Tool 8 (Video Resources)

Videos are useful resources because learning is no longer limited by a classroom's walls. These videos I selected will expose my students to things that they could probably wouldn't be able to experience due to time, location, or economic status.

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Machu Pichu Part 1 0f 3 - Source: Sun Channel (found through blinkx)

Machu Pichu Part 2 0f 3
Machu Pichu Part 3 0f 3

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The Secret Pyramid Engineering of Egypt - Source: YouTube

Tool 7 (Storytelling - PhotoStory)

This is something I created using PhotoStory.

Students can greatly benefit from making digital stories in any subject. Once they know the skills and have the resources to do these kind of assignments, they can compile all the information learned in any subject and serve as a review or assessment for that unit, subject, topic. etc.

Tool 6 (Wikis)

Students might use wikis in many different ways. All of the ideas that I have in mind are based on collaboration, which is what wikis are all about. One way I could use wikis in my classroom is to have students work on a interactive story where students will keep on adding to the story to make it as interesting as possible with everyone's participation. In my team, we could definitely use wikis when planning an activity at school or a field trip. We can have a list of whatever is needed and interactively assign duties in order to have whatever needs to be ready for such activity or field trip. Not only this, but you can also use wikis to share documents although Google Docs might be more convenient to use in this case.

Tool 5 (Diigo & Delicious Tags)

I searched in Diigo and Delicious using Tags and came up with these two interesting websites.

Third (3rd) Grade Skills | Internet 4 Classrooms (Delicious)
IXL Math (Diigo)

I used the tags "interactive, math, 3rd grade, activities"to locate the information.

Social bookmarking will be useful in my classroom by having different websites bookmarked containing information or activities about different content areas so that my students can go into one place and find this information no matter if they are at their home or school computer. It will facilitate access to both, other teachers and students.

Tool 4 (Google Docs & Reader)

I have created a Google Document (MS WORD) and I am sharing it with two of my collegues in charge of the 2010-2011 Science Curriculum Writing. In regards to the Google Reader, I am using it to follow the blogs of the following teachers: Happy teaching, Moni-Ks Musings, speedlimit20, Summer 2010, and HR blog.

These 2 Google tools will aid in the classroom when having the students cooperatively respond to a book being read or when researching a topic in any content area. The more you have students interact, the better and enriched their learning process will be.

Tool 3 (Image Generators)

I chose Big Huge Labs and Image Chef to create two images. The first one was a motivational poster in which I used a picture I took during my son's soccer practice and I placed this poster at the very tp of my blog. The secong image I created, I placed it on the side bar of my blog and I used a picture I took from my son during his summer soccer camp.
These two examples of image generators can be used in the classroom to make the posters for your centers and also for rewarding students in any content area. For example, creating a picture with a frame that has something to do with Math, or Science, etc.

Tool 2 (Post in My Blog - PLN)

This is a response to Personal Learning Networks.

1. My thoughts in regards to building an online education community is the challenge of finding other people interested in the same topics that you are. It is not impossible, but it requires a lot of advertising from our part to get the community growing. When it comes to students, this would be much easier as you will direct them to follow and be part or your PLN.

2. The point that stood out to me from the commenting advice was that young people are already part of this online interactivity via facebook, my space, blogger, etc. Our role as educators is to build on top of that social network and funnel those already acquired skills into a learning network.

3. Five blogs I selected for my comments are: Mrs. Alvarado's Blog 1 (Westwood), Armando Arias, Kindergarten at SOE, Joy into Teaching, Elementary Education (Shadow Oaks).