Kidspiration Video

Feedback Reflection - Kidspiration

The feedback that I received from my peers was very helpful. The software that I choose for this assignment it Kidspiration is software for teachers and students to create concept maps, visual math tools and improve reading and writing skills of the students. Last week I presented to my peers a draft of the steps and directions manual on how to use the software and also a video that support the written manual. They gave me good observations and suggestions. At the beginning by video-tutorial did have audio, so I took this suggestion and I added audio to the video that I did, as I said in class I don’t like my tone of voice, so publicly I want to give thanks to Danielle my friend that she help me to add audio to the tutorial video. Also I add more detail steps to the written manual. I need to say that I really enjoy doing this assignment because I not only learn how to use one software, but I also learned how to do videos of screen shots and how to add audio to the video. As well I posted in my Wiki and Youtube, I saw this assignment as an integrated project of all the things that I learned in this course.

“Pay it forward”….like the movie!

This reflection I want to start it, saying that changes can be made depending how much do you believe in them. Sometime ago, I came from Venezuela to Oklahoma because I wanted to learn how to the things in a different way. In my country the things are running pretty bad but I believe like in the movie "Pay it forward" the changes not necessarily need to be done in macro in big scale. If you help just one person to make changes in education, that person can repeat the same action in other person.

After DR. Bonk's presentation I went out with many thoughts how this professor with many connections can help Latin America specifically in Venezuela. One of the ideas that came to my head that day were how big corporations can help disadvantaged communities to have libraries (lets called a place to read books) and also have access to Internet. This is just an idea that can impact in many.

Too many technological things???

During the discussion that we have during class about Dr. Bonk's presentation I thought about yes they are many technological applications, softwares, and even gadgets that can do the same things. It is like the Ipad, the Kindle, and the Sony Reader these are just examples of technology pieces that basically do the same, those are electronic devises for digital reading. So, I think that this happened in order to conserve the principles behind the market theory of supply and demand. Also I believe that not depend on the things to be educational per se they solution can be presented by people related in the educational field.

Review of www.download-esl.com

In this web page you can find different things like PowerPoints, videos, worksheets and quizzes that can help and support the lessons. Also they offer for free podcast and MP3 and MP4s.

I check this web site and I found it very interesting. As ESL myself and ESL teacher in Venezuela, because I was English teacher for preschoolers, this type of web page can help a lot to support the lesson plan. For example one of the units that my students always where very motivated to learn was "The Animals", and in this page I found I section just for K-12 (http://www.english-4kids.com), where I found PowerPoint with sound and images of farm animals, also they have worksheets that can support the written production of the students of the English language.

The web page I found it well organized and the navigation was pretty simple and the menu on the left side help the navigation.

Besides all the activities that this web page provides, they also include MP3s files for practicing pronunciation with American English accent. Finally I can say as ESL student/ex-ESL teacher I can recommend this Web page.