As I may have mentioned in another blog post, there isn't much difference from an older generation compared to the new one. We just had different mediums to apply our ideas on (like passing notes instead of texting your friend that sat behind you). What do we want from ourselves and from our own children? That question is very broad. But in a technology in the classroom context, we want our children to learn as much as they can even if it means going to their level and using different types of technology to help them learn material you could find in text books. Finally, I wanted to tell you about how I would use technology in my classroom. I have fallen in love with digital story telling, story bird and smart board lesson plans. Those are my three favorites and I know I will find a way to incorporate them in math, science, writing and reading. But I have also loved playing around with some of the teacher websites like teacherlingo.com, quizlet.com, googledocs.com and many others. Overall, I did learn a lot about the resources I could find online to use in a classroom that I would have never thought to look for on my own. I really enjoyed this class and can't wait to try out these ideas in a real classroom one day.

Two Technology Lists

Project as a teacher




Newsletter

Website

Podcast of Lessons

Smartboard Lesson/Games

Google Earth Tours

Web Quest

Make a slide show relating to the curriculum

Make a cartoon for the kids

Online Games

Quizlet



Projects for Students



Have them podcast something

Voicethread about subject and comment

Make a cartoon

Digital Story

Story Bird

Wordle

Crossword Maker

Free Rice

Find a site and translate it

Different search engines

Casa Notes

http://casanotes.4teachers.org/

I really like Casa notes because they take the typical permission slips that are used for field trips and can translate them into Spanish. I could definitely use this.

Wix Website

So, after working for a few hours on the google sites website builder, I was fed up. I had so many things that I wanted to do, so much to alter. The google sites restricted any sort of creativity whatsoever. I understand, that website is perfect for someone who would rather spend time just getting everything they need online, but I want my website to be appealing and full of useful information. I really like the weebly website because it made rearranging things easier by using a drag and drop system. But wix.com really blew my mind. The presentation of it and how so many things could be customized for your needs was exactly what I wanted. I did not immediately go after that website. I figured I should work on weebly and just do the bare minimum. But wix.com kept drawing me in, so I decided to make my final website there.

I found a template that looked good and functional to my needs. I took that and started messing around. There was so much to change, that I could not rip myself away from the website. I actually looked forward to making and even keeping it for the future as a resume and portfolio. But for now, it is Miss Aguilar's Classroom.

I hope you enjoy looking over what I've done so far. I still have a long way to go with it...

www.wix.com/brandy77/Miss-Aguilars-Class

Okay, third time's the charm. Hope it finally works out!

PLN Newsletter!

Hope you enjoy!

Games in the Classroom

I checked out a few of these websites at home:

http://www.novelgames.com/

Novel games were really fun and were more like games you play on a game system. It isn't very educational, but it is fun and works out your brain.

http://www.kidsspell.com/

Kids spell is a great treat for kids who need to work on their spelling but they don't find it interesting writing one word a thousand times in order to get it to stick in their head. The solution: let them try to help a dinosaur eat all the right letters or have them pop the balloons that have misspelled words while trying to keep the ones that are correctly spelled afloat.

http://www.learn-with-math-games.com/index.html

I loved this website because it really directed me towards some age appropriate math games that are sure to help out as the kids enjoy learning.

Picture Slide Game

Hope you love it!

Clothes Pins sliding puzzle game » sliding puzzle game

Puzzle maker and word search maker

After looking over these various sites, I know I am going to come back and use them in my future classroom! They are so simple to use and can be used for vocab words, spelling words, math and science terms and even some history questions. These worksheets will definitely be useful in class and for every subject!

Spanish Game!

http://classtools.net/widgets/dustbin/dustbin69986dias__meses__comida__numeros.htm/

Hope you like it!

Scruffy Owl Elementary Newsletter

http://letterpop.com/newsletters/?id=148977-142ebd&print=1



I couldn't get my newsletter into a PDF file, so I've decided to paste a link to it. Hope you like it!
I really like the name of my fake school...kind of makes me wish there was a school named that.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/940720/



I wasn't able to embed voicethread in my blog for some reason (it kept saying login failed), so I am just going to put the URL in here and hopefully everyone is still able to see it and comment on it.

Glogster

Here's my glogster. Hope you like it!

