Homework+Stuff+for+EDU+583

This is a movie clip I did for EDU 583 Final Reflection. media type="custom" key="4242005"

Reflection Chapter 1



Reflection Chapter 2 Equity



This is my Essential Belief Statement essay.



This is link to my blog.

[|carlosedu568.blogspot.com]

Chapter 5 TPCK An integrated framework for educating world language teachers

Chapter 5 makes me reflect on where I’m at pedagogically and technologically in my teaching profession as a world language teacher (WLT). While reading the chapter, I have done a mental inventory of the cognitive knowledge of the subject I teach, the educational goals or aims for the students I teach, the pedagogical practices I use in my teaching of Spanish, and my technological abilities teaching the world language I teach. I feel that in the case of my teacher’s cognitive knowledge of the subject I teach is very solid because I have superior proficiency in Spanish in the lexical, syntactical, semantic, phonological and grammatical areas of my first language. In addition, I have first hand knowledge of the culture of the language I teach because I grew up in a Spanish speaking country. Therefore, these factors allow me great advantages when I put my cognitive resources to benefit my students. The second area this chapter evokes thought of is the educational aims or goals I have always strive to use in order to promote second language acquisition (SLA). But why is SLA important when teaching a world language? Chapter 5 discusses the linguistic theories of Noam Chomsky, Krashen, Long, Swain. What their theories have as a common thread is the believe that students are capable of acquiring native-like fluency and proficiency in the second language (L2) if educators are able to provide sound pedagogical practices toward such an end. I’m a firm believer of their linguistic theories, particularly the linguistic theory proposed by Chomsky. He explains that human beings are born with the innate capacity of acquiring languages. Children use the particular phonetic sounds of languages to create grammatical blue prints for the languages they are exposed to during their early developmental stages. The school level I teach (K-4) is the perfect ground to observe Chomsky’s theory at work. Therefore, my pedagogical practices are geared toward providing my students with the learning environment to achieve native-like proficiency in Spanish. The Chapter also discusses how world language teachers usually utilize communication information technology (CIT) not only to increase their students levels of accuracy in vocabulary pronunciation and usage, but also they only use to the levels they are comfortable use it, and this is where I feel I’m at in terms of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) practices. I mostly use technology to enhance the teaching of vocabulary. For example, I use in my lessons a website called BBC Spanish. Students get to practice the target vocabulary through hypertext, hypermedia games. It has been a successful technological instructional practice, however this is as far as I have moved toward the integration of technology in my world language curriculum. The chapter makes me realize that I’m in uncharted waters where it comes to the integration of TPCK in the teaching of Spanish to my students, and it also poses a professional challenge for me to achieve. My hope is that I can make the vision of incorporating TPCK to the world language curriculum my own.

**Type I Applications** are those applications in education that make it easier, faster and simpler or otherwise more convenient

to continue teaching in traditional ways.

**Type II Applications** are those uses that make it possible teach in new and better ways-ways not possible without information technology.

As I read Chapter 9, I have come to understand how intertwined technology is to science. And from a constructivist point of view, it seems that scientific advances have triggered the creation of new technology in order to explore or research problems or phenomena observed by scientists. The chapter also makes me think about two occasions that, in my role as an educator, I have had the need for technology in order to teach science concepts. I taught the concept of buoyancy to two groups of fifth graders. In the first occasion teaching this concept, I had to work alone in my capacity as a science teacher, and due to the lack of time or the equipment, I had to rely on textbooks or worksheets in order to teach the concept. I knew the way I had developed the unit was lacking sound pedagogical practices. My students had not grasped the idea of buoyancy. The following year, I worked in a different school with a group of colleagues at the same teaching level. We had the time to plan the buoyancy activities that we wanted to develop, so that our students would understand the concept. I was in charge or researching web sites on the subject, and I found information about the Titanic wreckage, and the web site explained the concept of ocean water’s buoyancy, and we used this information in order to get the kids in school excited about the topic. The activity was a great success, and I really feel that the students came away with the concept in the end. In the particular unit that I’m developing for “Backward” design, I think technology could be great in order to show students the journey the Monarch butterfly follows from Mexico all the way back North. There is a web site where students get to see day to day updates of the path the butterflies follow on their migration north. It is important to mention that without technology such as satellite communication, such scientific observation would be virtually impossible to be brought into the regular classroom. Instead, at a cheaper cost, students can experience the opportunity of seeing the Monarch butterfly journey north, and they can also see on a digital map where Mexico is located and the path being followed by the butterfly across the different states through America. Another aspect that I find very important in this chapter is to make an inventory of the technologies available at school in order to make the activity successful, and to develop smoothly. In the case of my school, the level of students I will be working with are very familiar with the use of Macs in the computer laboratory, so it is probably wiser to use this resource because these type of computers are the ones students are used to, so I will not have to start the activity from scratch teaching students how to use the word application, and how to go on line.
 * Chapter 9 Reflection **
 * __ Science, Technology and Teaching the Topic-Specific Challenges of TPCK in Science __**

