It has been a nice and challenging time to take this
class; as we were exposed to many different tools that can be included in our
lessons. So, I learnt many good things to take into account when planning
online classes as I had the opportunity to explore a variety of interesting and
funny tools for students to have fun while learning. And as a teacher, it was a
great time because now I know how to manage different tools that I can use to
develop different skills and abilities in my students. I have to say that
thanks to this term; I have become more creative in a certain way; as I have
many more options to include when planning classes and it helped me a lot
because I was not and I´m not still good at working with technology and all
that stuff. But I did my best to try to use all the sources I was exposed to.
And for sure I am going to use them for my futures classes.
Trying new things is fantastic but sometimes we do not
want to experience or to change the things we are accustomed to, so for working
with online tools someone needs to be persuasive and open-minded so that this
person can really focus on the needs of his or her students. As any activity we
plan must always have the purpose of helping or facilitating students learning
and when working online we have to be careful as well, as we have to be smart
and choose the appropriate tool which will better fit the students´ interests
and necessities.
And I think any tool can be adjusted to any subject the
only thing that matters is our willingness to implement those tools in our
class and to find a way to use it properly or to give the chance to students to
find out the way they want to work with a specific website. Now a day, there is
a bunch of websites that you can use for free, for instance, Kwiqpoll, Infinite.ly,
In Focus, Slide.ly , Hello Slide,
Edcanvas , Loose Leaves, http://www.quandarygame.org/teachers etc.
All of the tools listed above can be used for
educational purposes as they have different applications that let us create
interesting and appealing slides, stories or any other thing that can come to
our minds. So just let your imagination fly and create cool things that can
change the way you perceive the learning process. I can say that teachers are
the ones in charge of making our learning more appealing because if they use a
variety of activities students will become more interested in their job.
Moreover, teachers can make a simple class an amazing one just by adding the
use of these tools to their teaching process. For instance, a science class
could be more attractive for students when using online sources as now a day
people are more familiar with technology. I would say a science teacher could
use slide.ly to have students creating their own presentation about nature, the
weather or any topic they are studying. Likewise, when teaching marketing;
teacher may use quandarygame to make students think of strategies and solutions
for certain problems and that could help them become more critical thinking.
Indeed, I enjoyed this Technology class as all of us
gained experiences about dealing with online tools. And I would not left out
anything we did because with every activity we developed we enriched our
knowledge. May be it would be a great idea to teach students how to create a
webpage or I would like to know how to administrate MOODLE; for example, how
you open the spaces for students to upload their assignments and things related
to it. But despite that everything was excellent.
Summing up, I want to point out that throughout this
time I could realize that we can facilitate our students learning, we only have
to put a plus and incorporate innovating and catching activities to our class.
Thanks for your time and your patience teacher you are really kind!
Here I am leaving a video which includes some
websites, you can explore them!! It can help you when teaching not only English but other subjects...
