The Technological Tales of Carol Gonzales

All of my technological trivialities and also those Ah-Hah moments as well.

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My only means of communicating with my clients at work is through the means of the telephone. The only way I connect with them is through their voice. I learn so much about them in an extremely small amount of time. All I have to make observations about them from is how they answer questions, their tone of voice, what they talk about, and how they speak to me. Usually by the end of my conversation with them I feel comfortable talking with them and them with me and I have a few observations about them that I made during our conversation.

Something that was truly significant to me was that after talking to an individual for almost twenty minutes I did not know their race. I find out their race towards the end of our conversation. Personally, race does not usually mean anything to me. It is an ongoing practice of mine to not let race be at the forefront of getting to know a person. However, a person’s interests is. As I am working with my clients I try to figure out their interests before they tell me. I am usually very good at profiling most of my clients.It’s a fun game for me to play to see how well I can profile a person through the conversation they make.

However, I realized quickly, when I tried to guess a person’s race I was almost always wrong!This was surprising to me, as I thought I would be able to guess people’s race pretty accurately from their use of language and what demo-graphical area they came from.

I could not. I was the worst at guessing a person’s race. So bad to the point that I try not to even guess anymore. I was so surprised to know that I could not hear a person’s race from their voice. Typing that out makes me really see how ignorant I was about it. What even made me think I could in the first place? This realization was refreshing and encouraging to me. It reminded me that we as people do not stick to a certain criteria or set of guidelines. We are creatures of genetics yes, but we are also creatures of our ever-changing environments, we leave and take pieces of us everywhere we go. A voice cannot tell me the race or the ethnic background of which it belongs to. A voice; speech, is not tied to race, it is tied to where a person has traveled, lived, who they have been friends with, the neighborhoods they have frequented and lived in.

This learning has made me very happy to know. It makes me want to create an entire assignment in which my students can only connect with other students via by voice or through writing, no visual contact. I would like to create something that will be from the school of social studies and it could be my students own social learning experiment. I want to be able to teach my students that we cannot constrain are thoughts about others based upon assumptions or general profiling, by doing that we are putting limitations on other people and casting ignorant schools of thought over ourselves.

Thanks Alexander Graham Bell for the humbling lesson! <3

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Digital Etiquette

Here is a video I made for my Classroom Technology class about digital etiquette. Is goes in a series about digital citizenship.

I know that teaching etiquette is not a stand alone standard that we are required to teach in the classroom. However, we do it everyday as we are teaching our students how to operate successfully in any given community. In this digital era the the teaching of etiquette will extend into the the digital realm in my classroom. I intend to incorporate teaching how to have etiquette with digital technology just as as plan to teach my students how to create Powerpoints or write in Microsoft Word. I plan to teach it just as implicitly as I would be teaching them how to write an essay. It is that vital. I am aware of that now.

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Our Travel Blog

Due to a slight change in the itinerary, I had the opportunity to decide which blog I would like to add to. Dr. Martinez suggested that I read over the blogs and see which one speaks to me. However,...

This is the blog that my colleagues and I wrote up together. It will forever represent that trip to me, and everything that we learned there collectively and individually.

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A Year Ago

I went with two amazing women and wonderful colleagues to Europe. I will forever feel blessed for being granted the opportunity to have had that experience. I knew it would change me and it did. I know it changed all of us. Change is not always for the better, initially. However, this kind of change was. I learned so much on that trip. I know we all did. We learned about people. We learned about relationships. We tasted culture. We shook hands and carried conversations with people that were just like us. I squatted in a room at a concentration camp and tried to imagine what it felt like to not be able to walk out that door that day like I knew I would. A colleague of mine also cried at that same concentration camp because she had German in her blood and felt pain and shame. I know we all walked away with a drastic learning from that trip, whether the lesson was large or small in its teaching.

A beautiful idea my teacher had, was that we log in some of our learnings into a blog post. In order to keep some structure to what we would be focusing on, we were each allowed to pick from a list what we were going to write about.  In this blog we discussed what we learned about the chosen topic. We shared our thoughts, connections, learnings, and pictures that we took. The assignment was authentic through and through. The learning there was authentic through and through.

I plan to have my students create blogs as well. I know that they can work on any level as long as adjustments are created and as long as they genuinely connect with the skill or lesson they are learning. I think that blogging can be a very authentic place for my students to share their learnings. As writers, I know that they will feel a sense of pride and ownership in producing their writings via a blog, as they are able to see their work published immediately and in very professional form. These are two of the most important elements that I want my students to experience and have: authenticity in learning and ownership in their own work.

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Current Relationship with Technology: Complicated 💜💔💕

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Carol Gonzales is in a Relationship with Technology and It’s Complicated...

