Final reflection

As a reflection of the second part of New Technologies subject, I have to say that it has been really useful for me because I have learnt many resources that I am sure I will apply in my job as a teacher in the future.

I have to say that I am not quite good at using TICs, so carrying the subject out has sometimes been hard for me. I would like to use as many TIC resources as possible but it is difficult for me to follow the explanations in class, because everybody doesn’t need the same time to understand what they have to do with these tools. Sometimes I get stressed because I don’t know what to do or because I missed a step in the explanation. In addition, I had to work so I couldn't get to classes for many days, especially on December. But thanks to the explanations of all the activities we have done that we can find in the virtual platform "MiAulario", it has been possible for me to do all the activities that have been explained the days I haven't attend classes.

The weak point of the subject from my point of view is that we have been working with too many websites and I mix them or when I learn how to use one of them I forget the previous one. In my opinion, as we only have one semester in this subject, it would be better if we focused en less resources and exploited them to the full, more slowly. But on the contrary, knowing so many resources will be useful for us in the future because we can of course dedicate time to learn exactly how they work.

To sum up, I would say that this subject is necessary for nowadays education because society has progressed a lot in the use of technology, and I firmly believe that education should go according with what society needs.

VLP: Edmodo

Edmodo is a webpage to create online activities and exams with students. It gives you the opportunity to work with them out of the class or in distance and you can save a lot of time this way.

This is a useful tool because it has a lot of different options and you can organise there all your groups. In addition, you can do assignments and quizzes there. In quizzes, answers can be:

• Multiple option

• True or False

• Short answer

• Fill in the gaps

• Match

This is definitely another useful tool we have learnt and that we will use in the future with my students.

My Edmodo: Edmodo Irati Blanco Group code: n35yci

Podcast: Podomatic

This is a website through which you can record, edit and upload our podcasts. Here we could listen music from different cities around the world and we saw how we can record our voice to do different activities. 

This is a tool used not only used for teachers or students, DJ´s and artists from all over the world have their own PodOmatic account.

This way, the students can do a reading aloud activity and record themselves and later listen for it to see if they pronounce well or not, for example.

MY PODCAST: Podomatic Pirate's Treasure

Here is my podcast. It's a podcast of a story calles "Pirate's treasure", a short but nice story for children. This is the written story:

PIRATE´S TREASURE

Written by Carol Moore

Illustrated by Aura Moser

"Ten steps from the porch and twenty steps from the rose bushes," growled Bluebeard in Jimmy's dream one night. "Oh, there be treasure there! Ha ha ha."

So the next day Jimmy began to dig. He dug until the hole was deep and the dirt pile was high.

He kept digging. The hole got deeper and the dirt pile got higher.

He dug until the hole was deepest and the dirt pile was at its highest. He sighed. "I'm too tired. I can't dig anymore." Then he spied something...

...but it was only one of Woofy's bones. Instead of treasure, all Jimmy had was a dog bone, a hole, and a big pile of dirt to fill it in with. He thought "That pirate lied to me!"

But when Jimmy's mother saw what he had done, she clasped her hands and smiled a smile from here to Sunday. "Oh, thank you, Jimmy. I always wanted a rhododendron bush planted just there. Here's $5.00 for digging that hole."

Children love stories, that's why I decided to record it. We could listen to it in class at school, and then, after listen to it some times, children could write what have they understand about the story (a little summary), or answer some questions, as:

- What's the name of the pirate?

- What's the name of Jimmy's dog?

- What is Jimmy looking for? Why?

- Does he find it?

- How much money does his mother give him? Why?

Excel

Excel is another program we have learned using in this subject. Excel pages are very useful to get the final grade of students, because it makes calculations in a very easy and correct way.

Example:

- For your evaluation, you take into account four parts:

Progress tests (20%) + Homework (15%) + Participation or quality of work in class (10%) + Exam (55%).

You have done four progress tests, 4 samples of homework, 3 grades for participation and quality and the final exam, which had reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.



MY EXCEL: Excel Irati Blanco

In this subject, we created an Excel spreadsheet for the following evaluation of 4 students:

1.Continuous Assessment (60% of the final mark)

     -Reading (15% of the final mark)

     -Writing (15% of the final mark)

     -Speaking (15% of the final mark)

     -Listening (15% of the final mark)

2.Final Assessment (40% of the final mark)

     -Reading 10% of the final mark 

     -Writing 10% of the final mark 

     -Speaking 10% of the final mark 

     -Listening 10% of the final mark

This is the image of the result of my excel. I find it a helpful tool to calculate the marks in a really fast and organized way, as in this way you save time and you have everything well organized. 

Final PLE: Symbaloo

My initial PLE

This was my initial PLE, done before the traineeship:

My final PLE is the same as the initial one. But I have add another webmix called "ICT" for all the tools I could use at the university or when I am a teacher in the future, or all the tools we have learned in this subject. So, this is a picture of my new webmix:

As I said in the Blog of the first part of the course, this is the tool I have liked the most because, since I knew it, I use it every time I use the computer. I think it is a very useful and simple way to save the pages you usually or mainly get in; either in your personal area or in the educational one.

At first, I just used it in my personal area. But now, with my new webmix "ICT", I use Symbaloo for both my personal area and my the educational one.