Session 1: 11/02/2016

Session 1: 

Work management, professional development and social media

Today has been the first session of ICT subject. After explaining how the course will work and what we will do during the semester, the teacher has made us a questionnaire in order to know our  previous knowledge about the subject through Kahoot, a program that allows you to ask questions online to all students in the class.

After this, we have commented the importance of file management through cloud computing, having secure access to all of our applications from any device connected to the network: smartphone, tablet, desktop, laptop… and we have explined also quickly, because many already knew, tips editing on a google docs document: direct search of words, images, insert references, quotes, make comments…

In order to know our previous knowledge about the topic of this session (personal learning environment tools) we have made a questionnaire through this link, google docs questionnaire:

http://goo.gl/forms/AsM0VBBXoT

Then, the teacher has divided us in four groups with the aim of working different tools and resources and after that, present it to the class through a Google Docs Presentation. Each group member will have a role:

Organiser: Organises the work. Keeps people on task and on time.
ICT manager: Creates the presentation. Solves technical problems.
Speaker: Only person who asks questions to the teacher. Presents the group.
Team facillitator: Moderates discussions.

Finally the groups have presented the following tools, explaining to us how they work, how to use ...


- Group 1: Social Bookmarking: DIIGO. It’s a social network where you can save links you find interesting and share it with your mates.

- Group 2: Social Networks: Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin. Very popular and they can be very useful as teaching resources. Twitter is a microblogging service where you can opine, and share your opinion and those of others, about actuality topics; Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that we can use to find ideas for all. Linkedin is a social network where we can share our CV.

- Group 3: Organize, read and share. RSS. Feedly: Feedly is a tool that we can use for organize, read and share the content of our favourites sites and acces them all in one place.

- Group 4: RSS and content curation: Flipboard: Flipboard is our personal magazine where the content is filtered by ourself. It’s a simple place to keep up with your world.

After the presentations, which have helped us to learn more resources and more tools, we have evaluated the presentations of our partners in a constructive way.

I'm Georgina Rabasa

Hello!

My name is Georgina Rabasa, and I’m 22 years old. But next 24th of may, I will be 23! This is me in one of my travels. I love discovering the world and fortunately I had the opportunity to go to lots of beautiful places, and I will be doing it all life..

I finished my degree in Infant  Education last June and I’m actually working in Llar d’Infants el Trenet, in Terrassa, my city. I have a class with 18 students and they’re so cute and lovely. Every day I wake up so motivated to do lots of things with my pupils and we all enjoy the time we spend together in the class.

I love kids and also I love English, that’s why I’m doing a Master of Learning and Teaching English in Infant and Primary Education. It’s being very useful, it’s helping me to open my mind and be more professional, with more resources and ideas to teach English in a good way.

I always loved new technologies, computers, phones, tablets, and I’m always reading about new products, especially Apple’s technologies. I love all that Apple does, and I’m so satisfied with all their products.

I have to say that I use a lot cloud computing by Google drive and dropbox, I find them so useful and very easy to use. Also, I’m in touch with some internet tools such as Pinterest and twitter. I use a lot Pinterest to find some arts and crafts ideas for the kids, and also for decoration, costumes, songs, activities, etc.

I have a twitter account that, first of all I use it to talk with friends but by the past of the time I started to follow educational newspapers, teachers, and more professional profiles. I do not tweet so much but I check and read almost 3 times per week, and I do it also on Facebook but I use it for a more personal stuff.

I’m not so used with social bookmarking because of my lack of information about it. Now I see lots of advantages about using it. For example, I have lots of links saved in my browser and now with Symbaloo I can have it all classified in a very visual way.

During my degree in Infant Education I was informed about Delicious and I found it interesting, but then I had no need to use it, and nowadays I see it like a way to research about my interests and educational news, ways of teaching, resources, opinions..

Finally, I have to create an account in Linkedin with all my professional information, and be able to meet professionals and share my experience.

