FINAL REFLECTIONS

How quickly  time passed by, and here we are, at the end  of this amazing mooc that I have enjoyed so much.

First of all, I have to thank Shelly and Fabiana for all the support and encouraging  messages and also for leading such a creative and fantastic mooc.

From the very begginnig I felt edger to do my tasks because I had a lot of fun learning and carrying them out.

My favorite assignments were creating a  learning mission for students and building my teacher survival kit. It was fun using some tools as Genial.ly or Canva.

The unit which helped me to grow the most was, without doubt, Effective technology integration. It gave me a deeper insight into renewed pedagogies connected with digital learning approaches.

Planning a collaborative project with peers was the most challenging part of the mooc because it not only depends on your work but it also depends on being connected with your partners and reaching  an agreement.

This course has helped me to have a critical thinking about teaching and to plan my classroom  tasks in a different way so that my students can be more  motivated and acquire a deep learning.

Thanks to everyone and hope seeing you on the social networks!!😘

Reflection, week 5.. A collaborative project

This week's task  was  about to start a collaborative project with our MOOC partners . S

etting a collaborative plan in such little time and finding peers with common interests was quite difficult but, at last, we found the way to set up a future Art Project with two partners, Tiziana Angiolini, from Italy and Shayne Train, from Canada and me, from Spain.

At first, we got in touch by Facebook  and later, we contacted by email and by videoconference using Appear.in. 

On the other hand, using the Google doc template provided, we started sharing ideas and building up the project. Finally we created a Google slide presentation on which we will continue working afterwards to carry out our project.

We will collaborate on an Arts-based project called" Arts helps us see connections"

From this experience I have learned to accept and exchange ideas and suggestions and adapt them to the project, always thinking of the common good. 

It was very enriching working in peers.  I have not only learned to collaborate in a group but I have also discovered new technological tools as well as other ideas have enhanced my view  of the project

Thanks to Shelly Terry for her support and help. We will be happy to send you the outcomes  of the project once it is done.

REFLECTION, WEEK 4

It  I was fun to recall  all the things that belongs to my survival school kit. Even after doing the interactive photo I remembered  a few things that I use in my daily school life such as my tea mug, my bottle of water and my toiletries stuff..

This survival kit is essential for me to deal with any unforeseen event that may happen in the classroom. More than once I have made use of these activities that I have as plan B to get out of the way to an internet crash for instance.

The other task of the week was creating a resource hub for parents in order to keep them aware of the drawbacks that surfing on the internet can suppose in a very early age and without  parental control.

With a simple guide we  can give them  an approach of the basics of privacy and how  to help children create a safe  digital footprint.

 I set up a web page with Google Sites called saftyonlinesurfers. It has a principal page with  basic tips collected in an ifographic  that I made with Canva and another  two pages: Social networking and Surfing safety on the web.

Involving parents in school life  is enriching, both for the school and for them, so we must take the first step in getting in touch  and giving them guidance to manage behavior, the use of new technologies or other issues that may arise  throughout the academic  course.

DIGITAL SAFETY RESOURCE FOR PARENTS

 To create the parents' internet resource I chose Google Sites. Here is the direct link to the web site but I also create a link  from my blog to the website that you can see above in the headline banner.


safetyonlinesurfers

MY TEACHER SURVIVAL KIT

Thanks to this new task I have found out that I have a Survival tool Kit!!!.... All the things that I take to class at the beginning of every academic year and also those activities that I prepare, organize and store in different digital tools are part of my teaching life...I must add some toiletries, My tea mug and my bottle of water

REFLECTION, WEEK 3

It is a fact that the role of  technology in the current world and student population is leading us to big changes in our daily life  and school.  After analyzing the results of our t digital footprint task,  we can clearly say that technology plays a very important role in students’ lives from an early age. This is why educators  are introducing changes in their teaching process. Technology is highly valued by students out of the classroom so if we integrate it in  class, the learning environment will be meaningful for students and will grasp their attention and awake their motivation.

This week we have  made an approach to different digital theories: SAMR model; revised Bloom's revised taxonomy, RAT model,  Peeragogy, etc. All of them provide teachers with helpful  strategies to adapt our traditional lessons in order to help students gain new skills related to digital resources and a safety and conscious use of technology.

We were asked to create a mapmind of one of the different digital theories and I have chosen The SAMR MODEL because  in my opinion, it really helps educators to integrate technology into teaching step by step and  furthermore,  linking it to  Bloom's  revised taxonomy,  the outcome of  learning process  reaches higher levels of  achievement.

The other task was surveying our students about their digital footprint in order to better understand their digital activities. The results showed that   students are digitally active at a very early age; their online activity is somehow controlled by their parents and they are aware of the dangers on the internet and try to keep themselves safe.

DIGITAL FOOTPRINT SURVEY

To take this survey among my students I copied the google forms example given in the instructions. Then I sent it to students of 2 ESO and to other students that are part of the school band, so the age range is between 13 and 20 years old. You can read the results below, in the following presentation. I must point out that some students emailed me back telling that the had fun filling out the survey.

Analyzing students digital footprint survey from lennypop

In conclusion, students are digitally active at a very early age, joining social networks, surfing on the internet and using communication tools but, on the other hand, they are aware of the dangers on the internet and try to keep themselves safe not sharing personal details, photos, videos, etc.There is a certain parental control but I think that is not enough. I think that my duty as a teacher should be to help and warn them about the proper use of new technologies as useful learning tools