Field Trip to Fundación Omar Dengo (FOD)

On October 28th (Week #8) we had a field trip to Fundación Omar Dengo in San José. This non-profit organization whose main objective is to develop people capacities, but they try to do it through innovative educational proposals, supported on the use of new technologies.
Their website address is: http://www.fod.ac.cr/

This foundation was created back in 1987, and since that moment they have been improving the education in Costa Rica through the use of technological resources and new different programs adapted to our public educational system.

I have been in two of their programs: Laboratorios de Informática Educativa, and Empresa Labor@. These two programs are available almost on every school and high school of Costa Rica, giving access to students to computers, internet access and technological resources to have a more complete education. Laboratorios de Informática Educativa are available on primary and secondary school. They first introduce students with the correct use of a computer, then they start teaching some tools like Micromundos (MM) or with the use of Internet.

Empresa Labor@ helps students with entrepreneurship abilities so in the future they know how to deal with issues related to the manage of a company. With Labor@, my classmates and I created a company that sold articles made from recycled materials. We had to work weekly on that 6-months project who had very good results because we had guidance from our teacher, a woman from FOD, and we also received feedback from other students who were in other Empresa Labor@ projects.

Busy Teacher & School House Technologies

For October 15th. we had to look for websites or technological tools that would be useful for teachers. I decided to share BusyTeacher and School House Tech.

The first website is www.busyteacher.org . Here you can find several resources, such as:
* Articles
* Lesson Plans
* Flashcards
* Worksheets
* Free: word search maker, word scramble maker, double puzzle maker.
Also, if you want to get some of the ESL books, creative prompts, or bundles, you can go to http://store.busyteacher.org/ and buy those resources that are specially made for ESL classrooms.

The other tool I chose was School House Technologies ( http://www.schoolhousetech.com/ ), which is a website where you can download software for making vocabulary worksheets, making Tests, and even creating your own bingos.

This second tool is so useful when you can´t find what you specifically need, so if you don´t find it already amde, then you can create it and adapt any other material that you saw but it does not fit the requirements of what you need.

Zunal & ReadWriteThink

In this entry I´ll be writing about two great websites: Zunal & ReadWriteThink.

Zunal(http://zunal.com/) is a great website for creating Webquests that are a great tool to encourage students to use technology for learning through the use of Internet.
There are some main parts that MUST be in a webquest, such as: a description or introduction, task tab, process tab, evaluation tab, and conclusion tab. This page is great for making lessons or courses online. You can upload any kind of file or links to online resources that will be used in that lesson or course.

I created my own Webquest for the Basic English Course that I teach. I upload there some files so they can review them after class and prepare for the next classes.
http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=258380











Then, the other website that I mentioned above was ReadWriteThink.

It is SO helpful when you run out of material for your class, or you have to give an extra lesson that you didn´t have planned. You can go to the "Classroom Resources" tab and select "Student Interactives" for games and activities or you can select "Lesson Plans".
The resources and activites available can be chosen by type, grade, theme, topic, or learning objective.

The students will have fun because they will learn through games and dynamic activities. The teacher will be relieved that she or he can has that trick in case she or he needs some extra help with a big group or when students are so energetic that they have to do something that keeps them busy.
The link for such a powerful and awesome website is.........:
http://www.readwritethink.org/