New Tecnhologies

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

PORTFOLIO

ANA SATRUSTEGUI ARAMBILLET

PUBLIC UNIVERSITY OF NAVARREYEAR 2014

[NEW TECHNOLOGIES] ANA SATRUSTEGUI

INTRODUCTION Page 3

WEEK 1 Page 4

WEEK 2 Page 6

WEEK 3 Page 8

WEEK 4 Page 10

REPORT ON MY INTERSHIP Page 12

CONCLUSION Page 15

INDEX


The society is has suffered a lot of changes in the last few years and these are affecting different aspects from the society. As we know from our experience, Education is the base of the human being, and as humans, we have the nature to remain contact with all that concerns our society and undoubtedly our lives.

Of particular note, the traditional Knowledge era has turned up to the Technological, where we have predilection for technologies and they are gaining an important role in our routines. The proliferation of technological devices are the reason why it is not surprising students are designing “best-fit” solutions for their very specific needs when it comes to the Internet and other means of communication. Children are used to using computers, tablets, smart phones, managing with images and all sort of videos. Therefore, children are taking advantage of the benefits of the tools available rather than using one or even a few platforms for various tasks. In present times, this is how they learn better.

In my childhood memories, I can barely remember how I managed with technologies. I can assure that when I was in primary education, we scarcely made use of a computer and teachers only taught us how to do easy activities followed up a traditional approach. It was based upon the principle of memorising all the content given and being able to show a good response of this learning.

I strongly believe that being taught by this methodology made me avoid using new technologies on many occasions. However, now I was given the chance to change my mind with this subject and endeavour to make the most of it and do my best to learn what I could not in the past. I want to be a teacher from this generation, I want to be up to date and be proud of myself. All in all, that is what I expect from this subject; to change the way I deal with technology, to make use of it successfully for my future as a teacher and to remain constant contact with it.

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INTRODUCTION

WEEK ONE


Friday, 12th of September 2014

The first week was focused on developing a specific task on The Digital Competence. I have heard of this competence but I did not know what actually this consists of. The Digital Competence is one of the 8 competences which every child has to develop at the end of her/his learning process and must be able to keep learning during her/his whole life. This competence enables you to take the advantage of the possibilities of digital technologies and new challenges, and it is necessary for taking part in this new technological era in which we are living.

Within this competence there are different stages such as information, communication, content creation, safety and problem solving. Depending on the level of the user we can differentiate among foundation, intermediate and advanced users.

I and my teamwork were asked to work on Content Creation by searching information accurately and creating a digital presentation. While working on this, I discovered how competent each user can be in this field, and the most important thing, I found that I am actually an intermediate Content Creation´s user. We set the differences between a general user of Content Creation and a teacher. In general terms, teachers are as competent as general users. However, teachers have different purposes according to the use of Digital Content; what is more, they focus its uses for educational purposes.

Apart from this, I have never known about the existence of a PLE (Personal Learning Environment). We are surrounded by a wide range of information provided from different sources; we must know where this information comes from and search for more. You can also realize about how this learning environment has widen and make a picture in your mind about all you have learnt.

In my view, I strongly believe that I will use all this useful information for my future as a teacher. I will have to deal with digital resources and manage with the problems that I will liable to encounter. Teaching itself is not an easy job, it can be hard work as it should be linked to the real world outside school. What I mean by this is that teachers need to be concerned of the forthcomings changes in the way of learning. For so, has done the way of teaching and designing tasks for our students.

Nowadays, we have to be up to date and try to be competent enough in the digital sphere. In the last few years, activities given to students were hardly poor and all was expected to learn of by heart without any other purpose. Somehow, this Digital Competence leads us to prepare better tasks for our pupils, to focus our effort on producing authentic activities with different goals.


Making use of technology for a constructive aim it enhances you to end with a great success in terms of developing student´s skills, raise their awareness, build up their competence, gain knowledge and make the most of this opportunity to learn in this technological time with its resources.

WEEK TWO



During this week I had to read a document on Digital Residents. Never had I hear this term before and thanks to this, now I understand more about what king of internet users we are and how people make use of this for different purposes.