      Taking this course has become married to the fact that I started to work at a market research firm. These two projects occurring simultaneously in my life have made me really think about my use of the technology and social media. In the beginning it just made me more aware of how present technology and social media is in my life. As I was finishing (what I thought would be my last semester in college) I was really trying to focus on living a healthier life in all aspects. I also felt like it was my only way to survive my last semester of college. So, I went to bed at ten o’clock in the evening, I ate healthy, and I did not allow stress to come into my life. It actually worked out very well for me. Now that I have more time on my hands, more than I’ve had in years, I am still trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. When your life changes and you are in a transitional period in life this proves to be very challenging. I have tried to stay with working out, eating healthy, and practicing compassion. Although, something that I was only halfway practicing, and had not really put under a magnifying glass yet for myself, was how I used technology and social media.

      I came into a contact with a person who showed me how to really utilize Google. I know, it sounds like common sense, but they showed me that if I am unsure of something or need clarification I had the power to research it, right there at my fingertips. I began to use Google to my advantage last summer and I have not looked back sense. I need directions. Boom. I need the store hours for something. Done. I need to find out about a certain exhibit going on at a local museum. Done. My biggest take away from doing this was the amount of time that I was no longer wasting. I was no longer wasting time deciding on what to do. I had my plans and this phone worked like my digital planner. Also, I realized going from school to work and then home, and then to my friend’s house to sleep close to school, I was spending a tremendous amount of time in my car. It was as if l lived in it! So, I decided because I was spending so much time in the car I could not just allow myself to listen to hip hop and Top 40s, that was not stimulating for my mind and it did not teach me as much as I would like. So, I tried to tune into NPR more. I made it a point to listen to it, especially during rush hour traffic. Also, there is something soothing about hearing Audie Cornish’s voice during the morning bustle.

      However, this was the extent to how I monitored my use of technology and social media. Then January came, and I started to work for a media research center that surveys random household’s to ask them about their use of media. As I began to interview people about their use of the media and technology I found myself getting a little judgmental, as if I had any room to do so. I did not, and I still do not. So after being judgmental after a few weeks, I decided that if there was something about someone’s technology or media use that I did not agree then it is something that I probably need to change in my own practices. Along the same time this was occurring, I started this course on how to be more explicit and implicit about incorporating technology into the classroom. Both experiences shoved me into really examining how I use and work with technology in my daily life.

      The practice of monitoring my technology and media usage is like cleaning up an unhealthy diet. It is like I get cravings to get onto Instagram and mindlessly sift through images on my feed. I get cravings to open up my Facebook application and open up link after link of articles and posts. Lately it has been more article reading, and a lot of it has been beneficial to my learning, however, the timing sometimes is not so beneficial. This is where I get sucked in. This is also where I no longer desire to get sucked in, and I have been practicing on being more aware of when this occurs. I know sometimes elders look at young children on their ipads and think that this is it: the beginning of the end. However, I am sure their parents thought the same thing when they were younger and started watching color television. I do not think that this era of the ever expanding use of technology has to be a bad thing. I do know that it needs to be something that is controlled and used with discipline. I have learned this in leaps abounds over the course of the past few months and I am currently trying to do this for myself. I know that I cannot teach something to others without having practiced it myself. So, here I am: practicing.

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I borrowed these photos from a new blog I will probably be following: Racheous.com. The author of the blog posted about light boxes. It’s a great post, you can follow the link below to read the blog. Enjoy! :)

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Light Box Love, Discovery-Based Learning...

Ever since I have learned about the Reggio-Emilia style of learning I knew that it was an approach that would work best in the classroom in our current times in society. I am fascinated how a lot of the students learning is discovery and exploration-based. I think this exactly how our students should be learning, by employing all of their senses: feeling things, touching them, smelling them, seeing them, and sometimes tasting them. As human beings this is how we learn best, by being engaged with tangible items that represent our learning. One of the infamous tools that are used in Reggio-Emilia styled classrooms are Light Boxes. The light box is a very simple tool, and honestly can be the product of a DIY project. It is a simple wooden box frame with a plastic overlay and a light the shines from underneath the plastic. The concept behind the light box is that the children place objects onto the box in order to better explore the object. The box shines light on the object and encourages the child to further inspect and study the object.  It is used to promote discovery learning and wonder in the child. This is used through classrooms in Reggio Emilia, Italy where this style of learning was birthed after World War II. The practice of the light box renders very good results as it is very hands on, minds on. I had the opportunity to discuss one artist’s work who also shared my first name. I was asking her why she chose to do some mixed media pieces she had hanging up and I also asked her how she came to use the different subjects she had chosen. She explained that she had used a light box in order to really capture each subject in the four pieces that were on the wall. It was amazing to see the results after hearing that because each subject had such great detail, almost like hyper detail.  I exclaimed how much I loved light boxes too. She pulled a wonderful portable light box out of a cardboard box that was sitting on a nearby shelf. It was wonderfully light and oh so portable! I think this tool is a simple and ingenious tool that we as educators can all use to help promote discovery, wonder, and curiosity to our students and children. I will definitely use one in my classroom and I encourage all educators and parents to try it out as well in their classrooms and homes.

