Personal learning journal - Final

During this semester I have learnt how to use very interesting tools and webpages. I like technology and I enjoy using it; it has lots of possibilities and, knowing how to use it, it can ease daily tasks. However, it can be difficult or confusing at first, so training can be helpful in those cases. That’s why I think that this subject has been useful for us, or at least, it has been for me.

It is true that almost all the tools that we have seen are not directed to nursery education and that upsets me a bit, but from my point of view, every tool that we have seen is useful for a certain use, so I don’t feel upset about this subject. In fact, I feel positive about all that we have learnt and I think I will use some or all of the things.

Personal learning journal - Eighth week

This have been the last week before Christmas and we only have had one single class in which we have finished the excel spreadsheet and we have tried two new webpages: SurveyMonkey and Edmodo.

The first one is a tool that allows you to create surveys with 7 types of questions. It can be very useful to know what the students think about the teacher’s classes or about a certain topic. Those answers can help the teacher knowing the opinions and interests of the students.

The second one is similar to MiAulario, that is to say, it is a tool for uploading notes, articles documents... for the students; so that means that students and teachers are connected in that tool. Besides, the teacher can make announcements, post tasks, prepare online exams, organize the different groups and sub-groups as s/he wants…

Both of this tools might be very useful for primary and secondary education, but once more, there are nonsense for nursery education.

Personal learning journal - Sixth and seventh weeks

In the last two weeks we finished the Interactive Whiteboards presentations, we read about podcasts and e-books, and we learnt how to use some tools and webpages, such as, Wikis, Dropbox and PodOmatic.

I knew the name of podcasts before but I didn’t know very well what they were. These days I have learnt that they can be very useful for education and personal purposes. However, as with every other tool, we need to have the aim of its use very clear and don’t overuse it.

The same happened to me with wikis; I knew the name but no its use. I think that they can be useful in education, but not in nursery. I miss more tools and resources for nursery education in this class.

However, the reading about electronic books was very interesting and it could be very helpful for my future profession as teacher in nursery, the period when children start developing reading and writing skills.

Personal learning journal - Fifth week

During this first week after the internship, there have been some changes in the subject, due to the sick leave of our teacher. From now on, we will be with other teacher that will try to carry out the development of all the contents that the previous teacher had set. As a result, this week has been difficult for us and for the new teacher, and we have been talking a lot about the blog, the tasks and the assessment.

The topic of the week has been Interactive Whiteboards (IWB). We have had two presentations about them – one about reading 4 and the other one about the tasks that that group had prepared.

As I said in a previous entry, IWB have lots of possibilities, but from my point of view, we cannot base our classes and tasks just on that tool, because we need to provide students different ways of carrying out tasks. In addition, nowadays children are in constant contact with technology, thus IWB won’t catch their attention for a long period of time; they would get used to it and they would see it as boring as the traditional blackboard.

Tools can motivate children, but that motivation is brief; the only way to motivate children is to base the classes in a good methodology and provide challenging materials and resources.

Personal learning journal - Rubric

Rubrics are a very useful tool because of the following reasons:

1. Objectivity: there can be many defined items to evaluate and every aspect is written, so it is easier to follow this items to assess someone in an objective way.
2. Skills: rubrics not only evaluate memoristic skills, they can also evaluate other cognitive skills.
3. Feedback: items and punctuation give an objective feedback to the students that help them to improve their learning process.
4. Flexibility: items can be adapted to the necessities of students, teachers, aims, topics, etc.

In consequence, as a student and future teacher, this tool can be very useful for both, my learning and teaching processes.

Personal learning journal - Practicum

I made my practicum in Ezkaba Public School in the infant English class, and I tried to analyze the use of new technologies in the class and the school in general. The result is that I have seen very few technology and few use of it. Each of the classes, even the English ones, had a PC but some of them didn't work, as the one I had in my English class. That's the reason why we -my tutor and I- couldn't prepare interactive activities, nor information-searching kind activities.

According to the European report, ICT should be related to subject, apart from the ICT subject. As a result, ICT should be applied in the English class too, but it wasn't the case due to the lack of technological tools. Besides, the report implies some training for teachers and the English one knew very elemental and simple things, but not the appropriate ones for those children.

However, there were interactive white boards in high-grade classes, such as 5th and 6th grades, as it is asked in the European report. 

From my point of view, the reasons for this situation could be the few economical resources that the government gives and the distribution of those resources according to the technological necessities of these children. But I can only speculate about this, because I didn't ask it.

In my opinion, technology is very positive if we know how to take advantage of it; so every class and every children should have the same possibilities to explore, learn with and about technologies.

Personal learning journal - Fourth week

These days we have practiced with new tools such as DotSub and StoryJumper. The first one’s function is to caption videos and we tried it with a video from Logic of English. I found it useful for young and adult learners, but not so useful for children. When a video is subtitled in the original language, it helps the spectator to match the spoken and written words so he/she knows how the words are used and pronounced. But as I said before, little children cannot read so it wouldn’t be useful for them.

The second one is a tool where users can create stories using pictures, stickers, backgrounds and text, which make every story a unique one. When I was trying this page, I created a pirate story because there were lots of pictures of pirates. However, I know that if I use this tool again – I think I will –, I will let my imagination work and, with more time, my stories will get better and better.

Besides, on Thursday we saw how the interactive whiteboard works and what we can do with it. It has lots of possibilities to teach and learn and I would like to have the chance to try it and use it during my practicum period. 

Personal learning journal - Third week

On this third week we’ve used HotPotatoes to do some activities. From the start of this semester I wanted to know how to prepare interactive activities, so I think I could use this programme in a creative way. However, I believe that this activities are more suitable for primary education than for nursery, and I would like to know if there are programmes to prepare activities for little children.

In our second reading I have understood why English is now so important and in which way is appropriate to teach and learn it. New technologies are increasing and now we don’t see them as an entertainment, but as a necessity. English is the language in which technologies work and that’s why is important to teach students how to use technologies through English.

Personal learning journal - Second week

During this week, I have been reading about digital residents and visitors – that was our first reading. I didn’t know that terms, but I’d been thinking about it lately and I reached the conclusion that we need to change the way we see our social life – at least I do.

We have got used to say everything through Whatsapp and apps like this, even when the topic is a serious one. And then, when we are with our friends, we don’t know what to speak about because everything is already said. Furthermore, I feel stressed and anxious every time my mobile vibrates and it’s impossible to me to get concentrated in what I’m doing. I don’t want to be available for everyone all the time.

Now I am trying to stop using it that much, because I want a real social life and a real privacy.

According to my PLE, I add new links frequently to my Symbaloo page and I’ve converted it into my homepage. I really think it is a useful website. 

Personal learning journal - First week

This week I learnt what a PLE (Personal Learning Environment) is. I hadn’t heard about it before so I had to watch the tutorials first. I think that the PLE could be a very useful concept and so could Symbaloo. This webpage is new for me but I will spend some time exploring it so that I can learn how to use it well. I know Cmaps tool but I prefer to learn something new and that’s why I will do my PLE with Symbaloo.