Firstly, I am starting by saying what I understood by ´Digital resident´ or a ´visitor´. A Digital Resident is generally someone who spends a significant amount of time online using a wide range of programs either apps. What it is more; daily life connects citizens with social media as part of their activities. However, a visitor is the person who does not need to be using those digital devices constantly; they use them when necessary.

After coining these two terms and having learnt them, I am able to say that I consider myself a ´digital resident´ because I spend most of my time online whatsoever the reason is and whenever I go. The reason for this may be laid on the fact that I have digital devices such as computer, desktop, tablet and smartphone. Even more, I am hooked on these gadgets and they take the most of my time.

I have explored the role of English language in relation to social networking throughout a survey conducted among non-native speakers of English in Thailand. In general terms, it is important to know how we make use of our digital devices to understand what type of user we are. Nowadays, most of people spend around 4 hours per day on their laptops either their smartphones. What means that we all are becoming `residents´. Students make use of their devices for education especially when it comes to study English. Nevertheless, there are some who use them for gaming or even just for social aims.

From my experience, I must assure that I have always used internet for learning English. This provides an added value while learning. By saying so, I mean that I always make use of online dictionaries like Word reference. Furthermore, this week I discovered the English Thesaurus online website.

Being able to use digital devices properly can be an added value too. While writing, students can prepare themselves for real life because in the future they will need to write in English online.

We are living in changing times and if we are going to be teachers, we should adapt to them. Our pupils are better prepared for this technological era than even us, and we permanently, should be updated and get trained on digital competence. Because of this reason, I would like to explore more about what kind of websites


children tent to use for improving their English, what they find them engaging and what enjoy them most.

WEEK THREE



We started this week by creating our own exercises online through the Hot Potatoes software. Never had I have the opportunity to introduce myself in such, which is why a felt really excited. Basically, this suite includes five applications; JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix and JQuiz. There is also a sixth application called The Masher that will compile all the Hot Potatoes exercises into one unit. This enables you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. I can highlight that this suite is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like.

In this case, we had to cover two tasks by using Hot Potatoes. These, consisted of creating two activities following the examples given previously by the teacher. So for, I created one matching activity about flowers with pictures and another one about animals. I found this very useful and I might use it for future teaching purposes. Being able to design learning activities it is a challenge for our students. It involves searching for information, decide which topic is going to be worked in the activities and its model (cross, cloze, match or quiz).

Furthermore, we were introducing on video editing tools. To be honest, I am very keen on this subject and that is why I knew about the existence of Movimaker and the fact that Power Point has incorporated a tool to cut videos. Indeed, I discovered a new one, Dotsub. This is very good for creating and viewing subtitles for videos in multiple languages, transcription and video editing systems. It has a lot of positive points; it is funny, easy, free and nothing to download. You can upload your videos, transcribe and time caption (the official name of subtitling) them, translate them into and from any language, and share them with the world. You can also embed the Dotsub player onto most websites and blogs with full functionality.

I have learn the differentiation between transcribe and translate. Transcribing is mainly writing down what someone says in that language, whereas translating, is referring to writing what somebody says but in another language.

We used The Logic of English website to develop our transcribing task. This website shows a new methodology in the US for teaching pronunciation and spelling and so we worked on that.

As we are non-native English speakers I believe that most of us should ever use subtitles for a better listening understanding. I think that transcribing itself is a difficult task but our students will benefit from it. By transcribing, two languages skills are worked; listening comprehension either writing. Finding tools to create your own video transcription, to some extent, builds up your self confidence in the target language.


To sum up, I would like to explore more about this field for my own learning. I think that this is crucial for ear training and thus for learning a second language. I came across that the act of transcription can strengthen your ear, and develop your listening skills but like anything else, practice makes it perfect.


Friday, 3rd of October 2014

This week was the last one before starting the internship period. For that time, we were asked to observe the way that new Technologies are used to teach foreign languages in the school. Therefore, we will write a reflection and report this information just by taking into account as follows; new technologies seen my tutor use in the classroom to teach, which were seen for an organizational purposes and which should my tutor use for improving teaching (if so we have to mention specific technologies we would use and how).