Digital Storytelling-Grading Rubric

Here's my digital storytelling grading rubric! Enjoy!

Google Earth Tour!

I originally had 5 points: Tigard, Oregon, Medford, Oregon, Oregon Caves, Eugene Oregon and Stadium Park Apartments to show all the places I've lived at. I don't know what happened to those points, but here are two of them!

Professional PLN's

Teacherlingo.com
linkedin.com
classroom 2.0

What is the advantage of belonging to one of these online groups?

I looked at teacherlingo.com and found it quite useful. I have been helping out in a Spanish classroom and was wondering what other Spanish teachers have been doing to excite their students. It's great to hear about their experiences and to look around at other teachers and how they are dealing with the stresses of being a teacher as well. I found the blog of a teacher that blogged about the stresses of being a first time teacher and the readings she found that talked about how to handle that situation. It was a great resource that I'm sure to use in the future. Basically, an advantage to belonging to one of these online groups is being able to communicate your experiences as a teacher and help others that are navigating through their first year or just going through a tough time with behavior management or other issues. I know most people who are not already in a classroom will find this unrelateable, but I love it!

Do you think these online groups can help you get a job?

Maybe. I'm not very sure if you can get a job through these websites. I guess it depends on the type of person you are. I love meeting face to face with people, but sending resumes and online connections are useful these days.

Spelling City

I like spelling city, but not as much as quizlet because it seems a bit smaller with a lot smaller games. I would give this website as homework for kids to use or just as a short activity to fill time. Otherwise, I liked it.

Quizlet-Common Spanish Phrases

Common Spanish Phrases


This website makes studying very fun and interesting. You just forget that you are studying and you just fall into playing these games that make you want to remember the terms you are learning. I'm sure students in 4th to 6th grade would love to use this (not to mention middle schoolers, high schoolers and college students too!).

Webquests

Learning About Poetry! Name:____________________


Date:_____________________

Subject: Language

Professor: Brandy Aguilar



Introduction: In order to write a poem, you can dive into the world of words and create a raw, free form poem. Or, you can learn more about the origins of poems from around the world! You can even collect poems from the masters or poems from people online!

Task: You should be able to find the answers to all these questions: What is a free style poem? What is a haiku? What is iambic pantameter? Name a famous poet and copy and paste one poem from them that you like. What other styles of poems are there?

Process: Go online and use google.com to find all of your answers. Do not use wikipedia and be able to give references of all the information you collect. Not to mention that all the information that you gather must be written in your own words!

Resources: Use these websites to start and branch out into other websites that is helpful for the topic.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/







http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/









Evaluation: The reason we did this activity was for you to learn all about poetry without me standing in front of you all day telling you all the definitions.

Conclusion: Good job! Now I encourage you to use the knowledge you collected in order to make your poems!

I think webquests are a fun way to engage the kids and have them do research on their own without you having to spoon feed every little detail.  I love it because of course they will have to do some hunting online which will keep them busy for a while. Although I feel that these kids will just copy off of each other if it is done often. But a good way to change things up at least.

Book Mark Review

I liked all of the websites! They are very useful for keeping the websites you love or even cut out and keep the items from webpages. I don't know how many times I wanted to get some stuff from a certain page, and I didn't have my laptop with my bookmarks, so I couldn't share anything. Using these websites, you can find them in your email (which you can access on any computer). I loved bonzobox (because it is a lot like readfresh). I like ibrii because you can cut and paste stuff to keep. And who doesn't like posterous.com? Emailing things to yourself to use later and at any computer? Of course! http://posterous.com/main is an interesting to save stuff. You email things to yourself.

I was interested in polyvore.com for a while (it's a website that makes outfits for a certain theme). It's a guilty pleasure that I haven't used in a while. But ibrii really reminds me of that.

Read Fresh

I am a very visual person and so to have webpages that show me what I have been following is wonderful. I see why teachers would find this extremely fascinating and easy to use in the classroom. I might just use this for keeping track of classroom websites and personal sites as well.

Live Binder

Brandy's Binder

Search Engine Wordle

Sorry about the last wordle...I wasn't sure what you wanted, so I took a favorite song and made it into a wordle. Hopefully you'll like that one too!

