Interview with a Learner

  For my ECMP 455 class I signed up to do an interview by email with Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. Before I decided what questions I was going to ask her I browsed through her blog when I had time, and have seen many interesting posts so far!  I found some information which gives you an idea of who she is as a person and thought I would share some of it with you guys before posting the interview. Here it is.

Silvia Tolisano was born in Germany, raised in Argentina and is now currently living in the United States. To date she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish with a Minor in International Studies and a Masters in Education with an emphasis in Instructional Technology. Her areas of interest include technology in the classroom, digital storytelling, multicultural and global education. Silvia  is available for national and international conference presentations, consultations, and teacher training sessions. Where she is able to work with you and present in English, Spanish and German! As I was browsing through her blog I came across her Accomplishment page; where her Education and Teaching Certifications, Published Articles, and Recognitions are listed.

There are many things to explore and see on Silvia’s blog along with her philosophy, a page with a variety of posts from her professional blog as well as her resume.

Check it out!

Here is the interview:

1)   What are some of your favorite tools/programs that you have used in your classroom from the past/present with your students? Why are they your favorites?

 I expose my students to a wide variety of tools. I have used blogs, wikis, iMovie, garage band and Skype among others with my students. Currently I am very involved in experimenting with the use of Skype in the classroom. I am interested in finding out how Skype can be used to increase motivation and engagement for students and at the same time address 21st century skills (communicating, collaborating, connecting) as well as literacies (media, network, information, global). Take a look at this blog post to learn more about my observations of using Skype to transform teaching and learning.

2)   Have you ever experienced any challenges when implementing technology into your classroom?

Part of using technology is understanding that there will be a certain amount of frustration involved. That is just part of the deal With that being said, YES, the challenge is part of the fun.  They have ranged from computers not working properly, to the internet being down just when students are walking in, teachers being unwilling to incorporate “THE COMPUTER”, a web based tool suddenly being unavailable or taken down to time zone issues when connecting with other countries.

3)   Do you believe that this generation of “techno students” who are constantly working online, find it difficult to converse with others face to face, or interact with their peers? Why or why not?

I don’t think so. The online tools that we have available are giving everybody MORE opportunities to connect and communicate than before. My network of peers is literally from all over the world. Something that would have never been possible for me without these tools! My students are growing up knowing that their friends as well as subject area experts are NOT limited to their zip code.

4)   What do you think/feel is the greatest challenge facing students today?

So many challenges….Students (any learner for that matter) has to learn to stay focused while being able to multitask at the same time. There is also the challenge to know how to learn, unlearn and relearn at a faster and faster rate as tools and platforms are changing, evolving and being created. As information is growing at exponential rates all of us face the challenge to be able to filter through it.

5)   Do you have any tips or advice for future teachers that want to use technology in their classrooms?

Don’t be afraid to experiment with technology. We are all pioneers when it comes to using so many of these tools. Don’t be afraid to be a leader at your new school when it comes to technology. You might have to be the one to inspire and show (by example) “veteran teachers” new ways to engage, motivate and teach kids.

If you have any other comments/ advice about your blog or anything else that has to do with technology please feel free to tell me about it, as I am interested as well as my peers and classmates will be interested to read about it on my ecmp 455 blog!

I believe the most important thing to remember when using technology in the classroom is that it is NOT about the tools, but about the skills. Take a look at the following blog post and share with your classmates.

Silvia has created several posters for different tools with the skills that are addressed when using them, and you can find them on the above blog link. Take a look-they are quite neat!

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After doing this interview, and reading through the answers to my questions I am a little bit less frightened to become a teacher and have to implement technology into the classroom, knowing that everyone has something to offer to others when it comes to teaching, as there is such a wide range of knowledge in today’s world when it comes to technology! I have enjoyed this experience, and will continue to check back to Silvia’s blog! As I know I will read and learn many new things!

Neat tool

The teacher that I interviewed for the Interview with a Learner Assignment is Silvia Tolisano, and since we signed up on the signup sheet I have been checking in on and off with her blog. I have read and learned many neat things. One I was particularly interested in was the Primary Access blog she posted.

As I explored the website: Welcome to Primary Access I learned  that Primary Access is a suite of free online tools that allows students and teachers to use primary source documents to complete meaningful and compelling learning activities with digital movies, storyboards, rebus stories and other online tools.

