(u03a1) Research & Analyze: Human Filters

Human filters is known as what we use to strain, sort, and categorize what goes through our senses and how we perceive things.  Even though all our senses are of great importance and we use them differently depending on our situations, the three that are pertinent to me are hear, see, and touch.  Over the years I've noticed that when it is time for me to learn and attain content mastery I have to implement these three senses in order to fully understand.  The sense of hear and see most of the time work hand and hand together as I learn and aquire new information, yet there are sometimes in which they are used individually, to see I create a picture in my mind of what I hear, and for hearing I create sounds, music, or words in my mind of what I see.  Touch is a very important sense to me, because I'm a very hands-on leaner.  I have to touch and actually create or build what I learn to fully accomplish and understand aquired information.  A lot of information is hard to touch, especially in reading, but what I do to touch, is create and build projects that incorporate the content.  Furthermore, I have learned that when there is no presentation of hear, see, or touch, through the years I have learned to create my own presentation in my mind or as a project to better understand the new information.  I always find a way to have my favorite 3! =)

(u03a1) Research & Analyze: Web2.0 Sites

For my research I decided to analyze the following Web2.0 sites: Vocabulary&Spelling.com, BrainPOP.com, and StudyIsland.com.  I have always used and implemented these sites with my students, but I had never quite evaluated them fully using all the criterion within the Web2.0 for School Use rubric.  What I found was truly amazing, and it is to no doubt why these sites are great tools to use and have. Below is a summary of my evaluations:

 

Vocabulary&Spelling.com
This site is to no doubt a wonderful tool to have in the classroom and is overall effective for students and easy to use.  It received 15/18 in the exemplary category to make it a top notch tool in education.  Although it was very difficult to rate in the credits/citations/copyright criterion, after long though I gave it a substandard rating because it is unclear to determine and it is unknown, yet has its own copyright policy.  Even though Vocabulary&Spelling.com can be used by virtually any grade level, yet it seems to focus more on students who like to engage in games.

 

Overall Score:

• Exemplary-60
• Very Good-3
• Good Rating-2
• Substandard-1

BrainPOP.com
This is also an impacting site to use in the classroom.  BrainPOP is an awesome way to implement and present content to students visually and in a fun and exciting way.  BrainPOP is designed for the whole K-12 level, with concepts from all the content areas.  It even has a search option where you can look for videos for a specific grade level or course.  This can be used by teacher and students in any setting and is easy to navigate around.  It received 14/18 in the exemplary category, to make it a must use tool.  Although, it does not have an option for the classroom response system (clickers) in the quiz mode, it is still a great tool.

Overall Score:

• Exemplary-56
• Very Good-6
• Good Rating-2
• Substandard-1

StudyIsland.com
StudyIsland is an effective tool to use in the classroom, because it reinforces skills taught in class that will be assessed in state assessments.  This tool can be used for tutoring, intervention, and for content mastery.  Educators can see the progress of their students, and students can see what they need to work in.  It is very detailed and shows students what they have to work on to attain the mastery level.  Teachers can set different mastery levels for all students, to help them achieve individual success.  Not only can it be used individually, but as a whole group instruction with the option of using a classroom response system (clickers).  Students also have a game option, where they can play games if they answer correctly, this is a great motivator, because students see it as having fun, when they are actually learning! 

Overall Score: 

• Exemplary-48
• Very Good-12
• Good Rating-0
• Substandard-2

 

Here is a link to my Web2.0 Evaluations with the complete scores and charts to compare each site by criterion and by overall rating.   

(u02a2) Media Library Link

Here is the link to my EDIM514-CC media library http://www.diigo.com/user/seperez/EDIM514-CC. 
I've chosen a variety of clipart/images, audio, and video links that can surely help educators and students in their assignments under the creative commons licenses.  I read each of the sites terms of use policy and they all meet free for educators and students to use, and although none have a creative commons licesnse their copyright restrictions fall under what is known as the Creative Commons (2001) license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs , CC BY-NC-ND.   

References

Creative Commons.  (2001, December 19).  About the Licenses.  Retrieved March 23, 2011, from Creative Commons:  https://creativecommons.net.

u02a1: CC Your Work

I've selected to use the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license for my blog.  According to Creative Commons (2001), this specific license lets others:

·         Remix, tweak, and build upon my work non-commercially, and

·         Although their new works must also acknowledge the primary parties contribution/work, and

·         Be non-commercial as well, yet

·         The new party doesn’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Being an educator, I see that with my work I’ve help other educators and used other’s work, or build upon other’s work to meet what I need to implement in my classroom.  Furthermore, I see my work as non-profit, because I’m not selling it I’m using it myself and if it can help my colleagues then fabulous.  Therefore, I chose this license because I feel that my work is free for others to use and build upon non-commercially and implement their new work non-commercially, since I didn’t sell it in the first place.  Plus as long as they acknowledge that their new content/work came from my previous idea or work I feel that they are not plagiarizing or taking all the credit, and crediting me for my efforts.  I’ve always lived by the motto my teachers taught me long ago, “Always give credit where credit is due, because you’d always like to get that same credit back for your own work.”

