Resources At No Cost- Final Project

 

Title- Providing Resources at No cost

My presentation will be following Simon Sinek’s, “The Golden Circle” approach by first addressing my why, preceding with the how, and finalizing with the what. My own experience of becoming a bilingual speaker is what drives my educational “why.” Living in a new country presents new beginnings and also its challenges. Twenty-five years ago my parents made the decision to use the very little they had to immigrate to this nation. They did it to give me and my siblings a better future. I share these parts of my history because they have been my motivation to overcome all challenges and stereotypes during my public schooling. For example, I witnessed teachers not giving me the opportunity to try things because they already had it in their mind that just because I lived in a low-income neighborhood I did not have it in me to perform at their standards.

Through middle and high school, I was always placed in English as a second language classes because of my Hispanic last name. Little did they know I had the skills to perform in Advanced Placement classes. At home my parents’ labor-intensive and low-paying jobs never gave them the leisure to help me with my homework. Since they had very little education themselves, books were not a big part of my home. It wasn’t that they did not care about my education, but my parents took on other responsibilities like providing food and shelter which are the first important needs according to Maslow for someone to fully participate in their own learning. To add, my parents also had very little knowledge of the school system. I shared this learning experience because I plan to work with students who will possibly have similar life experiences as mine. 

 Too often students at the bottom of the learning totem pole are the ones with a cognitive or physical disability and those learning English as a second language. These are students with less privileges and who lack Leslie Grinner’s S. C. W. A. A. P. determiners of the dominant ideology, the set of beliefs or ideas that are most valued in our culture. In my current position, although still not meeting most of the determiners of the dominant ideology, I have earned the opportunity to become an educator who will work hard to create an educational environment full of resources for my future students and parents at no cost. I believe students learn best when they are given the tools to pose questions, be creative, learn from one another, acquire technical skills, build community, and make their learning worth it! I believe in this educational environment because they too deserve the opportunities the average standard student receives. I believe in building the perfect conditions Sir Ken Robinson (2013)  addresses in his “Education’s Death Valley” TED talk about embracing diversity, promoting curiosity, and allowing flexibility. I believe in giving students the opportunity to do as Michael Wesch (2016) did with his students, which is “To invite [the student] to be part of a different kind of class… where he/she could use that strength to his own advantage” (13:30-13:35). 

Before getting to "how" I would like to give a small summary of my relationship with technology. The first time I ever had a computer was in the early 2000s. My parents had saved up money and decided to buy me and my siblings a computer. It was a big deal! The computer in the living room was very similar to Sugata Mitra’s experiment of putting a “hole on the wall,” a computer for kids of the slums to learn from. It was a machine that no one in my family knew how to use, but it was something that caught my attention and led me to become what Scott Noon would describe in his 4-tier “Model of Teacher Training in Technology” a technocrat at the age of 13. Day after day, I learned how to surf the web and how to burn my own music playlist on CDs. I can vividly remember changing backgrounds, glamorizing the text to my Myspace profile by getting codes online. From the beginning of my community college years up to a few weeks ago, I learned to become a techno-traditionalist, someone who uses technology to accomplish traditional classroom tasks both as a student and an educator. During this past school year, I quickly became a techno-constructivist, someone [who] uses technology to completely change approaches to teaching and learning in the classroom, as I created content and used various technological tools to help me teach Spanish to elementary students. 

I plan to use my newly techno-constructivist skill to keep curating an educational environment that will give students and parents the opportunity to access resources to create a community, be creative, pose questions, and build technical skills both inside and outside the classroom. The educational environment will be in the form of a virtual classroom created with Google slides. I plan to use the virtual classroom as an easily accessible tool that will provide resources to both students and parents at no cost. The Google classroom will have access to a community icon. In this section, students will learn more about the countries of origin of their classmates by watching informative videos depicting culture, food, and music. As the year goes along, I will invite students and parents to share stories of their own. There will be a bilingual digital library that will have access to current books and classic children’s literature. The idea of this resource is for students and parents to listen to books before going to bed. You will also find bilingual tutorial recordings explaining how to do the homework. This is a great opportunity for the parents to understand what their child is learning and how they are to perform a task. There will also be a place in which students can do activities to help them regulate their emotions. This resource will give students the opportunity to take a break, to do art or physical movement that will regulate their sense of being. Lastly, there will be a bilingual Podcast that will help students and parents learn new and current information. 

DELIVERABLE-

Currently, I am looking for a job and will be implementing my deliverable in the following manner:

Grades:1st-3rd

• Google Slides Virtual classroom

• Tabs or Icons

• Community

• Type of tools: 

• Youtube videos (Safeshare)

• Bilingual Digital Library 

• Type of tools:

• Youtube read alouds (Safeshare)

• PDFs

• Connect any other reading applications provided by the school

• Homework Tutorials

• Youtube tutorials (Safeshare)

• Personal recordings

• Meditation

• Headspace

• Youtube Art Tutorials (Safeshare)

• Youtube Brain Breaks (Safeshare)

• Podcast

• Links to podcasts

• Radio ambulante/ El hilo (Spanish podcast)

• NPR

Grades:4st-5rd

• Google Sites

• Tabs or Icons

• Community

• Type of tools: 

• Youtube videos (Safeshare)

• Bilingual Digital Library 

• Type of tools:

• Youtube read alouds (Safeshare)

• PDFs

• Connect any other reading applications provided by the school

• Homework Tutorials

• Youtube tutorials (Safeshare)

• Personal recordings

• Meditation

• Headspace

• Youtube Art Tutorials (Safeshare)

• Youtube Brain Breaks (Safeshare)

• Podcast

• Links to podcasts

• Radio ambulante/ El hilo (Spanish podcast)

• NPR

Based on the feedback it is important I keep up with the content. Make sure either Google Sites and Virtual Classroom works on a phone. Send reminders to parents to always check the class Google Sites or Virtual Classroom.