Final Evaluation

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I have to start saying that my first thought when I heard “you are going to create a blog” was, that’s going to take me more than a semester to create. I was scared, but right after I got home that day, I started working on it and realized that I like it and it did not take too long.

My favorite discoveries are that it’s so easy to blog and that there are so many features that can be used to make the blog interesting, this make me want to start blogging more. Adding pictures, addresses, and embedding movies is so easy, I think that I need more time and patience to do all this. Sometimes technology plays tricks on us and we have to be patient to have to redo things.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

It has assisted me tremendously because I’m now thinking about starting a personal blog about things that matter in life. I’m considering also on blogging about kindergarten things, and I’ll be sharing lots of what I have learned with my kindergarten team.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I was very frustrated when my blog was acting weird, the URL got messed up and I wasn’t able to post on my blog; I thought the whole thing was getting to an end. I opened an account on Word Press but then I couldn’t embed movies…I was so disappointed, but then (after days) my blog was fine again.

4. What could I do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Dr. Wilson I personally like and enjoy your classes, I’ve learned so much by having to create projects online. This has helped me realize that I can do more that what I think, and most important, this is something that will help me on my professional journey and on my personal life as well.

Thing # 16 PhotoPeach

Using PhotoPeach was easy and fun. After uploading pictures I had a great time editing, rearranging the pictures, adding captions, and adding music.
Because students love to visualize things I can teach them how to upload their own work and create projects to share with their families.



You're still the one I love on PhotoPeach

Thing # 15.5 Twitter

I opened an account on Twitter as part of this assignment, I can't say to much about it, other than I had to ask my children how to post on it.  I did not know what the # meant, they explained to me in detail. Well I found out that it is not as hard as I thought, but I feel that at this present time I have "no time" to read and post. I'm trying to keep up with home, family, work, and college work. But I think Twitter is a great tool to stay connected and current. It seems that is now a part of these modern days. I did post 3 times and I used tinyurl to shorten the addresses I posted.
As for now I'm just going to have Twitter for personal use, because I can't figure out on how to use it with my kindergarteners.
When I heard about linkedin  before I didn't pay too much attention. Now that I joinded it, I found it amazing. I joined some educational groups that are of my interest. I love the fact that is a professional network that is current and and serious. I am going to update my information as soon as I have more time.

Thing # 15 Things Like Skype

Personal use:
I had used Skype when it was introduced online but have not used it recently. I was amazed at all the new features that Skype has developed. My favorite feature is conferencing. Not for business but for chatting with my family and friends. We are literally spread all over;  my college kids in Lubbock and Longview, family and friends all the way down south in Chile, South America, Central America, and Europe. The call clarity and connectivity has improved. My second favorite feature is the ability to multi-task. I just put my headset on, open my documents, and talk and type away with my family. Skype used to work with just Windows operating systems but now works on both Apple products too.

Professional use:

I read the link Dr. Wilson posted about 50 ways to use Skype in the classroom  the following list shows the ones that interest me.

Professional development: I would rather take online professional developments than having to drive to the physical place.

Share students’ work with parents: I agree that this is an easy way to share students’ work with busy parents.

Conference with parents: this is an excellent option to confer with parents that are too busy.

Collaborate with other teachers: I would like to share lessons with other teachers, and exchange ideas to teach something that a teacher is good at.

Be available to students: I would love to use this one with students that are absent, so they can still get the lessons we are covering that day.

Bring busy parents into the classroom: parents need to know what’s going on their kids’ classrooms, I personally think this is a great option to stay current.

Videoconferencing in the classroom with Skype: I would do this with colleagues.

Field trips: this is getting better and better, we don’t have field trips for lower grades, I am going to get more information on this one, and I will make it happen.

After school help: this is a great tutorial option, but I’m not sure if I would do it, maybe for just one hour after school as needed.

Interviews: this sounds terrific, getting to interview writers, doctors, business people, dentists, mailmen, principals, other teachers, geologists…the list is endless.

Thing # 14 Podcasting and Bookmarking

Podcasting looks cool. I went to iTunes U and typed podcasts for kindergarten, I found a variety of good  phonic lessons for kids. I also listened to some radio podcasts. While visiting iTunes U I was able to interact with some free apps, unfortunately we don't have access to iPads in our school.  There is so much free and amazing material available to use in the classroom but I do not have access at my school because most of the websites are blocked. I will be more than glad to use educational material as soon as I have permission to do it.

