Well; sixteen weeks of Literacy and Technology online class are officially over. I have completed quite a bit of work in this course; eight assignments (including ICP Project) and six high achiever assignments; that is not including the group assignments and meetings. Yes, I some how found time to do all of the high achiever assignments. I liked the challenge and learned a lot more than I expected. To be honest, I did not expect to learn much more about technology. I knew a lot before this course well; so I thought.Although making a video and a podcast were challenging, tedious, and even at times frustrating, they were my favorite assignments. Why? Well; I never made a video or a podcast before. I did not even know what podcasting was! I assumed it had something to do with an iPod. I have owned a video iPod for almost 2 and a half years now; but I did not know how podcasting related to my slick black music/video player. Now thanks to Dr. S I not only know what a podcast is, I know how to make one. I made one for a friend right after completing one for the class assignment; because I have not seen or spoken to this person (outside of AIM and Myspace) in quite a long time. This is a great technology that one can use in the classroom with their students as well as for personal use at home. I spent a lot of time making my video and had fun playing with all the options I could include. This is another great activity to use in the classroom as well as at home. The other activites; crossword puzzles, mind maps -Inspiration and gliffy, power points, lesson plans, webquest, wiki, personal web site, etc... were also great activites that furthered my learning of the many uses of technology that can be incorporated in the classroom. I was really surprised as I stated in an earlier blog, that one could make a crossword puzzle in Excel. It is a long and tedious process; but once you learn it, it becomes much easier. It is just another thing I have taken away from this course that I will incorporate not only for personal use; but in my future classroom.
As I stated in my last blog entry, there were two days of presentations. I was on the second day, May 4th, 2009. My Internet Curriculum Project was on The Future of Mobile Learning and the Use of PDAs in Developing Literacy Skills. Above is a snapshot of my lesson plan which can be located under the 'Course Assignments' tab on my personal web site. I also did a PowerPoint presentation which I posted on SlideBoom. After these assignments we're completed I presented my power point topic. I integrated the class in the beginning, middle, and end of my presentation which went rather smoothly. I did have one "hiccup" though; the Elluminate Live! Session kept disconnecting me from the class and did so once during my presentation!This was a bit nerve racking; but I was able to continue with my power point and was glad to receive student participation each time I asked a question or wanted a comment/perspective on the topic I was presenting. Although this required a lot of work, the assignments were informative and I am proud of my accomplishments. Everyone's topic was interesting, informative, and showed how much we learned in the course.
I know it has been some time since my last blog; well since my last blog about class work. The previous blog was part of another student's presentation who incorporated a great hook to her lesson plan. Now onward to week 12 till now. Week 12 and 13 my group and I met for the last time on WizIQ to take parts of the TDC E-Book Chapter 5 which; was at first tedious because my part was quite lengthy in research; but we completed our parts and put it together into a power point thanks to Jennifer, one of the members. The picture on top is a snapshot of the first slide and more of this can be seen under "Course Assignments" of my personal web site. We put a lot of time and effort into the project and our presentation was successful!It was great ending everything on a good note. From then I have been researching my Internet Curriculum Project- "The Future of Mobile Learning and the Use of PDA'S in Developing Literacy Skills" and looking at the websites/articles Dr. S has been posting. I have to say I have enjoyed all the links she has posted especially the videos, they are quite educational and at times entertaining! Especially the video on Second Life, that was very interesting. It reminds me of Sims except it has more technology integrated. The presentations on the 29th and the 4th were excellent! I learned a lot about the topics and loved how the presenters integrated the class and used the Elluminate Live! features. I also liked how a few people chose to do a wiki instead of a powerpoint. I think both meetings were very successful.
3 Facts:Can make a video instead of a power point.Can include sounds and music in the video.Very useful way for students to present information.My first video dealt with information literacy and the second, high achiever assignment, dealt with information literacy; but the focus was more on mathematics.