Crafty Mice Search Engine

Where the Wild Things Are-Wake Up

Websites that may help with Differentiation in the Classroom

I looked at the machine collage and free rice website. These are fun activities that I know kids would be happy to browse through. I like free rice because they are actually learning things relevant to what they are learning and they are giving free rice to people who really need it. Machine collage is really fun just to mess around with and create a wonderful work of art!

These activities would be wonderful to incorporate in the classroom to keep the kids busy. They would all get involved and be on task at least.

Scriblink-Online Whiteboard-Differentiated Classroom

I loved playing with this website and messing around with the whiteboard stuff. I looked at Jotspot.com and liked it. It wasn't my favorite, but it looked like a simple and quick white board app.

Also, I've been having problems with Thinklinr.com. It keeps telling me to download google chrome, so I won't do it. I will talk about what a differentiated classroom looks like. A differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, making sense of ideas and developing products. It's "shaking up" what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn.

Lesson Plan Creation!

I absolutely enjoyed making a lesson plan, but as I may have mentioned somewhere before, I am a perfectionist and managed to make a lesson plan that will probably not take that long to do but took over 3 hours to make.

I made a lesson plan geared towards K-1st grade and it was just an adding and subtracting interactive board. The kids have to add or subtract the animals that are in the boxes. It's fairly easy to do and has all the kids on their toes and yelling out the answers. Even as I was doing this, I thought of how I could produce a lesson plan for the kids in the Spanish classroom I work in. Spanish just seems to be perfect for being taught on the Smart board.

It was really enjoyable even though I had not made all three lesson plans (which I'm sorry I never got to, but as you may already know, I am a college student being crushed under many 2 hour long classes and homework).

Lesson Plans for SmartBoard

First up, Goldilocks and the Three Bears lesson plans for 1st and 2nd graders is really nice for those group of kids. At that age, they would really love to go up and use the pen to fill in the words, letters and dragging words. It's very cute-it is a great storytelling tool and would just bring a lot of conversation and a positive attitude in the class.

Teacher Notes

Subject: Language arts
Topic: Writing
Title: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Grade(s): 1 and 2
Cross-curricular link(s): Nursery rhymes
Intended learning outcome(s)
Select appropriate words to complete a sentence
Select appropriate sentences to fit the situation

Next, Haiku Poems lesson plan directed towards 2-7 graders. The lesson reminds me of an interactive powerpoint. That's not an insult, I'm glad that it is so structured and interactive. The important information is on every other slide and then you can pass the pen to a student and have them answer the question in front of everyone. I like it, but of course if I were to use this-I would make it look more attractive. That's just me-I like personalizing it.

Teacher Notes

Subject: Langauge arts
Topic: Poetry
Title: Haiku Poems
Grade(s): 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7
Cross-curricular link(s): Health
Intended learning outcome(s)
To introduce students to the Haiku poem
To help students gain an understanding of the origin of Haiku poems
To provide students the structure to create their own poems

Finally, Factors and Multiples for 4-6 grade. It looks very professional-it definitely has an appeal to it that reminds me of traditional work sheets. Except since the material is on the board, everyone can be on task at the same thing instead of 'following along' in which kids would be a bit distracted.

Lesson Notes
Match
The Number System

After viewing so many lesson plans, I am inspired to make my own lesson plans! I have seen what is effective (lots of interaction and easy to follow=fun lesson plan) and what is ineffective (just some powerpoint-like slides with rules and things to memorize).

21st Century School Model and Technology

These two articles read like manuals that detailed what they want 21st century school models to look like and how technology was implemented in a real middle school. I finally understand where the term digital immigrant and digital native come from (the first article) and how they see the 21st century class in the future catering more to multiple learning styles.

The second article was great in finding out how technology has already been used in classrooms and the results it has shown so far. I really liked this one more because it gives something concrete instead of just spouting theory.

I definitely want to be an educator that uses things like a Smart board in order to appeal to the group of students who are technology savvy.

My First Storybird

Alice and Theodore by brandy77 on Storybird

Kindergarten Class Rules Slideshow

Fun Websites

Twitter Magnets are really fun. It reminds me of my high school teacher that had magnet boards with various poetic magnet words on them. We had a day in which we could play with words in her class by playing board games, acting out scenes from books in small groups, drinking tea and listening to calming music.

