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 - 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.