PPT Lesson Plan

Have you ever played to The Sims?

I didn't have the chance to spent a lot of hours playing videogames (luckily) because the sports and studies were way more important in my life, but I really liked this game, as it allowed me to build a family and lead their life.

So, basically, this is the description of my Power Point Lesson Plan: we have some money, income and a lot of problems with health and obesity. In this way, students challenge will be to flip this situation by fixing healthy habits, earning money and deleting this junk food, the no sport and every single problem of their daily life.

And everything using Excel, who gives us the chance to work with numbers easily, and the internet by doing a lot of research.

Blogging in the classroom

Weirdddd!

Writing about blogging in a blog!

I don't want to confuse you, I don't want trick you or bother you... This blog is a requisite for my EdTech class, but teacher can use to communicate with the parents, or keep students on track if they miss some classes, or to explain some hard assignments,...

As you can see, we can use Blog in so many ways that is impossible to write then in an only post (even though there is no apparent limit). That's my third Blog and I really like the feeling of communicating with other people or express what I feel to the people.

All in all, be sure that I will use this website if that means improvements in my classes! Now, I only need good readers!

Webquest

I totally remember my feelings about WebQuests the days before the specific lessons. I was extremely scared and lost, I didn't even know the meaning of them until little by little I saw a couple of them and I realized that it wasn't that hard.

Once we were ready, I started to think about the topic and as I have always been attracted by the self-esteem, the autonomy and that kind of characteristics and virtues that every child should have, I decided that this was going to be my topic.

Besides, they can improve their research in the internet skills and hopefully, the WebQuest done by me will be quite effective and useful. However, it is pretty obvious that if I want to teach lessons with Webquests I should spend much more time.

Spreadsheet lesson plan

First of all, I have to admit that it is quite hard to remember my projects long time after, but luckily, we have everything saved in Blackboard, and from now on, in our portfolio.

And I can tell that Excel and I we are not the best friends, as I find rather difficult to work with it. However, it is really useful to work with numbers and operations, so that it gives you almost infinity of possibilities.

In my case, as my major is P.E. with Elementary I'll try to use it in order to combine excel and Health or Sport issues. So I can make projects like creating a new budget a life for a family or the budget of our new gym,... Besides, we can use it to grade them really easily.

Plagiarism and Copyright Reflection

Sometimes it is hard to explain some concepts to the children: too much information given orally that they can hardly retain. To overcome this problem, we have a great resource called... Glogster!!!

At first, I found it rather difficult as the screen was blocking all the time and our job disappeared all of a sudden, but after taking into account the piece of advice of Christine and save often we started to use it properly.

Most of the students don't know the meaning of the copyright and the importance that it has in our technological world, and some of them don't think that copying and pasting is a bad action, so by doing powerful and colorful posters we can provide them an exact idea in an entertaining and effective way.

Because of these reasons, I tried to create thelight and meaningful posters , so that students can learn what is cheating and the copyright easily. And think it carefully, how cool is to decorate your room with information about Geography!

Rubric Reflection

Such an unknown spreadsheet is the Rubric for me. Culture shock? Maybe... Just kidding!

I have never used or even see them in my classes but I consider them as easy tools to make children understood what they have to do in every task.

Sometimes, you don't feel like creating a rubric to define the goals of an assignment but Rubriestar gives you the chance to save energy and a lot of time, as they have different kind of tasks available.
Besides, if you have to change the criteria or create one you only have to type it!

I didn't come up with interesting homeworks the day that I was creating my rubric, so that I set up the first tale competition! Writing and reading literature is really useful and rewarding, and if some of the students has problems to organize her/his tale I gave them the right clue.

But I can do the same with Geeography or History projects, biographies, ... and establish the criterias using Rubriestar!

Thank you! : D

RSS Reflection

I didn't know anything about Google Reader and omg! It's such an interesting tool to find very useful articles, webs, blogs,... and besides, it is really easy!

While we are studying in the University of the Basque Country we are told that a teacher has to be learning every time, renewing his/her knowledge and trying to adapt it to the days in which we are living.

Definitely, Google Reader offers you this chance and I am sure that I am going to take advantage of it. Some years ago, you couldn't find so much information in your house (the Internet) but now you don't have to go too far to improve as a teacher!

Do you know which one is the worst thing about Google Reader? That it is too easy to suscribe to blogs and in this moment I have a bunch of them waiting to be read...

But don't worry! I will read them in order to enrich my knowledge, my view of the education and my ways to get the Standards.

Assistive Technologies

First of all, you will be wondering why I had so many links when I was supposed to provide three of each one... To tell you the truth, it wasn't fair to show only three when I was watching plenty of them.

I am 20 years old and I will graduate on September. Too early to start working in my point of view. I want to study another degree in order to broad my options to work and I have been always concerns about this students that are not able to do everything that they would like to do only because they are limited genetically, because an accident,...

So, this project was a good way to start studying one of my possible next degree and taking into account the importance of this links, I believe that it would be a good resource for those that they want it!

http://www.cinchcast.com/jayadgasteiz/100100

Balkan's Wars in the Internet

I am really keen on this great and conflictive region of Europe and probably is one of the best way to teach American children European geography and history, as it is a really interesting topic, which undoubtedly is going to make bigger the curiosity of the students.