The story starter would be a great website to have in a middle school or elementary school english class. I always had so much trouble coming up with an interesting first line to draw you into my story.

Guidelines for Blogs

• No grammatical errors
• Addresses intended audience
• What is the author's intention for the blog?
• Not disrespectful
• Is it a credible source?
• Minimal ads
• Is coherent and organized

Comics in the Classroom

Let's face it, the easiest way to understand something is through a visual aid. And kids love visual aids. Sure, they could read a text book or listen to a lecture, but a visual aid that captivates them, makes them laugh or even confuses them helps them to take that first step into figuring out what they are going to dive into next. Like the opening lines of an essay paper, comics are a great way to jump into a new subject. They provide a background, a fact, a lie and a smile. They force you to re-read them or to think about what they are poking fun at. I think they are great resources in starting a conversation about an important subject.

And I was going to post my Domo Animate thing on here, but have failed twice to save it. Each time I have had to remake it and save it. That's it. I'm done with that thing. I'm gonna just publish this without it and either try next time I get to it or not make one at all. I loved how easy it was to use it, but to publish it is just pure terror.

MLK Day and Igoogle

How strange to have an iconic figure on a blog and to just write about igoogle. Anyways, I am writing this on MLK day and figured I would take a picture of Martin Luther King jr. for the occasion. It's a nice picture too.

Anyways, about igoogle. The only reason I could have igoogle in the classroom is for the reason that I may want to have my computer screen on and for all to see. If I have something I want them to see online and want to get to quickly, of course I would have my computer on. In that case, they would love to see something interesting up there. Kind of like the virtual acquarium that you put up or other little widgets such as the weather, interesting videos, famous artwork, fun facts, etc. These would all be small treats that the students could gaze upon for a while as I was busy looking for something in class, talking with someone, etc. But I can't understand why any educator would make this a key application in their classroom.

21st Century Teacher

This was an interesting article that outlined the strong characteristics a teacher should have in the 21st century (technology savvy and skills of a great teacher/leader). Although I am a bit saddened by the fact that this article had many punctuation errors and it was an targeted to an audience of educators-it just made their argument a bit ineffective. It really gave the sense of "With technology, we don't have to worry about the end result, we just have to use it and everything will turn out okay."

Besides the obvious, this article did talk about the key points that would make a captivating educator these days.

21st Century Educator Characteristics:

The Adaptor: An educator who plans out their lessons with technology applications or programs. Someone who is ready with something new and intriguing (whether or not the technology fails them). And someone able to incorporate different learning styles into their lessons.

The Visionary: Being able to use the technology that is out there today and harness it for educational purposes (imagination). Can see what other educators are doing and incorporate their techniques correctly in class.

The Collaborator: Online collaboration between individuals from near and far using such tools as myspace, wikispaces, second life, etc. Must share, contribute, adapt, and invent.

The Risk Taker: It seems that this area is targeted to all the digital immigrants out there-allow the students to figure out the technology and teach others. That's a good idea. But as a digital native, I understand what technology they can use and how they could misuse it, so it's always a good idea to check up on the students and see what they are actually doing.

The Learner: Basically, don't constantly stick to what you know works. If you find something new and interesting, share it. Incorporate it in class and make sure that it is used effectively.

The Communicator: They are fluent in tools and technologies that enable communication and collaboration. They go beyond learning just how to do it, they also know how to facilitate it, stimulate and control it, moderate and manage it.

The Model: Of course teachers are a model to students. Using technology or not, teachers have to be able to set up an example of what they expect to see in their students. If they expect students to be respectful, honest and able to express their opinions in a respectful manner, it better start with the teacher's behavior in doing so.

The Leader: Leadership. Leadership is vitally important in each classroom. And this area summarizes an effective leader. Having a clear vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan leads to change in a classroom. If you are without any of these traits, it may lead to such things as confusion, anxiety and resistance.

Overall, I liked the article. It preaches to a new generation of people that will need to harness the technology out there in order to help students prepare themselves for future jobs in which their skills in technology or just their leadership/collaboration skills can help them create something new.

Technology in the Classroom

Digital Storytelling Research

What is Digital Storytelling?




Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. However, as the name implies, digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips and/or music. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between two and ten minutes. And the topics that are used in Digital Storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between. A great way to begin learning about Digital Storytelling is by watching the following video introduction to Digital Storytelling.









The Uses of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom



Stories created by teachers can serve as a lesson hook, as a way to integrate multimedia into the curriculum, as a way to make difficult content more understandable and to facilitate classroom discussion. The students will use a variety of skills in developing a digital story such as: writing skills, research skills, organizational skills, presentation skills, technology skills and problem-solving skills.



Scaffolding Digital Storytelling for the Classroom



Digital storytelling is not just limited to writing and language arts-it can be used for a variety of subjects such as science or math. Here are two examples: Develop a short story about a historical, scientific, literary, or current political/social hero students most want to be like, telling the story as if they were actually that person. The storytelling goes beyond the facts to unfold a deeper meaning about their hero’s importance to themselves, their community, or humanity through the lesson learned. Act as if you are a totem pole (panda bear, invention, math/science concept, or song), telling your autobiographical story through the use of personification culminating in a lesson learned about the deeper meaning of their inanimate object’s importance to themselves, their community, or humanity through a lesson learned.



Challenges of Using Digital Storytelling in a Classroom Setting With Different Age Groups



I believe that there are various challenges in using digital storytelling with various age groups. The educator may use this technology to make their own story early on in K-3rd grade because the technology that is involved (computers, digital cameras, voice recorders, flash drives, etc.) may be too much for the students in those grades to handle. Also, such equipment is expensive and sensitive, and most people don’t believe that such equipment would survive long with children of that age.



Tools Students Need To Make a Successful Photo Story



Besides the Photo Story program, students need the following tools to make a successful Photo Story: A digital camera, A memory stick, card for that camera, a way to import pictures to a computer, a computer, a voice recorder and of course a topic to write about. Then you can let the imagination fly!



Bibliography:



http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/



www.adobe.com/education/instruction/adsc/pdf/digital_storytelling.pdf



http://www.slideshare.net/mikeromard/photostory-for-elementary-students-presentation



http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Tools+needed+to+make+a+successful+photo+story&rlz=1R2GPCK_en&aq=f&oq=&aqi=



http://www.scribd.com/doc/16452960/Art-of-Digital-Storytelling

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Reasons Why Educators Need to Embrace Internet Technologies

I recently read over the article: Reasons Why Educators Need to Embrace Internet Technologies and felt stuck between a complex situation. What I meant to say is that my generation is the one that will have to step forward and investigate how the internet can help in classroom assignments and projects. There are no classes or professors that future educators can take that specifically teach us which website will be useful for teaching specific concepts in math or reading in elementary schools. No one will tell you that what you found online is good for a certain situation. There really are endless opportunities by using this technology. Only a trial and error test will determine what works and what doesn't. Not to mention that we now have other educators and peers that will be researching online tools as well.

Okay, so the internet is not a fad and as educators we need to find out what we can do with it to keep the students busy, active and engaged. I finally understand why so many new and strange applications are popular and being shoved into my hands. This is only the beginning. I have to learn, teach and grow until one day I am teaching future teachers what programs and applications worked and what didn't.

I think it will be fun to integrate technology with class work. I personally can't wait to use such things as smart boards and the new 'overhead' projectors in a class of my very own.

Experiences with Technology in K-12

My first experience with technology in the classroom was a small computer that still had a black and green screen in first or second grade. I didn't get used to it because we recieved new high-tech computers. With those computers I learned about Google, played Math and Word Munchers and took simple reading tests. In middle school, I took a typing class that was defintely helpful. In my highschool years, I wrote many papers using Microsoft Word. I practiced speeches with a PowerPoint presentation. I tried to use Excel, but it was kind of hard to use. But of course, during these years, I didn't rely much on a computer as I do now. If I needed it, I would go to school and use it to research on Ebsco and print out important documents or images.

I have to admit, I agree that technology is new and exciting-especially at finding a use for it in the classroom. But there have been so many problems-needing specific wires, technology failing when we need it to open a specific file. I believe the teachers are what make a classroom engaging and fun. Technology is no substitute for a good teacher.