Tool # 6 I am digging this!

I really liked Wallwisher,you can create it really fast, students do not need to create an account and can be used as a quick assignment. I did two samples of the two commands, but I am not sure why they do not show. However, if you click at the bottom where it says "Post a sticky note", it will take you to the original wall I created. You can see the samples I did, click on the wall and add your own command if you wish to. This is fun!

In the link bellow, I am sharing a bookmark on my Diigo space. This is something we can share with students via twitter, facebook or by creating a group in my own diigo account. This reading is about the Imperfect Vs Preterite. I expect the students to read, highlight what they think is interesting, but they can also ask questions by adding sticky notes. Check it out and tell me what you think. Could this be uploaded in google docs, so everyone can collaborate? I am wondering, with so many tools I am starting to get a bit confused. Please let me know.

The Imperfect Vs Preterite: Read, highlight and ask questions

Tool # 5 This is just great!

Although I found this tool very interesting and fun, I encountered various problems or challenges along the way. For starters,some of the videos in the 11 tools blog, are not longer working! so I had to find the information somewhere else. Then, I had some trouble uploading my prezi presentation on the blog. I wanted to embed the  presentation on the post not to hot link, and that, although easy in the end, took me quite some time to figure out.
Then, I visited, explored and even created something on go animated, which I thought would be awesome to add as an assignment for the students; however, at the last step, it prompted me to pay if I actually wanted to see what I had created. Then, I tried other sites that sounded interesting, but also were either paid or just would not work for what I had in mind. Finally, I ended up with prezi and storybird.com
I found prezi very easy to use. I really like it because you can add  images, videos and text with no hassle at all and put together a nice presentation in just minutes!
Bellow is  my presentation which I plan to use to introduce the Present progressive to the class.

El Presente Progresivo on Prezi

Storybird, I plan to use it as an assignment for the students at the end of the semester. At the end of the semester when they have learned the past tense and the imperfect, I ask them to write a short story using the two tenses. This year, I will have them work in storybird where they can also collaborate and publish their work. Although I opened a regular account, I plan to open a teacher account later when I am ready for the project. Students can download their book if they want to at the reasonable price of $2.99 or just have it in their account in storybird.
Here is the short story I wrote, which is a sample of what I might expect to see from my students.


la historia de martha by yosetm on Storybird

Tool # 4 The Google Apps

Google Apps is one of those other things I have been hearing for some time now, but had  not the chance to explore. I am really amazed in how things  I thought were already easy such as sending an attachment to my friends, can actually be easier.  When I heard google docs, I always thought about a word document, so I was also surprised to learn, that I can actually create presentations and have other formats. 
I have created this presentation about the present progressive which I have shared with a couple of co-workers so they can help me edit it.



How can use this in my class? Easy, from time to time, I like my students to work in group projects outside class time. However, finding the time to collaborate with a team outside school, sometimes is challenging for them because of their different schedules. With google docs, they can collaborate from the comfort of their home and at their convenience.  This is something I will definitely try to use!

Tool#3 We all love Videos and pics

There is  no denying, we all love to add some videos and pictures to our class whenever possible. Students also love videos and get all excited when they know this will be part off the lesson.

My primary source for videos in my class has been YouTube, the amount of material that can be found is just amazing and I have been able in the past, to embed them into power point presentations, so I do not have to deal with other distractions. Later, I discovered Teacher tube. I opened an account in teacher tube, and I use it to actually upload my students work.  A couple of times during the year, my students are required to create a video and I ask them to upload them here or to you Tube. The advantage of Teacher Tube is that I know the content they find there,while navigating, will be safe, as opposed to you tube where they can run into all kind of weird stuff, even when searching for something related to my class. 
The following is a sample of one of my student's work for unit 2A.  For this project students were asked to describe their daily routine using reflexive verbs. Students were given several choices for presentation such as power points, videos, and the old fashioned construction paper books. The student in the video is not one of my bests student in the class and has various grammatical mistakes; however, he got really excited about this assignment and was eager to share it with the rest of the class. I gave them three homework grades for this assignment and a couple of weeks to be completed.

New to me: Discovery Education: I think there are a couple of videos that I can actually use from this site, but honestly, not that many. You can checkout the one I found about Preterit Vs Imperfect in the link bellow. There is also a thumps down for this site, please correct me if I am wrong, but is my understanding that although there is a sharing option, this just provides the link. Once you open the link, it will still request a username and password before opening the file. 

The Imperfect progressive (Click to see the Video)

I Also Check out Blinkx which I found very similar to You Tube. I typed on the search “The present Progressive” and most of the videos that gave me were actually from you Tube.

About Copyright, I learned that as long as we, teachers and students, are publishing to a secure location, we are basically fine. What we cannot do is copy or published copyright materials to the general public. Because of this, I think sites like Flicker are good choices for images, so you don’t have to worry about copyrights.

Finally, Dropbox.  I already have a Dropbox account and so far, I believe this can be useful for my personal use. I can store lessons plans and other materials I create without the worry that if my computer crashes or is stolen, my work will be lost, as everything will be stored online.  

Have you found any uses for dropbox in the classroom? If so, please share. 

The videos I embedded here, are videos I will actually use in the unit I am teaching now.

                                          The Present Progressive

Tool # 2 And we are just getting started…

Wow! That was a LOT of info. Some of the points that stood out from the commenting advice, where the ones related to:  how to make our blogs more interesting to the readers and the rules of Netiquette.

I believe when writing on a device, we may forget that this is the new way of “interacting,” so we still need to invite comments and ask questions, although sometimes, we might see that not every blogger out there might be following  these basic rules.  I particularly loved the “Be open ended” advice.  We are NOT ALWAYS the experts and there is ALWAYS something to learn from EVERYONE, which leads to the next advice. Be Humble!  Not always an easy task for some of us. Do you think this is an educator thing? I mean, after all, we are taught to always show confidence and expertise in front of our audience (our students). Moreover, to show our weaknesses, failings and gaps in our own Knowledge might not be something we are used to. But hey, please add on, I really would like to hear how you feel about this.

Regarding Netiquette, I guess we all agree, we need to adhere to the same standards of behavior online, that we would follow in real life. So let’s be gracious, encourage others and my favorite: “Comment if you have something meaningful to add to the conversation and care about the topic.

All in all, I think I am starting to add some spice to my blog. I added questions, invited for comments and…am I being controversial? Well, maybe not yet. You tell me.

Last but not least, I would like to share the URL to the new space I intend to explore more.

http://www.diigo.com/network/seranata29  This is my space at Diigo.com. This is a site that aims to improve your online productivity. It allows you to take personal notes and highlight text information on web pages just as you would on a piece of paper. You can then bookmark and save this information for further review. All of this information is also saved online and, can be accessed by any computer or browser, including cell phones with browsing capabilities. So, yes, I already downloaded the application on my Iphone4.  You are also able to network with other people that have your same interests, in this case, educators.

Tool 1. And here we go...

Although I enjoy technology, and I am always looking for something new to add into my classroom; this will be my first time blogging. (woohoo!) I have always wanted to explore blogging, but had not find the opportunity to get to it. 
So far, the experience has been fairly easy as I find myself comfortable using technology.  However,  will see what new challenges this brings.
I am excited to learn more about the new technologies that may be available out there and hope I can find some that can be useful for me, as well for my students.