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These two pieces are currently on display at an exhibit in the new Educational and Cultural Arts Center here in San Antonio, Texas. It is entitled, “ARTE Y TRADICIÓN DE LA FRONTERA: THE U.S. – MÉXICO BORDERLANDS“. The exhibit features two female artists from South Texas: Carmen Lomas Garza and Santa Barraza. I would like to feature these artists and these particular pieces in my project on female contemporary artists. These artists are not from San Antonio, however because they are from a close vicinity and one of the first female-fronted exhibits at the new center here in SA, I know featuring them would align with my goals and intentions for my project.

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An Idea After Much Inspiration...

A few weeks ago I was able to make a quick stop on a wonderful art walk here in San Antonio, Texas called On and Off Fredericksburg (http://onandofffred.org). How about that for an oxymoron? Joking aside, it was an excellent celebration of art and artists in our inner community. What makes this art walk unique is that not only do galleries graciously open their doors to you, but artists will also open their private homes to art lovers as well. I have attended the event in the past and had a very memorable experience of meeting artists, eating with them, laughing with them, and learning more about their work and their stories on a much more personal level. This walk is in its 8th year and all the artists I was able to briefly speak with mentioned that it is growing each year and that it’s a great showcase for them because they are able to meet more patrons of the arts and actually get their work seen. I do recommend it to all in the community. 

Another major event that I attended was the Women’s March here in the heart of our downtown area. This event was something that I had to do for personal reasons and communal reasons. The march reminded me of the beauty of being a woman and a strong person. It also reminded me of the strong women that I have encountered and I anticipate encountering during my lifetime.   Attending both of these events inspired me deeply. After attending the events I decided that I wanted to do something to promote the people who are doing work in our community for the betterment of our community and themselves. Going to the march, and other recent personal experiences have me thinking about women in our community. Also, the timing seemed to render aid to this thinking as well as we are currently in what we recognize as Women’s Month. 

My current job celebrates its employees taking initiative to contribute to the company by hosting events or educational mini workshops that celebrate culture and community. With all of that in mind, and thinking about how I really want to make this blog more focused I came up with an idea. We have Plasma TVs all throughout the offices, and last month they had PowerPoint slides with facts about very successful Black Americans from the US in order to honor Black History Month. They made the slides interactive and gained interest of my associates by turning the facts into a trivia questionaire. We were able to submit our answers by email which enrolled us in a raffle for prizes. So, going off of that idea last month I decided it would great to also create slides that were educational and informational. 

I submitted a simple proposal letter along with a sample of my idea that outlines what I would want to do for the remainder of March. Basically, I will also post slides like they had in the previous month. There will be two slides each day, one slide will be the featured artist for the day, and the next slide would contain one of her more recent pieces. The slides are only up for seven seconds at a time so they have to be clear and concise. My goal is to introduce my colleagues to local artists they may not know about. Also, I want to specifically represent the female population, in order to honor Women’s Month and also to celebrate an under-represented group. The information I wish to include on the slides are: of course a portrait of the artist and her work, but also the name of the piece, what medium they used to create the piece, and one location of where you can view her current work. I also want to make the slides interactive for those I work with. I decided that I would also ask questions. I want them to be more open-ended and just count for participating. I want to ask some basic questions that everyone would feel comfortable jotting down to turn in for a possible prize and hopefully something that will allow for some positive contemplation. I want to ask questions like: What does the piece remind you of? What did you like about the piece? What was the name of the artist and what type of art did she do? Where can you see her artwork at, currently? What title would you give the piece if you were the artist? What question would you ask the artist if you could? If you could hear the sounds from the piece, what sounds would you hear? I am still awaiting approval to see if I can contribute this project due to some changes going on within the company, however I would still love to see the slides posted for the last part of March, as I think it would be great for the artists as well as my colleagues. I am hoping to hear back from the coordinator soon!

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ROLL CALL:

All links listed below are  colleagues of mine also beginning in the field of education, or are current educators working in the field. All blogs are centered around the use of technology.

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K-12 Education Tips & Strategies That Work

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A blog to share ideas about innovative, real, and relevant learning.

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The Misadventures of Noel

I am a Mother , Wife, Artist, Student Teacher, Grad Student, Comic Book Nerd and Sci Fi Ethusiastic

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Tecnologia en la clase

(by AP2015)