Teaching with Technology Spotlight

Regina Reyna, a Communication Graphics teacher from McAllen Memorial High School, is one of two Texas teachers to be awarded a competitive study tour opportunity through the Toyota International Teacher Program, and will travel to Costa Rica, April 18 – May 2, 2009.

She will have the opportunity to collaborate with other U.S. and Costa Rica educators in hopes of encouraging environmental stewardship among their students and community. A new element to this year’s Costa Rica trip is the creation of the Toyota4Education.com wiki, established to serve as a virtual classroom and provide updates during the program, this social media tool enables teachers to communicate their experiences in real time with their schools and communities. Educators will blog about their Costa Rica experiences, post photos and lesson plans, and correspond with their students. Some of the technology tools that Ms. Reyna will be using include: digital photography, the Internet, photo sharing (flickr), SchoolFusion, blogging, wikis and Adobe software.

Digital photography is one of the main technology resources that I will be using.  My 25+ years of photography experience will enable me to capture many different images of my journey to Costa Rica.

My goal is to provide images that tell a story and as John McCarthy, the famous computer scientist, makes an opposite point of a famous quote: ‘As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture.’

“With all of that in mind, my goal is to create a book and have my students use the graphic design skills they have learned in class to create it, and tell the story of my Journey to Costa Rica. I also plan to implement the lessons learned from the 25 educators that are joining me on this trip.

The Internet will play a very important role in this trip.  We will have access to the Internet most of the time.  Out of the 25 teachers selected for this program, 9 are assigned to mange wiki pages, which are set up by Toyota International Teacher Program and Institute of International Education. It is quite an honor to be assigned in the use of one of these wiki pages.  Flickr accounts have also been set up so image and video uploads can take place. Flickr will allow us to share images with our students.

Blogging is another form of technology that I will use.  Most of the teachers that are assigned wiki pages also have blogs.  SchoolFusion will additionally be used to blog, post announcements and upload files that students will use during the 2 weeks that I will be in Costa Rica.

Adobe CS3 Suite is used in Communication Graphics and students will use prior skills to create a variety of graphic design materials related to environmental issues.

We would like to congratulate Ms. Reyna. It is an honor to have one of our McAllen ISD teachers representing our district in Costa Rica. We wish her a safe, educational and exciting trip.