Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Las fotos: Digital Collection Project


These are some of the photos I used in my Digital Collection project today in class. You can view the rest of them at http://picasaweb.google.com/linz.watson/Life?feat=directlink

I tried to use photos that were special to me, like these of my trip to Spain and a drawing from one of my favorite Children's books. This assignment seemed daunting and confusing at first, because I was not knowledgeable of lingo like: JPEG or Picasa or even how to use Photoshop! But as I worked on the assignment, I realized that the pictures are easy to resize and reformat. Also the Picasa program makes it simple to upload pictures and write captions. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment, because it gave me the chance to get familiar with photo software, but also allowed me to look for interesting photos that relate to my life. I think photographs and artwork are very essential to learning in the classroom, especially at the Elementary level, and I definitely hope to integrate some of these technological tools into my classroom one day.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Planes: Lesson Plans



Today we finished our lesson plans and peer edited them. Coming up with a lesson plan for teaching Spanish to Elementary level students gave me so much anticipation for what my job might look like in the future. It was fun trying to come up with creative and innovative ideas for a lesson plan. The layout on the computer was also very helpful in organizing my ideas and making sure it met all the requirements. It was a lot of work trying to fill it all out, but it taught me that lesson plans have to be carefully thought through in order to be most successful for teaching.

The peer editing process was extremely helpful. It was good to get feedback and gave me more confidence about my ideas. The other students in this classroom will one day be my colleagues in the teaching world. It is so helpful to get input from people who are all passionate about educating kids but all have their own ideas to bring to the table. This assignment has prepared me more for being a teacher than any other ever has. It was applicable and informative but in a fun and creative way.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Actividades: WebQuests




This week we have been working on creating WebQuests on our Wiki pages. Since there are no other Spanish or Elementary Education students in my class, I worked with Jen Leanza and Rachel Moran on an English project. We featured Dante's Inferno, and created a project in which students would be asked to consider the role of sin in the world in the 13th century and in present day. The project was to design your own inferno. It was interesting for me to work on since I am not an English major, because it actually made me want to do the project! We made it interesting and even visually appealing.

The Wiki program was easy to use in creating a WebQuest. We could customize the colors to fit our topic, put links on the page for students to research, and it was easy to organize. We also took time looking through all of the state curriculum standards to decide which ones were met with our project. It was my first look at the standards, and they were very helpful in getting a bigger picture of what our project and other WebQuests can accomplish. I have never been great with technology, but after today I feel equipped to use these programs in the years to come.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Recursos: Wikis and WebQuests

Last Monday we were introduced to Wikis and WebQuests. Before that class I had never even heard of either of them! Both applications are so helpful to teachers and the Education community. I hope to one day continue a Wiki community so that I can learn about other lesson ideas from other teachers. I think it is so important to network with other creative educators.

The WebQuests were very easy to use and it was fun searching for ones that correlated to Spanish and Elementary Education. It seems to me like very few Elementary teachers find value in teaching children about the world, outside of their own country. This made me excited about practicing developing my own WebQuest about researching other cultures. I want kids to expand their view of life through looking at the world in a larger picture. I like that the WebQuest had step by step methods; it is definitely a tool I will want to use in the classroom one day!