During this week we worked deeper on specific subtitling tools. Even though some students made a presentation on these, each group was also given the chance to work on transcribing a 2min10sec video by using Dotsub. This task was really motivating because firstly, you had the challenge of understanding the woman´s speech and secondly, your transcription came up on the screen as most of the uploaded videos once you found in Youtube on many occasions. Regarding my own experience I have been introduced in many subtitling resources such as Amara, Overstream, DivCland Media, Captiontube, Subtitle Horse, Subtitle workshop and Dotsub. All of them are quite easy to use apart from Subtitle Horse and Overstream. Anyway, if I had to carry on such activity in the classroom I would choose Dotsub. This is the easiest, most complete and professional from the lot. Within it, all the videos are private by default (which is an interesting point for children´s use), you can upload a file either write in, and the caption is very quick to subscribed.

We started doing a web quest on two specific mind maps´ tools in which we analyzed them and wrote a report on the ones used to create mind maps. We picked these two from the lot; Text 2 Mind Map and Stomboard. I do really like both but I personally think that Text 2 Mind Map is less complicated for my use and even for children´s. What is more, I tried to use this tool on my own for a teaching purpose and it end in a big success.

Talking of teaching purpose, I cannot forget about mentioning the Storyjumper website. I was very engaged when I created my own story, I enjoyed myself a lot and I went back to my childhood memories. This resource is perfectly designed for children to create their own short books. While creating a story, the will need to cope with finding illustrations, dragging or dropping images onto the page. After all, I would strongly recommend its use as a fun school activity or for their leisure time as it is almost game-like. Children can get into creating virtual environments featuring the characters they have brought to life.

WEEK FOUR


At the end of the week, we opened a discussion about Reading Three which its theme was Rubrics. Just I want to highlight some aspects that drew my attention on this topic. The 30% of school failure and the origin of the problem is lead in memorizing, owing to reduce this number rubrics are being used. Scoring rubrics endeavor to evaluate writing examples, group activities, extended projects and oral presentations. Furthermore, they provide students with feedback.

Since the first time I started Primary Education, most of the things I learnt were off by heart. Fortunately, I was able to concentrate enough to pass the exam successfully but not everyone has had the same experience. For this reason, I think that rubrics are seen as evaluation´s guidance and as an opportunity to modify your assessment in case it does not work properly.

As a group work, we had to discuss whether a rubric given was accurate for its aims. I would like to learn more about creating rubrics because I will use it in my future as a teacher. Rubrics are more specific, you can just focus on your assessment in terms of what you what them to learn. This leads me to ask myself this question; what is the purpose of education? Is it to teach people to know a lot or to create individuals to be able to do things?

All in all, I personally believe that teaching is all about enable pupils to do different things and be aware of their own skills. Hence, is very difficult to evaluate how well somebody does something. We have to provide students with a better understanding and they must know what is expected from them. Finally, this would lead us to make the most of their learning.


NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOMThe proliferation of technology and social media has changed the way

educators teach, how the content is transferred, how students learn, and the way teachers and students communicate with one another. The aim of this report is to discover how technology is shaping primary school and classrooms around the Saint Mary the Real School, Navarre.

In such, teachers are absolutely concerned of the importance of the use of Technology as a support and somehow, this is the key of success in getting pupils involved in their own learning. Its suitability for children at any age makes it more and more demanding to the extent that activities are thought to be carried upon the technological support.

During my internship projected I conducted a research on how new technologies had been implemented in the school classroom. I slightly observed my tutor when giving the lessons. He made use of the whiteboard most of the time. This is the main resource in Primary classrooms. By making use of this interactive support, pupils can complete activities created in the Microsoft Word because the whiteboard has several options of writing and highlighting in colors, changing the thickness of the pencil and sliding words or sentences. Besides, it allows you to draw, coloring, erase and shape in different sizes. Indeed, when you finish your work, you can save it in your desktop or else, USB.

