PERSONAL LEARNING JOURNAL: 23th December

  The last day of class, we have continued working with Excel and we have talked about questionnaires (and, in particular, SurveyMonkey) and virtual platforms (Edmodo and Webnode).

In Excel, we have learnt how we can color in red the marks that are less than 4, how we can hide columns and how we can leave the first row fixed while the rest moves. This is the result.

      Then, we have worked with Survey Monkey, a webpage in which we can create opinion or future intention questionnaires. We have created there a survey with seven types of questions: Rating scale, Multiple Choice (Only one answer), Multiple Choice (Multiple Answers), Comment/Essay box (useful for suggestions), Ranking, Matrix of choices (Only one answer per row) and Matrix of Droop-down Menus. The result can be seen in this link. 

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Surveys are useful as future teacher to improve our classes, and watch what students find interesting, what boring, or what parents think about the school. For statistics it is better to use the same type of questions because it is better then to compare and draw conclusions. And, for that reason, using multiple choice (multiple answers) is not effective because if each participant select different number of answers, the results are not going to be real. What is more, with this type of questionnaires, we have to bear in mind that we cannot generalize. If the answers are from our students, it doesn't mean that all of the children of the world think the same.

      In MiAulario there is also another tool to create surveys, but only current university teachers can create questionnaires.

      And finally we have talked about virtual platforms: Edmodo and Webnode. In both pages we have created our own webpages in which we can share information with our pupils, create different folders, send notices to them, create exams, etc. These are the webpages and their appearance:

Edmodo wiki

Webnode wiki

PERSONAL LEARNING JOURNAL: 16th- 18th December 2014

      This week we have worked with Podcast, Excel and Ebooks.

   

     We have worked with podcast in Podomatic. Firstly we have listened to different podcast (such as "Misadventures of a stressed teacher" that can be found in Episode 51: the misadventures of a stressed teacher). And then, we have created our own podcast (My first podcast).

      Although the reading about podcast we have read deny that podcast improve the learning or pronunciation, it has different advantages, it improves student's motivation and it can be useful in our future as teachers.

      For instance, we can hear the story of the five senses and students may order the five senses as they are appearing in the story, write a title of the story or make a picture of the part they love the most. The podcast of the story of the five senses narrated by me can be found in this link: The country of the five senses.

      We also have started with Excel. We have created a spreadsheet based on the percentages of assessment of New Technologies subject. We have created different parts (Progress tests, homework, participation and final exam) with different values (20%, 15%, 10%, 55% respectively) and introducing different formulas, the final mark of different students is calculated.

    

   

      Excel for teachers is really important because it improves the process of evaluation, making that process easier to the teacher. 

      And we have talked a little bit about EBooks. A lot of people and teachers refuse EBooks because they think these electronic books don't improve the process of learning. However, according to Fathi, M. (2014) we have learnt that using EBooks and its possibilities (sound effects, pictures, animations, oral reading, music, etc.) enhance literacy skills. Thus, as future teachers, we have to bear in mind that EBooks are a useful tool. 

PERSONAL LEARNING JOURNAL: 11th December 2014

      This week, although we have presented more IWB activities, and we have talked about the reading related with Podcast, we have mainly worked with wikis and, in particular, with Wikispaces. And I have learnt how useful wikis are in schools.

      Collaboratively, in groups of 5, we have participated in the wiki "TechnologyPrimary" created by the teacher. Following the sentence given "When he left, he was very worried. I had never seen anybody so worried in my life. Well... that is not true at all." my group has created the little story shown below. 

      Not only that, wikis can be used to develop other activities in Nursery school. An example of it is ordering a recipe in a wiki done with pictures like the following image shows.

 

      This activity allows children to work with genre (recipe) and do it collaboratively. 

     A second example of it can be creating 5 wikis of each sense and including there different materials, objects and resources that can be related with senses. For instance, songs in the wiki of hearing, food in the wiki of taste, flowers in the wiki of smell, etc. This gives children the opportunity to get to know different senses (environment discovery), to classify items (mathematics) and to work in groups, arguing their opinions (language). 

      And a third activity that I have thought about consists on preparing the list of things they need to take for a school trip to know Pamplona's giants in a wiki. This involves the cognitive skill (according to Bloom's Taxonomy) of planning, through a motivating activity (a trip) and a motivating topic (Pamplona's giants). 

PERSONAL LEARNING JOURNAL: 2nd-4th December 2014

      This first week of class after the internship has been mainly dedicated to interactive whiteboards (IWB).

        Firstly we have talked about Reading 4: Interactive whiteboards:
 boon or bandwagon?, which analyses the use of interactive white boards in real schools. And we have concluded that, on the one hand, the use of new technologies and in particular, the use of interactive white board (IWB) can be useful not only for students, but also for teachers. It allows teachers to prepare more smooth and more efficient lessons (with pictures, videos and in short, multimodal materials). And it encourages student's motivation, due to the fact that it is something new that catches their attention and allows manipulation and the development of handwriting skills.

      However, on the other hand, if we use too much this "new technology", I mean, everyday in every class, at every single hour, the novelty that it implies is going to disappear and therefore, student's motivation is going to decrease.

      So, in conclusion, as future teachers, we don't have to use it always. Using IWBs the whole time can be boring if students are used to use them. We have to know when, where and for what reason we are going to use them.

      Moreover, we have presented different activities with interactive whiteboards that can be useful in our future as teachers. As we are going to be nursery teachers, and in this stage of education routines are really important, our activities are going to be related with them. We have prepared 5 different activities. The first one consisted on writing your name, the second one is related with the date, the third one with the weather, the next one with who is in class and who is at home and the last one with feelings. The person who is the “driver” is going to develop those little activities and all of them have their own song.

      The activities have more or less this appearance.