This week I took a virtual tour of Ellis Island. I followed in the footsteps of more than twelve million immigrants when they first stopped in America in 1892. The tour was broken into multiple “stops” and during each “stop”, there were a few sentences/paragraphs explaining. Video, photo, and audio tabs were also provided at different stops. There was a lot of information given to me about Ellis Island that I never learned before. Taking this virtual tour gave me so much more insight on Ellis Island and looking through the videos and reading the “Did You Know?” boxes, were so helpful. I really enjoyed the way the website was set up and how the creator’s made the pages look like they came from a book from the 1800s. Altogether there were ten stops and as you clicked through each one, the picture on the screen would show you were on the Island you were as if you were one of the immigrants.
Taking virtual tours is something that has became very big recently due to the pandemic. Virtual tours still give an individual the opportunity to learn and/or see what they need to during these rough times. On Stockton’s GSDLC website there are lots of different virtual tours that accommodate many people’s interests.
If you would like to visit Stockton’s GSDLC website click here, if you would like to just take the virtual tour of Ellis Island click here.
This week I watched a movie called Alivio. The movie is spoken all in Spanish so I used English subtitles to understand what was being said and what was going on. This movie/documentary is based around three women; Bianca, Angles, and Lupita who live in Mexico. They tell their stories about the hardships of growing up and how they overcame those painful memories to have their own families and great jobs as nurses. Click here if you would like to check out Alivio on youtube.
All three of the women come from different regions of Mexico but still have similar stories and their cultures are alike also. You can really see how much these women have grown and overcome their tough childhoods by the way they treat their families and respect the jobs they have. They did not have the best childhood like a child should, these women had absent/abusive parents that caused a lot of pain to them. There was one part of the movie where it showed Luptia sitting around with her siblings. There was music, lots of food, and laughter. There are eight women and five males in her family and while watching that scene, you can really see how close that whole family is. As having a Spanish family, I can say that Spanish people are very family-oriented. We do everything together and believe that family is the most important thing in life. One cultural difference between these Spanish women and my own is the way that they were brought up. When they were children and they did something wrong or tattletale on someone, all the siblings got a beating. When I was growing this did not happen to me. I do see this as something in the Spanish culture only because many people I know, were never told they were going to get a beating when they did something wrong.
During the film, I also learned about their everyday life as adults. They work in hospitals as nurses, which was a hard job for them to get. It is not common for women to be the one working, they’re supposed to be at home cooking and taking care of the children. But these women are not like the rest. They fought hard to get where they are and being a nurse has changed their lives. When it comes to food, they go out onto the streets and buy their food from markets. There are no supermarkets they can drive to, all their food is there being sold by others in the community under tents. All the meats are sitting out on tables and are cut right there in front of them with only a knife. But, to them, this was their normal and they seemed to enjoy walking around from tent to tent to get what they needed for dinner that night. By the end of the film, I could really see what these women most valued in life. They do value their jobs as nurses, but most importantly they value their life in general and family. If they were not brought up the way they were or did not go through what they did, then they would not be the women they are today.
I recommended this movie to anyone who needs a little bit of encouragement in life. It was emotional but it was very inspiring!
This week in a course I take called Web Tools For Global Leaner, I read a chapter in the Sail The 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, all about Communicators. The chapter explained multiple ways that people can communicate with everyone around the world. Some of the communication platforms that were discussed are Immersive Reader, Microsoft Translator, Minecraft, Powerpoint, Sway, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Temas, Flipgrid, and Skype. All of these platforms are very useful when it comes to using them in a classroom for communication propursoes. Communication is very important in the classroom, not only just between students and teachers or students with other students, but between a classroom and another class across the globe.
The one platform I learned more about that I am going to be speaking on using Minecraft for communicating. In chapter two of Sail The 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, Monika Limmer, a teacher from New Zealand, tells a story on how her more reluctant students began writing from frequently because they used the chat in Minecraft to communicate with others in the game. These students are the ones who do not feel comfortable speaking or can not physically speak verbally. With the in-game chat function, all her students are able to communicate when it comes to doing group projects. Monika’s students are able to contribute and show their understanding in a way that fits their learning goals when they use this technology source to communicate.
Now I do not think I personally would use Minecraft in my classroom because the age group I want to teach is too young for gaming, but I think that Minecraft is a great way to get older students to communicate easily. Not only can Minecraft just be used during work between classmates but by using the in-game chat, youngsters can talk to others around the world. If a teacher wants to create a project and have their students get in contact with others in a different location, then they can use Minecraft as a fun way.
I recently took a course called Teach Sustainable Development Goals, that was created by Microsoft. During the course, I learned a lot about the many goals that the United Nations want humans to reach by 2030. 193 countries have adopted these goals and to reach them by 2030 will take heroic effort, determination, and the ability to adapt to change. All of the development goals should be taught to schoolchildren because they are the ones that can have a big impact on being able to achieve the goals. Children are where change starts and teaching them young will get them ready for the future when it comes their time to make a difference.
Aside from reading about the goals while taking the Microsoft course, I did my own research on The United Nations SDG’s. One goal that I believe is very important for children to learn at an early age is goal number five, Gender Equality. I went onto the United Nations Developmental Programme website to learn more about gender equality. The plan for this goal is to put discrimination against all women and girls to an end. Empowering women helps economic growth and development, which is just what the world needs. This website is full of lots of information and many facts and figures to help people better understand why it is important to end discrimination towards girls. After reading through the section on goal number five, I thought of a way to teach this specific goal in my P-3 classroom.
The lesson that I have come up with is easy, informative, and fun. Since I want to teach younger grades, lessons should be fun/exciting and not too difficult. My idea on how to teach my students about gender equality is to make a game about it. I would have a set of questions or facts that relate to both males and females and ask them to the class to see if the students think if it relates to a male or female. By doing this they will be learning about what gender equality really means and that girls can do anything boys do while having fun playing the game. I will also be sure to treat all my students the same and make sure all their voices are heard. I believe that doing that, will set an example for the children to follow throughout their whole life. Making sure they understand that everyone is equal and no person should be left out or left unheard.
Ever since the start of middle school, I have always used google platforms. From writing papers in google docs, creating projects in presentation, to keep my pictures saved in google photos. Google presentations are one of my favorite ways to create presentations for class projects and even keeping different events in my life in order. Google Presentations is so easy to use and they offer many different themes that you can add to your presentation. I find this tool useful when doing a group presentation. By sharing the presentation with everyone else in the group, you can all work on the project at the same time and you can even edit someone’s work while they are working. It was also useful during my senior year of high school. We were going on our senior trip to Disney and I used google presentations to plan out each day for myself and my friends. There was a different slide for each day and a different park. The slides explained what time we would get to the park and what times we had fast-passes for the different rides. Being able to share the presentation with all my friends on their google accounts, gave us all a copy of it and kept us all organized.
I found an article How to Use Google Slides In The Classroom, that discussed six different ways to use google slides in the classroom with your students. One that caught my I that I want to expand upon is the drawing/painting tool that is offered in google slides. Students can create a slide in the presentation that the teacher created and draw pictures or paint on the slide. I think this tool is great for teachers who teach early childhood education (P-3). The teacher can create a presentation, share it with the students and then have them either draw a picture after a book or even have them practice making shapes, all on their own slide. This is definitely something I will be incorporating into my classroom in the future with my kiddos.
Check out these helpful links about google slides!