I will use more social networks because they’re so positive and rich of information!

See you soon!

A little bit of me...

A little bit of me... 

But you already know my face, so I decided to put my friend's pictures. They are the ones that made me believe that Education was my passion; the ones that made me realize that teaching is my life!

My name is Mireia Cuxart and I live in Barcelona. I studied Infant Education with the minor of English in Blanquerna about two years ago. I worked in the US as an assistant in a Spanish Immersion School in the state of Oregon. It was a onetime life experience that I recommend to live. I am currently working in Princess Margaret School as a tutor in P3.

Regarding my ICT skills, I need to confess that I am really bad at them and that’s the reason why I took that class. I thought that I needed to learn some more since new technologies are being used in class. I am only using Facebook as a social network and Drive/Dropbox to organise everything I used to keep in the computer.

I am a beginner but I started using Symballootwo weeks ago and I have it as a home page in my browser. Flipboard is my second discovery and I am using it as much as Pinterest (and that means a lot!).

I have been learning a lot so far, and I would love to keep learning and be able to use new technologies in my class. We have whiteboards and iPads and I really want to take advantage of this in order to let them learn with new technologies.

This is me, Mariona

Good morning girls!

Now that someone has broken the ice, as Andrea has said, it is time to write something.

My name is Mariona Carreras Buscató. Officially it is Maria because my identity card says that, but Maria and Mariona are the same name and since I was born everybody called me Mariona so Mariona is my name. I am 22 years old and I’m from Figueres, a small city with 45.262 habitants, well known for the Dalí’s Museum, a famous painter. This city is the capital of “la Comarca de l’Alt Empordà” and its main characteristic is “la tramuntana” that always blow regardless of the season. It is also well situated; it is close to the sea, close to the mountains and close to France. With only half an hour you are in another country.  

When I was born my parents were living in roses, a big, coastal and touristic village, but two and a half years later, when my brother was born, we moved to Figueres where I’ve been living all my life and where I studied until I started my degree in Girona.

I finished my degree in Primary Education last June and now I am doing this master on Learning and Teaching English in Infant and Primary education while I am working in Les Teresianes de Ganduxer School as a lunch time monitor.

Apart from that, I am a volunteer monitor in a Cau at weekends. I started going there when I was seven and when I was 18 I decided that I wanted to be a monitor and this is my fifth year. I also work with children during the summer in summer camps and now I am thinking of going to United States for one year to do an Oper after finishing the master. So as you can see I love children and my life turns around them.

To finish my presentation, I have to say that I love singing. I sang in three different choirs and I really wanted to sing in Blanquerna’s choir too but I can’t go because of the schedule. Music is the best and most beautiful thing of this world.

Regarding to ICT I have to admit that I don’t really like them. I always have had problems with computers. When I was younger, every time that I used a computer, it stopped working. My parents say that I have negative vibrations. Maybe for this reason I don’t like them and I avoid using ICT. For me it’s difficult and I get stress when I have to use new programs or tools so I don’t have much experience on this field. I just use the basic sites (google, youtube, facebook, gmail…). I only discover new things when I do a course or a subject like this one where the teacher asks us to create an account and start using a social bookmarking or whatever, for this reason I am doing this optative. I know that I have to change this situation and I am trying to do it because ICT are very important and useful and we have to work with them and teach children how to use them but, but it is not easy for me.

Finally, the only experience of using social bookmarking or social networks for professional use is Symbaloo. I have created and account and started using it two weeks ago and I have to admit that it is a really easy and useful tool. You can save the links of webpages or articles that you usually use or that you are interested on it in a very visual and organized way and you can also look for different Webmixs on topics you like. I recommend it. As Andrea, I use Pinterest too and I really love it, I recommend it too.

I hope to keep learning more things related to ICT specially tools for using or creating activities for children.

Well, so that’s all! See you in the next session!