Luis un líder de la comunidad y la familia

This Edutopia video about a young man named Luis told the story of a very family and community minded high school student. Luis is active in several extracurricular activities, while also helping his immigrant family with household management.

Like many Luis is constantly surrounded by technology, but my most significant takeaway from this video was the many ways that Luis has used technology to help his family and better his community. By day Luis uses technology to help his parents manage the household by paying bills online, and also entertains his mother by finding her favorite telenovelas on youtube. By night Luis uses technology to help many different extracurricular groups. Luis is part of several! He is part of a peer mentor program called the "tech wizards." Within this group Luis works with other students to make educational videos that highlight different aspects of his community. Luis also teaches elementary school students how to program robots for an annual competition. I was also very impressed with the fact that Luis helps his city survey the health of the local trees, and was chosen to go to Chile to give an international presentation.

Luis's story was very inspiring to me as a future teacher. I plan to teach in my home state of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma there are several students like Luis who are second generation immigrants who speak a second language at home. Statistically these students do not do as well, and have a very high incompetion rate. I was inspired by Luis because he has overcome all the difficulties immigrants have, and has succeded on all levels.

WALT - We Are Learning Too

This K12 Online Conference video entitled A Peek for a Week - Inside a Kiwi Junior Classroom shows how a grade 2 teacher, Rachel Boyd, has integrated technology into her classroom.
I continue to be suprised at how many ways technology can be integrated into the classroom. Boyd has succesfully intigrated all of the subjects her students need to learn. One assignment shown described the writing process the students used to write stories of their own. Her students use YouTube.com videos for physical education. They also play math games online that compare their grades to other students around the world.

I really liked how the students were able to work with other students in another area of New Zealand through a shared wiki. I think sharing ideas with other students their own age is a wonderful learning tool and plan to integrate the idea into my own classroom.