For the HA6 assignment I completed on Sunday April 12th, I created a quiz. It is a short, 5 question quiz on the material I have learned throughout the semester in Literacy and Technology. I created my quiz on ProProf.com and found the website relatively easy to use. The only negative quality about the site is that after creating my quiz I could not see it unless I took the quiz myself. I can understand this being applied when other people are looking at the quiz; but since I created it I would think one would be allowed to look at it without having to take the quiz them self. Its a good thing I double checked for any typing and formatting errors because one would not be allowed to go back into the site and fix anything after the quiz has been created. Other than that, I enjoyed making the quiz and thought the topic I chose was interesting and pertained to what I have been learning in this course thus far.
For today's assignment, A6 (snapshot is above), I had to evaluate Engrade Software for at least 45 minutes and then post my reflection on here. I found this assignment interesting because I am not a teacher yet and have not had to use a grade book of any kind being I have no student's. I found it very easy to setup a classroom and created a roster of made up students. I did find some difficulties with trying to weight assignment categories and after giving it a good effort decided to stick with the original settings to not weight assignment categories. The difficulties I found was the layout and the information the site wanted per assignment. I think this may have more to do with my lack of experience with the software; but since I found everything else easy it was some what disappointing when I experienced difficulties with that section.I liked the entire setup of the grade book and also liked that it not only gave the average per student; but also the class average per assignment/test. I really see how one student's poor score can affect the rest of the class as well as effect that student's overall average. The only suggestion I have for the software would be to have a notes section on each assignment/project/test so the student can understand what he or she did wrong and how they can improve this in the future. I feel grades whether excellent or poor need to be explained to the student so they have a better understanding of the course content and to also know how the grade was calculated. That is the only problem I see students and/or parents having with the software since; it is goes straight to the grades without further explanation.I would definitely use this in my classroom and also would recommend other teachers and future teachers to use it as well. It keeps the grades organized and if the teacher has made an error one can just click the grade under the assignment and edit it from there; instead of going through all the students grades to just correct one student's mark.
My latest assignment, A5, was to create a digital story on a topic pertaining to my field of education. I did a Unit Plan on the Native Americans last semester and always wanted to have a visual for it other than handouts and a power point. I will admit I was dreading it at first because I have never made a video before and was unsure if I could make one, let alone make a good video! I spent a long time creating the video and changed the pictures, sounds, texts constantly until I felt it fitted the mood and message I was delivering. I think the hardest part besides adding a title page (introduction) and credits, was recording my voice. I wanted to make sure I didn't sound the same in each slide and also am typically a quiet, soft toned speaker and tried talking as loud as I could. Other than working on the pitch of my voice, I think everything came out great and I had fun working with Photostory 3 for Windows. I initially was going to use Windows Movie Maker since it came with my computer however; I went with Dr.S recommendation for Photostory and I understand why she prefers it. It not only included music so I didn't have to go "hunting" for more material to add to my video; but it also made the video in barely 5 minutes. I showed it off to my family this past weekend (bragging rights ;-D) and they really enjoyed it and could see the amount of time I put into the video. I also made another video, more of a slide point to be exact, on Voice Thread for the HA5 assignment. I found it easier to record and my voice sounded louder. I also liked that it had a section to put comments underneath and to post links. This way one can automatically click the link instead of seeing it at the end of the credits and trying to type in each letter to go to the website. However; Photostory 3 made it into a video where as Voice Thread made it into more of a "power point 2.0" with the extra options included. I genuinely have learned a lot in this course about technology thus far and will be using my new knowledge to incorporate in my future classrooms.
*The link to my digital story on "The First Thanksgiving" is on my personal site.
Well; sixteen weeks of Literacy and Technology online class are officially over. I have completed quite a bit of work in this course; eight assignments (including ICP Project) and six high achiever assignments; that is not including the group assignments and meetings. Yes, I some how found time to do all of the high achiever assignments. I liked the challenge and learned a lot more than I expected. To be honest, I did not expect to learn much more about technology. I knew a lot before this course well; so I thought.