As a teacher I would encourage my students to look into and choose this specific license for their personal work because of the first three key points and explain to them what would occur if someone wants to use or build upon their original work through this license.  I would tell them how the CC BY-NC license plays on their work as follows: 

·         Students work is non-profitable, thus non-commercial, so if they are not making any profits those who want to build upon their work shouldn’t either, and 

·         Because the primary party is the major contributor to the new parties work, they should acknowledge the primary parties initial ideas (Creative Commons, 2001).

References

Creative Commons.  (2001, December 19).  About the Licenses.  Retrieved March 23, 2011, from Creative Commons:  https://creativecommons.net.

u01a1: Blog Your Results

Hello and Welcome!

Once again, I'm Sara E. Perez, and I am a 3rd Grade Teacher at Valley View Elementary where I attended as a child myself.  This is my third year teaching 3rd Grade and I absolutely love what I do!  I feel that incorporating technology in the classroom is very important and here is a link to a video I made on supporting technology in the classroom, hope you enjoy it!

I'm known as the tech-geek on campus, by native and immigrant digital teachers. I implement a wide range of technology from my classroom, and most important to me is my Smart Board and CPU, I just can't live without. I use PowerPoint’s and videos from Discovery Education to introduce new concepts weekly. My eInstruction clickers are one that my students love, they say it’s like the Wii, and I use them to assess my students’ progress through an Internet program called StudyIsland. I also use many links already customized for each concept and grade level by www.internet4theclassroom.com. Furthermore, I use BrainPOP(www.brainpop.com) and BrainPOPJr. (www.brainpopjr.com) to motivate my students, they truly like to watch Moby, and there's always a neat quiz after each clip! Finally, to have fun with my students I create Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire like games on target skills weekly, and we both achieve success, they have fun and I assess!

Why do I choose to use all these types of digital media? It's quite simple, I'm a media person myself, and through my learning experiences I've realized that I learn better when there are different types of teaching methods, but technology is always the most interesting, and I feel extra focused to learn. I know that children in the 21st century are extremely exposed to digital media and well, they just can't live without it! I feel more comfortable teaching when I have so many resources of digital media to help me through my curriculum and help my students succeed! By instigating all these types of digital media in my classroom, I always have 100% participation, 100% attendance, and great classroom management. In my past two years in 3rd grade I've had 100% of my students pass the state assessment (TAKS) in both reading and math, and the use of digital media has assisted me in my accomplishments! I feel the students are more engaged and they have fun and like to attend school, which is something I'm proud of! Saying so, I'd never change the structure of my teaching, I love it and it works not only for me, but for my students!

This is my 5th class in the Instructional Media program at Wilkes University, I'm half way done, YAY! :)  All through the half of the program I've enjoyed all that I've learned and have implemented it in my classroom quickly and easily.  My students have enjoyed all the new techniques and tools that I have brought to them, and they ask for more!   =)

The Origins of Halloween

For my virtual field trip I decided to incorporate the different origins of Halloween and how it was celebrated as well as for my students to compare and contrast Halloween in America to Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico.  Since we live so close to the border of Mexico, many of my students celebrate Mexcian cultures and traditions, so I thought it would be a good way to incorporate reading and social studies through this virtual field trip.


Goals:
Social Studies:  TLW learn and discuss on the history and origins of Halloween from different countries.
Reading:  TLW compare and contrast Halloween in America to Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico.  TLW create a venn-diagram for Halloween in America and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico. 
Art:  TLW create and design their own ghost as a symbol of Halloween and a calaver (skull) as a symbol of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).  


Within this lesson I've planned for the development of the students respectful and ethical minds. 
The Respectful Mind:  TLW respect the different celebrations and customs from various cultures. 
The Ethical Mind:  TLW understand and identify the different point of views of Halloween from the different cultural celebrations of Halloween, including their own. 


Halloween Origins

5 Minds For The Futute

Blog:  More lessons taught with technology

After reading this blog, I sat back and wondered... wait a minute that's exactly what I'm doing and what I need to do.  I try to use as much technology as I can in my instruction and I would say that yearly the amount of technology I use in my classroom increases, and I keep on learning and implementing new resources (many thanks to what I've learned at Wilkes).  My school district also implements the PowerSchool for parent and teacher access, and just this week we have a new web page through collaboration with sharpschool.net, it has new tools and resources and has a section where educators throughout the district can collaborate with each other through online discussion boards, which is very interesting to see what it will do for us!  The one thing that I really enjoyed reading on was a teacher class web page.  Currently I don't have a class web page, but I would greatly enjoy creating one for my students and their parents, although I'm not very familiar on that subject, but I plan to learn and create one for this year.  After seeing the reaction of my students while using Glogster I found that they really enjoy collaborating amongst each other and unraveling their creative mind.  I think if I want my students to succeed developing their five minds, I must first strengthen my five minds and use it to foster my students. 

References

Bonnie Washuk, S. W. (2010, September 28).  More Lessons Taught with Technology.  Retrieved October 12, 2010, from Sun Journal: http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/916594