Chapter 6

Toward Democracy Social Studies and TPCK

The chapter on Social studies and TPCK brings me to recall a recent teaching experiences. The topic I taught was “the Ancient Aztecs”. The web is rich on sources on the subject. However, as I perused through the information on the web sites, I encountered two issues when planning pedagogical activities for it. The Aztecs information on the sites was either too extensive or it had been written for a college reading level. The students I was going to present this information to were at an elementary school level. Thus, this presented one of my first technological pedagogical content challenges in planning for this lesson. When I finally selected websites I thought appropriate for my students’ reading level, it turned out that the reading activities were very stressful for some of the students with reading disabilities. So, I had to research deeper in the websites. However, it was easier locating library books on the subject, which were friendlier for the reading level of these students. I see some positive and negative outcomes when teaching social studies through the aid of digital technology. On the one hand, one of the unintended positive outcomes, which came through doing this activity using the Web, was that some of the students were able to appreciate the richness and creativity of the ancient Aztecs. Since digital technology can provide such powerful images for the information, which students read on the sites, and aiding students who are visual learners and students in general to reach a higher level of understanding of the information presented to them. On the other hand, one of the negative unintended outcomes, which came when using websites to teach historical information on the ancient civilization, was that students tend to oversimplify their assignments by cutting and pasting information they find on the sites. Even though, they may give credit to the articles’ authors, students fail to do a throughout analysis of it. Often times, some of these authors of educational websites are so efficient in summarizing, analyzing and synthesizing the information that students may decide that the task of comprehending it has already been done for them. Therefore, it is important for educators to be well acquainted with the information and websites students will read in the websites, so that teachers can easily monitor that students do a throughout project. A second aspect I find interesting in this social studies chapter is the section where it talks about the fear some educators have of being replaced by computers. Even though this fear has lessen among educators, now that I have advanced deeper into my masters program and how digital technologies can aid teaching, I have come to understand that such fear is quite irrational. To make an analogy of this irrational fear, it would be as if educators back in the early days of standardized school education would have been afraid of having chalkboards in their classrooms because chalkboards have been so efficient in their affordances, so that people would have decided to replace teachers with them since they are so good at doing what they are designed to do (follow my meaning). Finally, a third aspect I find to be an eye opener is what John Dewey suggested that educators should do in order to help citizens achieve a democratic society for all. Technology has the potential of aiding citizens to reach such goal. However, as Mario Kelly mentions it in chapter 2, there is already a digital gap between those individuals who are “full frequency users” and those who are not, presenting an education pedagogical challenge for the social studies area. With the appropriate digital resources, social studies can contribute to break social barriers, bringing through digital classrooms students of all backgrounds to a more democratic educational arena because it can help to authentically represent American society. Therefore, citizens would be able to take these digital technological experiences of working with peers who have different backgrounds from theirs, and used them to think of real solutions once they are challenged by real problems in their communities.

= This video is for my student's product sample for the UbD Unit for EDU 583. = media type="custom" key="4242049"

= This is a musical video for the Monarch Butterfly Unit. =

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