As I explored the website a little further I found out there are a few different programs, they are:

Primary Access Moviemaker –>With the movie maker it allows you to take text, audio and images and put it all together to make personal narratives and digital stories.

Primary Access Storyboard –>With the Story Board it allows you to create comic strips/slideshows with images, thought bubbles, props and actors. You don’t have to install any software and the things you make are easy to publish and share them with others.

Primary Access Rebus –> With Rebus is when you can create a written story that uses pictures with text. It encourages students to explore primary sources and using them to create a story.

Primary Access Teacher Tools–>With the teacher tools it was designed to help in teaching content knowledge, critical thinking and learning storytelling skills. Teachers can set up and manage class activities using the teacher tools

I thought this was a neat tool, and would be interesting to put more thought and research into, looking at the programs and creating projects from the programs to see how handy and easy it would be for the students.

Will’s Wisdom

The other day I received an email from a friend with a link to watch a video. I took and watched it today as I finally had time, and I think it is an interesting video and decided to share it with anyone looking at my blog. I think it is a good video as Will Smith is embracing his life, and sharing his thoughts and wisdom by letting us know how he has succeeded in life.

Collaborative Projects #1

For my collaborative project, I am working with Joni, and we are creating a positive digital footprint for Jennifer Swanson, who is teaching a 8th Grade Internet Safety Unit at the West De Pere MS school in De Pere, WI.

She wants us to create a positive digital footprint on the internet of which we will be proud to look back on. Once we are done making our project, we are going to take two periods of about half an hour each and present it to her class during the week  of March 22nd to the 26th.

For now Joni and I have just been looking around and learning a bit more about positive digital footprints and are getting some ideas rolling around as to what we could do for this assignment. We are planning on Skyping in with Jennifer and discussing our ideas and figuring out what exactly will happen when it is time to present!

February Show and Tell Presentation

I presented my February Show and Tell elluminate session on February 24^th. For anyone that was not there and did not get to see it, I choose to do my passion on Chuckwagon and Chariot Racing. It is a sport I started doing officially when I was 14 years old, and hope to continue to do this for as long as I possibly can.

It is a passion that takes a lot of time and commitment all for a short time of excitement. It takes a lot of money and knowledge, but once you hit the track and get that adrenaline rush you are hooked! (Or I was anyways). I for one am a very competitive person especially when it comes to competing against my siblings!

Here is my presentation for anyone that may not have got to see it!
I hope you enjoy it!

I have added a few pictures of me racing, to add a little something to my blog!

You can click on the photos to get them bigger and have a better look!

This is a picture of my 2009 "A" team(Beauty and Famous). I did very well with this team. I won two shows, and was in the top 5 placings at every show!

 

This is a picture of my 2009 "B" team (Bess and Cheyenne). As you can see if you look closely at the photo, my four year old bay has all four feet off the ground, and her ears pinned right back! She is trying as hard as she can! I did exceptionally well with this team considering it had a young horse on that was only learning!

 

Exploring Diigo3

As I continued to look into Diigo and explore more things it has to offer, I learned these things:

At the top of your toolbar, where you can bookmark pages there is also a button that says highlight. When you click on this you are allowed to choose which color of highlighter to use. The four colors are yellow, pink, blue, and green. When you click on your color you then can go and highlight specific information/words that you want. After this is done, there is a little icon with a marker that appears. Here you can choose to add a sticky note( Which are sometimes kind of annoying), delete the highlight, get an annotated link, or view it in your library.

With the sticky notes you can write comments or words in the box after you have clicked on add an inline sticky note. You can also choose whether you want this to go to public or be kept private. Before I knew what all these sticky note icons were on certain webpages I was veiwing, there were people having conversations on them. Once I learned what they were, it is kind of neat as people have long chats about things on them!

After you have highlighted and posted something you can always see it again in your library. I think that the highlighting and post it are in a way good, as I can write things about the certain site I have bookmarked to remind me of things, and keep them private so that only I can see them. The one thing I dislike of this is that they are annoying as I previously said. They show up and I have yet to figure out if there is a way to get rid of them.

But in general I think these tools can be useful, and you just have to take the time to get used to them!