September 11 and 18

We've been working on the documents of UNESCO about a project to implement ICTs into our curriculums. The first stage was the policy which was studied through a mind map; now we're reading on basic information of its modules. This project is mainly address from three approaches; the technology literacy, the knowlege deepening and the knowledge creation; and the three of them have into account six components that are normally found in a regular educative system: the vision, the curriculum and assessment, the pedagogy, the ICT use (in this case), the organization and administration and the teacher professional development.

The organization of these modules let us see how can education evolve in every little part of it, it's not only the responsability of teachers, but also the whole school system who is incharged of making classrooms and spaces to learn different, not only for the students but for the nation. Teachers could be the most important key for changing, but there are much more elements.

September 4

I was a little confused for this class because I didn´t go to class last Thursday; I missunsterstood the homework. When everybody started presenting their lesson plans it was very different from what I thought and I decided to present a Webquest I had planned for my fouth graders students; It became a very interesting presentation. I realised how much can I learn from my classmates because some of them perfomed very well with very nice ways for teaching.

By the other hand, I also realised that the mind map about the UNESCO Project was not for this day, but anyway I had the chance to change it by using the Inspiration Sowfware which is amazing. I didn't know a program such as interesting and useful as it is. I will start using it not only for this course but for many other that I have, because it has several posiblilities of presenting a mind map very creatively.

August 28

This time it was me who didn't go to class. But I worked on the document at home. This one was a little more complicated than the first one; it was about the policy of a project done by the UNESCO and other "institutions" to have teachers use ITC into our classroom to improve our practicums with students and to improve the cultural and economical development of a nation.

The project proposes three approaches to achieve the objectives: technology literacy, knowledge deepening and knowledge creation. It obvious that the main character in this change of mind is the teacher as well. "He is responsible for establishing the classroom environment and preparing the learning opportunities that facilitate students’ use of technology to learn, and communicate."

There are contries like Chile that have adopted this project and have improved their level of education and economy. I hope in Colombia we can have that UNESCO ITC CST Project to improve our quality of education and life.

August 21

This time we didn't have class; we couldn't meet but we had work to do. At home, we were supposed to read a document about 12 principles to incoporate media literacy and critical thinking into any curriculum.

Before reading the text, I missunderstood the sense of it because of its tittle, I thought it was only about media refering to t.v, radio or internet, but after I read it I realized it's also about books, newspapers, magazines, movies, billboards video games and recorded music.

It's a little confusing when you read it at first, but when you read it twice is easier to get the main point of it. There are 12 principles that seem to be very nice for teachers and for students in class, but it only worthy when we really do it in our classes; not just for reading and giving opinions about it, but to take all those principles into our own spaces of teaching and proving by ourselves their real meaning.

First Class. August 14

In my first class I felt kind of shy for speaking but it was o.k. I realised it's a very interesting course to reflect about, because sometimes I feel scared of using the "new" technologies with my students, 'cause it's difficult to control every little thing students have access to. But I also realised that possibly having everything well planned could be ok to survive my fear. Reading the document about ITC made my mind have great ideas to work with my students, because if we visit the computers room is just to type or reserch about something special; I haven't used internet to explore the huge variety of exercises and games to do with kids.

I do have explored the internet to download activities, worksheets and puzzles to work with them, but never to take them into the great world we have in front by using this tool. I hope that from today on, I can use internet for more than just teaching stuff, but also learning stuff.