I've been on Pinterest for a while now, I must say that I love it. I've got lots of teaching ideas from pinning other people's ideas. This year I'm incorporating so many cute but interesting learning material in my classroom. Most of what I pin is related to education This is my favorite pin, hope you make it your favorite one too.

I opened a Delicious account lontime ago, but never used. I reopened few days ago and started bookmarking some websites. Love the way it stores and categorizes websites. It now became my favorites bookmark place. It's so easy to go back and find stuff, and it can be accessed from any computer.

Thing # 12 and 13 Discovering and Using YouTube

What an experience. I had the worse nightmare embedding a YouTube video in here. Since then I'm having trouble accessing my blog. I was able to remove the video from another computer. I don't want to try to embed another video for now. On the other hand I want to share that it was very easy to embed a video. It was a valuable learning experience.YouTube videos are easy to access and can be shown in classrooms, but it always recommended to use caution.
I have an account on TeacherTube ( I haven't used since I opened few years ago), I decided to browse around but I got discouraged after watching videos that were posted 5 or more years ago.

OK here I go again, I'm going to embed a YouTube video. Hope it doesn't mess up my blog again.


I personally love Eric Carle's stories. This video is suitable to show in kindergarten during the butterfly life cycle unit.




I'm embedding this video that I made last semester using iMovie. I had trouble embedding it before, hope this time nothing wrong happens. I used this video last school year to introduce the life cycle of butterflies, and I'll use it againg this year.

Thing # 11 Web2.0 Tools

After browsing several web2.0 tools I landed on Historypin, gave it a try, ended up joining it.  Having a Google account made it easy to gain access to this site. The site is from Google Maps, very user friendly, you can search any place around the world and you are redirected in seconds to the place you chose.

 I explored around for a while, and totally love it. People have done a great job posting pictures from the past, their family stories and their town's history as well. I read on Wikipedia that museums, local history societies, historical photo archives, newspaper archives and businesses have contributed with their work to enhance history.

This is a perfect tool to use for history and geography lessons. Having students to research and learn about places around the world not only on a plain map but learning about history and stories not written in books. The now and then section offers valuable information for students too. This site has categories such as tours and collections. Tours help you to explore different places through time. Collections are sets of pictures about particular topic or theme. An interesting feature is that you are invited to add your own pictures. 

Thing 6: RSS and Newsreaders

I am not to sure about this whole RSS Newsreaders. I opened an account, added some newsfeed. It was actually easy to manage, I was able to add Learning 2.0 blog feed as Dr. Wilson suggested on the blog assignment. I will be adding more things later. I wanted to make sure I would be able to do it. I have to browse a little longer to make this page more personal.
As for now I think I can have my bloglines for personal use. I have no idea on how to use this with my kindergarteners. Any suggestion?

Thing 10: Online Productivity Tools

I had a great time exploring ZOHO. I created a sample document for me to practice and learn, please feel free to look at it on ZOHO Writer.
I was amazed by the endless features that Zoho offers to create documents, to collaborate online, and to share.
After working on Thing 10 of my "16 Things" I can say:
"I Know That I Know Nothing". Socrates.
But I also know that I can expand my learning as much as I am willing to try....after all the sky is the limit.
I will use Zoho writer for personal purposes.

Thing 9: Play with Wiki's

I spent a great amount of time browsing different wikis. I landed on PikiWiki . It has a link to read about 10 things that can be done so I decided to explore a little further. The site it's mosltly about documenting events with pictures and sharing them online with relatives and friends. The creator of a  documents have the option to allow other people to make changes and/or to add comments on the pages, the creator can also block the option for editing. I created "My first page" a document with pictures just to see how it works. I thought I would use PiKiWiKi with my students to document their work  and share it with their parents, and with my colleagues.

Thing 8: Wiki's

I browsed lots of wikis to have a better understanding of what a wiki is, at this point I think wiki is a never ending thing, so I stopped at this amazing Books Lovers Wiki. This wiki contains books reviews for all ages and personal interests. Click on the Pages & Files tab and you will be able to access your favorite category. There are audio books that can be uploaded to be listened on personal devices, or used in classroom.  I will definitely use TumbleBooks-eBooks for Kids in my classroom. Several times is hard to find a copy of a book on the school library, with TumbleBooks I will be a click away to access an enormous digital library.

