Final Reflection

FINAL REFLECTION

 

1. What did I know about what we have done in this course?

When teachers presented to us the guideline that we were going to follow during the two months that lasted the course, I saw that I had use  some of the web pages or tools that appeared like Canva, Word, Excel, Blogger and some online dictionaries.

 

2. What have I learnt? 

 

After finishing these two moths of intensive work, I could conclude saying that I have get a huge knowledge about a lot of diverse web pages that can be useful for many things that in the future we are going to use as teachers, like for example, MySympleShow, Powtoon, Canva, Kahoot, SotryJumper, StoryBoard, etc. These tools are very functional because make the activities more attractive and dynamic to children and also shows another type of input, regarding the traditional printed flashcards. 

3. What is going to be the most useful for me? And the least? Why?

On one hand, the most useful for me are going to be some tools that I have mention on the previous question. As I am going to be a childhood education teacher, the tools that caught my eye were the ones that the input was visual and also the ones that you can ad an audio or song. Because children in childhood education do not know or they are working on communicative skills (writing, reading, speaking...) they need a lot of images, pictures, videos, etc., to comprehend what is the activity about or what they have to do to achieve the goal.

On the other hand, the least useful tools or web pages that we have used during this course are, for example, Excel and Coogle, as children are too young to know how to use these tools because in order to use them you need to have knowledge about computers and mathematical operation, and children of their age do not have this level of cognition yet. 

 

4. What have I liked the most?

What I have liked the most are the pages that allowed me to create digital stories like Powtoon, StoryJumper, SotryBoardand MySympleshow.

 

5. What you are able to do with technology when the course started, and what are you able to do now?

Before the course started, I was very resistant to use technologies in class with my future students, as today in our society children spend the most of their time with a screen glued to their faces, but now, thanks to some of the tools I changed my mind. So, when I started this course I was not really aware of how amazing the technology can be to create web pages or tools for teachers to help them create interactive and motivating materials; and now, I am able to use these pages that are going to be very useful and practical in my future job.

 

6. What  you think teachers in general and language teachers in particular should know about technology?

Teachers in general should now and take into consideration web pages that could be useful for them in their every day life in class, like for example, teachers of primary education should know how to use Excel to revise marks and who has attend to class and who doesn't. Also, they should now tools that are related to creating motivational and inspiring activities, so students don't get bored or frustrated. And, language teachers in particular should know the same that I have mentioned for the general teachers, but also they should manage a different range of online dictionaries to revise every time they want how a word is written or pronounced. 

7. And how you think this course has helped you to be more effective teacher?

This course has helped me to more effective as a teacher because it has shown me that even thought the activities that we create are online, they also take time to think and to create, as you can ad or remove may things. So, it has given me the vision about how also internet is a time demanding tool.

Final Symbaloo

 FINAL SYMBALOO

The second entrance of my Blog was a screen capture of my initial page of Symbaloo, and I remember that I had a lot of web pages that the page already give you but non of them was there because I used them or because I knew about them. But, taking a look at my final page of my Symbaloo I can see and confirm that I learned a lot in these two months because I have four rows of web pages, that some of them I used before this subject, but the majority of them not, so I feel proud to be able to use them all correctly and to have enlarge my knowledge about ICTS.

Powtoon

 POWTOON

Today was our last day of class, and Jesús showed us this amazing tool called Powtoon. Is a video animation creator where you can change almost everything you want: settings, images, characters, text, record your voice... The only drawback is that for many things you need to have the premium version, and in order to have this premium version you need to pay for it. 

He asked us to use this tool for a team homework and we decided to create our video thinking that it could be a very useful and fun idea to put it the first day of school, because this video is a presentation of the teachers that students will have during the three years of childhood education. I really enjoyed using this tool as is all well-visualized and easy to use.

Mysimpleshow

 MY SIMPLE SHOW

Three weeks ago, we had to create activities using ICTS, and I used Educaplay. I created an activity where children need to answer yes or no to questions about the hygiene routine. Today in class, the teacher has given us feedback about these activities and I decided to change the ICT tool, so instead of Educaplay, I have used MySympleShow, a video creator.

I create a story in which the teacher has to pause in the minute 0:16 to give time to children to answer the question that is proposed. Then, she will play the video again to see if their answers are correct.

For the CLIL Project, we had to create activities using ICT tools, and I decided to use MySympleShow as I liked it a lot. In deed, I did three activities for the CLIL project with this tool, for the activation part: one to activate student's knowledge about the hygiene routine (which is placed at the biggining of this entry) , another for the snack routine, and finally, one for the tidy up routine.

    Link for the snack routine video: https://videos.simpleshow.com/wQcRXHFhej

    Link for the tidy up routine video: https://videos.simpleshow.com/aAlBzSDk4D

SurveyMonkey

 SURVEYMONKEY

SurveyMonkey is an online web page that is used for doing surveys about any kind of topic. As future teachers, this web could be helpful for using their children's parents, like for example, to ask them for their permission to do an excursion, or to ask them for help in any activity, etc. So, we do not use a big quantity on paper and they can answer to the survey any time and anywhere.

Zoom

 ZOOM

Until the pandemic began I have never heard about zoom, and it turned out to be a very practical and helpful tool. The most interesting thing of it, in my opinion, is that you can share your screen with anyone that is in the meeting, and people can see what you are seeing at the same time, so students not get lost. In case there is another pandemic, this tool will be again a life jacket for many teachers, as well as for students.

Excel

 EXCEL

Excel is a tool that for me was always very complicated to use as you have to be very precise with the commands that you give to the computer. Yesterday in class, the teacher show us how to do math calculations for the average mark of the students. I find it very useful, but maybe for teachers of primary education as they have to mark a lot of things (homework, exams, worksheets, attitude, etc.); but for me, as a childhood education teacher I think that maybe it could be useful but not as much as for other teachers. Anyway, I really appreciated that Jesus teach us how to do it in case I will have to in the future.

Then, for homework, we had to do an activity on our own. This time, without having the teacher in front of us explaining what we had to do it turned out to be a little bit challenging as well as difficult, but finally, I think I did a great job.