This interactive tool is also used for the creation of mindmaps. In Science, he works through the content by developing mindmaps on the topic. This mind map sets different branches depending on what is concerned to study. According to the importance given, these go from the thickest to the thinnest ones.

At present time, Youtube is gaining importance in the English classroom. The teacher uses this for a listening purpose. English songs with its lyrics are played in a daily basis and students are encouraged to sing them aloud. On the other hand, when it comes to Science, all the videos were related to the topic. Those, played on many occasions such as ´The process of getting the wool´, ´The process of planting a seed´; Once Upon a Time ones on the ´Digestion´ and the ´Muscles´ in order to develop the units further. Thus, this fact is making the learning process more and more engaging.

English as a subject itself is developed throughout different routines. For this reason, they make a dairy daily with the parts of the class which are repeated every

REPORT ON MY INTERSHIP


day. My tutor uses Microsoft power point to show the different tasks for a day. He has also used this for telling a story, reading aloud or explaining grammar contents such the present simple.

However, what came as a surprise to me is the fact that he uses a website for reading resources. Such is entitled Oxfordowl, it has plenty of books aimed at primary students, with listening tracks and full of implausible pictures.

Apart from the use of these resources in class, my tutor made use of ´Prezzi´ for an educational purpose. He is very keen on developing Science topics through this technological tool and he uploads them all to give some guidance for those who find it necessary.

In the assessment period, he used Microsoft Excel to reflect pupils´ marks on and different objectives achieved. Teachers also have a school platform where they can upload the assessment, they can email parents to arrange a meeting or inform them, and they receive emails in their inbox from the school principal. In other words, they are updated thank to this platform called PSP.

In my tutor´s personal work time, he used to download different songs from YouTube and look for recreational activities by using Google Search. The projects he created by Microsoft Word where mainly booklets, cards, and information charts.

As I have experienced, new technologies chiefly are used for a teaching purpose but in contrast, my tutor employs Microsoft Excel for organizational purposes. He created many tables to assemble the class in groups for a class activity purpose. They were divided into six groups with five members in each. She used colors for the groups and a different table for assigning the role of the person in the working groups.

Regarding non-teaching purposes, he uses his Smartphone to take pictures of the work done in class and store them for showing them all in the forthcoming interviews with parents. Furthermore, he takes notes about odd facts and meaningful things. He wears his phone with him in case he needs to receive calls and he is in touch with the school.

To meet the needs of her students I suggest making some improvements in the lesson planning. By creating a class blog and using Dotsup video editing program, I would upload lectures the blog and assigned them as homework. The dynamic of the class should be reversed by adding new technologies. Instead of lecturing in class, and do it traditionally, I could teach them easily from their homes, and even more, problems would be sort out together either in the classroom or commenting on the blog. If we make these improvements we will be gaining a lively, engaging and motivating classroom when discussion and communications are implemented.


Finally, I think that in present, students are more productive than they were in the last few years due to the increased reliance on technology in the classroom and teacher´s positive attitude towards this subject. Indeed, as a teacher, we need to raise the sense of curiosity and give children the best chance to their lives in this technological are.


All things considered, I have to thank this subject for the relevant things I have learnt on the Technological use. After takings this subjects and working through many of the resources given in hand I feel very proud of my own work. Needless to say, I built up my confidence to start working with technology on my own, on a professional level; I can be in continuous contact with it. Not only I can be in this aspect but also in a personal level because before doing this subject I felt like a fish out o water when it came to developing a task using nothing but to a computer.

As I said previously, we are living in changing times and this is highly noticeable in the classroom environment because technologies are becoming essential in children´s lives. School is given a wide range of possibilities to adapt to these changes and addresses all the limitations that may appear in children´s learning. There are an additional value to the classroom and indeed, to the teacher.

Teacher has an important role in our society, it is a vocational job and it is not easy at all. Taking advantage of technology is very useful to deal with difficulties in the classroom but also, this is not a golden road, you should be competent enough to develop authentic tasks for a motivating and engaging learning.

CONCLUSION

New Tecnhologies

Education

Transcript of New Tecnhologies