Thing 7: Image Generators

I finally solved this mistery! I was always wondering, how do people make these colorful word clouds? I have my own now. In kindergarten I would use Wordle to create "word clouds" with my students to write a poem about their families, about friendship, about a favorite toy, and also to make greeting cards for mother day. I would also use it in science to write about each one of the five senses, or the life cycle of butterflies.

The time I spent "playing" with Voki was definitely worth. I have something new and fun to create with my students. I was thinking they can create a story like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr., Eric Carle. My students can make their own "character", then put them together as a class' story.

BigHugeLabs is fun and I really think my kindergarteners will be amazed creating their own puzzles and stamps.

I was asked by one of my district's Tech leaders to consider teaching a workshop. Wow! that's huge for me. I have to practice more in order to be able to teach, but I know I can do it!

Thing 5: Flickr Badge

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from IvetteTorres. Make your own badge here.

I took a tour around Flickr. Finding groups is fun, I typed “Chile” and found lots of groups and beautiful pictures of my motherland. At this time I don’t think I want to join a group or create one, but it’s something I’ll consider doing later. I think I’ve spent too much time now browsing different and endless ways to create cool stuff on Flickr. One that really caught my attention is Flickr Flash Badge, I decided to create one with my own pictures and I’m very pleased with the results.

Thing 4: Flickr

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I had fun opening a Flickr account. I enjoyed all the features that are now available, it seems endless. I spent a great amount of time clicking and learning about the different tabs. I decided to create a slide show with some pictures from my summer trip to France. Uploading pictures was not a problem, the problem was to chose which pictures I wanted to display, then after that I was a click away from creating the slide show, the result is here. One feature that realy amazed me was the map tab. Most of my pictures were automatically located on the map because they were taken with our cell phones. The pictures we took with the camera I had to manually drag them to the location they were taken, still it is simply amazing. When I look my photostream I'm able to see each picture's information, love it!

Thing 3: Photos and Images

My husband and I recently visited Paris, France. In this picture we had just arrived to The Opera Metro from the airport. We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the buildings, and the amount of tourists. French people were very friendly contrary to what we had heard before. We started visiting places right away.

Our first place to visit was Pere Lachaise Cemetery. This cemetery has been opened since 1804, is the largest cemetery in Paris, and it's the most visited cemetery in the world, why? because famous people are buried there.

Knowing and speaking french was definitely a plus!

Thing 2: Blogging

This is definitely a challenge for me. I always see and read blogs online, but never attempted creating one. For this assignment I have been researching on how to create blogs as well as how to name it. I thought of so many names, then I realized it was about the 16 things. While working on my blog I realized that it's not to hard to create one, plus it is fun.
I had to look at other people's blogs in order to get ideas to create mine. I know I'm going to get more creative in the future as a result of what I learn in class.

Thing 1: Lifelong Learning

I consider myself a lifelong learner. At my age I never thought of becoming an educator. After raising my own children I decided to learn English, go to college and get a bachelor degree in education. I accomplished all that. Then my goal was to get a masters degree, which I am currently working on. My goal now is to finish it; I know I can do it.

These are the seven and 1/2 habits of highly successful people. I added my own thoughts.

1. Begin with the end in mind.

When we set a goal it is worth to work hard to achieve it. It is better to work on one goal at a time.

2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.

Setting time aside to study and work is a priority to achieve a goal.

3. View problems as challenges.

It sounds hard, but challenges strengthen us, motivate us, and make us grow.

4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, lifelong learner.

No one else will do it for you, although one gets support from others.

5. Create your own learning tool kit (friends, books, web pages).

This is new for me; I’ll follow the advice.

6. Use technology to your advantage.

Just Use It! We live in a digital era.

7. Teach and mentor others.

I Love doing this; I’m an educator!!!

7 ½.  Play! 

Always! This is serious. 

The easiest one for me is to "accept responsibility for your own learning". I know I am working hard toward a goal; I try to do my best to concentrate and work at it. As a student I set time aside to study for my classes. As an educator I attend trainings and workshops to enrich my teaching. I get support from my administrators at school and that is a big plus.

The hardest will be to "create your own learning tool kit". I have to work on this one because it is important to have things handy. I usually save material in different places and then I can't find them, I can't wait to get organized.

Here is a link to my Learning Contract.