Besides, I learned of my father the helpfulness of a wiki, so interesting and useful that we can build an empire of wisdom! Bearing this in mind, the mixture between an amazing topic and a great resource can make this project very appealing.

Moreover, working in small groups as we will do with this project can improve the efficience of the learning process.

And of course, everything based on the standards. Balkan's wars can be included in the fifth Standard in the Social studies area from 6th to 9th grade, inside the World Civilization and History section.

The standards, my classroom and my self

Contents, standards and the teacher. These could be the greatest components in the teaching process. Like the Three Musqueteers they can't go in their own, because otherwise they will loose some fights, they won't compenetrate as well as they know...

The same happens to us, but with slight differences. We have to use the Standards because Education tell us to do so in order to be taken on and we consider the standards as a great resource to plan our lessons. So there is no point in ignoring them.

I understand that some parents can be quite reluctant about our work and if we follow the standars or not,... I understand their worries so that I must tell them to come to my classroom and I will be happy to meet them, listen to their questions and take into account any suggestion that they have.

Are the parents D'Artagnan?

Internet safety and classroom rules

As you have already heard me, I am very concerned about the importance of the Internet in its whole consequences, so I think it's fundamental to teach students to use it properly.

For these reason, I believe that after starting to ask them to make something in their own we should proved them some clues to use it properly such as don't providing many personal information, avoid chatting with strangers,... We have plenty of situations that children should be aware of, so it is our responsibility to help them.


Besides, as for the classroom rules it is proved that the imposted rules are better to have a disciplined classroom but the classroom that establishes them 'democratically, can work better, as children believe that they are part of it (as they have set the rules).

http://www.cinchcast.com/jayadgasteiz/100096

Teacher Updating!!

As the magazines, websites, expositions,... the teachers must update themselves periodically. We can update our teaching skills and methodology, our use of the voice and especially, the knowledge of a topic, class, lesson, detail,...

Technology is one of the most important knowledge that a teacher can have and I am very proud of my level of it. Technology can help us to improve the efficiency of our work: it can make the learning process easier, funnier, more rewarding,...

I have already had a good command of Word, Power Point and Excel, so that these resources will be important in my lessons.

But I am glad to tell you that what I did learn in EdTech 202 is a good base on Monkey Survey, Cinch, Voki, Blogger, Delitious,... I believe that we can take advantage of this huge variety of resources.

However, I need to improve my skills with the computer in order to work faster and easier, and what I really need to improve is how to handle with Portfolio. Hopefully, I will get it by the time.

This is what technologically I can offer the children as a teacher. Moreover, I am really curious about every new method of teaching. What for? To be a better teacher.

Let's Update!

http://www.cinchcast.com/jayadgasteiz/97202

My opinion of the technology in the class

Dear parents,

In these days in which the most important discussion in the education is the presence (or the lack of it) of digital and technological resources in the Net, I am not going to feed this bulk, as I believe that we are forgetting something essential: the quality of the education.

I am not from the United States, but at least, in the Basque Country, I see every kind of behavior faults, loss of important values,... and this decrease of the children's behavior is directly related to parents' work and the presence of the new technologies.

I consider fundamental the division of the resources by their educational profits. Bearing this in mind, I would only choose the resources that can help us to improve the actual ones, not the ones that can decrease the quality...

So, this would be my list and the decision with different resources:

+ Highly recommendable: digital chalkboard, Internet for searching information, Power Point, Word, Excel and every similar programs...

= Not a great change: iBooks (but I prefer the traditional books)

- Not recommendable: the individual laptops to take notes of the class, write compositions and so on (they should write with the pen); unless exceptions, the cell phones in the class (if emergency, the school and the teacher would have the obligation and the possibility to call),...


As you would have already noticed, I am not the greatest supporter of this new wave of modernity (of course I feel like adding it to the classroom), but I have my reasons and experiences. I want to take advantage of this new and additional help, but I believe that we have to teach the children how to use these stuff, as they can be damaging.


Kind regards,

Benat

Introduction...

Kaixo denori! Nire izena Benat Garaio da eta 20 urteko euskalduna naiz...

What? You don't understand the first sentence, right? My fault!

I will start again:

Hello everybody! My name is Benat Garaio and I am a 20 year-old basque exchange student! That's why you have read such a different and unique language.

I really want to be a teacher, as I had in my childhood very good teachers meanwhile in High School I didn't enjoy my studies at all. My real challenge and goal is being a good teacher, so that I am hard-working and I have plenty of curiosity.

This goal is one of the reasons to take this class, the other one is that I am forced to do that by my university in the Basque Country... Just kidding! I was really excited about that class there, so when I realized that I would be in BSU, having such a huge oportunity to know really good technology I felt like in cloud nine!
This is what I expect of this classes, more resources to achieve my goal and a new way to adapt to this digital society!

We live in a society (at least in my case) which needs to activate a efficient filter to the TV, social networks, the possibilities of the internet,... our class seems to be the perfect solution. But not the only one, as the parents have in every aspect of the life a deep impact. However, they are not doing a good job (once again, at least in the Basque Country), fact proved by the increasing behaviour problems and the change of the values.

I think that is enough for today!

See you soon!

or the same in Basque: Laster arte!