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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Technology of the Week

I enjoyed learning about Dipity today in class. I would use Dipity when I become a teacher. I think it would be need to have students create a project introducing themselves to me. It would be neat to make my own Dipity timeline about myself to tell my students a little bit about myself at the beginning of the school year. I could include picture and information about my life. Students then could create the same time of timeline for themselves. I would also like to create a timeline about first grade. It would be a great way for students to look back on what they learned during the school year. I would include pictures of my students on the timeline. The students could then have a digital scrapbook of the year.

Dipity is aslo a great tool for any subject. I could see myself using it the most in history. It would provide me with the opportunity to create a timeline of history in different cultures that we study.

I enjoyed watching the photo stories today. I was very impressed by everyone's movie. I could see myself showing these types of videos in class.

photo story

The photo story project was a lot of fun, and seeing some of the examples in class, I really understand how effective these kinds of presentations can be for students. The audio and visual component together make the subject seem to come alive, and by introducing a unit that students may find somewhat boring using this kind of technology may get the students more engaged.

I found the photo story project somewhat challenges in the way I had to cut down the information I wanted to share with students into the time frame. It makes sense that after a few minutes students are less likely and less able to pay attention, and I found I had to cut out some of the examples I would have liked to share. Also, pacing the voiceover so as not to speak too quickly was also challenging as there was so much information that I wanted to get to.

While my project focused on the steps of the research process, fulfilling the fifth goal of the state objectives, I can really see how photo stories could be used to introduce a novel. Background information, fun quotes to look forward to: there are numerous possibilities that could be effective in getting students excited about a new literary unit!
I thought that all the photo stories I saw were very informative and i think that doing one every once in awhile would be a great change in pace for student. I think its important not to use these stories all the time because it is important to do hands on teaching to. But, every week or so mixing in a short introduction to a topic or talking about a certain event would be very helpful.

Photo Story

I really enjoyed working on and creating this project. It was an interesting look at how to summarize such a broad topic (Civil Rights Movement in my case)by using pictures and presenting it in this style. From all of the videos I got the chance to see during class today, I can tell that this will be a useful tool in presenting information to students in a more interesting way to them. By keeping the Photo Stories to the point, they can be a very good tool to keep the students attention during class, and also a way to create a good introduction to a new topic or unit being taught in the classroom. I was worried while making the video that I would have an issue with the vocal recordings, either that they would turn out too loud or quiet, but when I finished with the project, I was very satisified with what I heard from my video.

Photostory projects

After viewing all of the photostory and Imovie projects I feel that this was a very useful project. Seeing all of the different project materials and how each individual put their own unique parts into the project makes me realize how much of a great tool photostory can be. Not only would it be useful to show brief introductions of different subjects in a math class but it would also be a great tool to use as a project. I feel that photostory and imove can both be used as a way for students to do their own projects and explain what they have learned so far. The photostory project would be a great summery tool for mathematics and all of the other natural sciences. The advantages for this project would be threefold. One, the students would be able to summarize the lesson and I would be able to evaluate how much they actually learned. Two, the project is very fun and exciting, how cool is it to make your own movie! Three, it would allow the students to work with technology and gain experience with problem solving techniques. Overall I was very pleased with the photostory/imovie project and can see its uses in a future classroom.

Photostory

I feel that having an opportunity to view other people's photostory projects really opened my eyes to how photostory can be used for any subject or grade level. I feel that at any age, students would be excited to view a photostory their teacher made. I know that viewing other people's projects in class increased my interest level in the subjects that were addressed and made me want to learn more about them.

Dipity is also a great resource for creating timelines in the classroom. I thought that the idea of using it to have students create a biographical timeline on this site was an excellent idea. In most elementary school classrooms, students do create timelines of their lives. Incorporating technology in this project would be an excellent idea.

At the beginning of the course, I felt very insecure about using new technologies. However, after going through tutorials and becoming familiar with the technology available, I feel much more confident and competent in regards to integrating technology into classroom instruction when it comes to Smartboard technology, Wiki, and photostory.

Photostory Presentations

I really enjoyed watching and listening to everyone's projects today! It was neat to see what everyone chose and see how they put it together. It was neat to see presentations that were geared towards elementary and others geared toward secondary education. I think all of these presentations could be used in our classrooms later, and I think the students could really learn a lot from them! It is really neat how we could use pictures and narration to get our point across. I think photostory is definitely something the students would enjoy using too. We could not only make our own to show them but teach them how to use it and let them create their own! Again, everyone's projects were very interesting! Great job guys!

Photo Story Thoughts

This past week as a class, we worked on our Photo Stories. My subject area was about physical science. So, I chose to focus on the body--mainly the teeth. I wanted to focus on February being dental hygiene month and the keeping and caring of teeth. I am very partial to teeth because four members of my family are dentists and one is a hygienist. I had fun talking about something that is so interesting. I used only a few websites to help me because the audience for my project would be very early elementary. I basically wanted to focus on how not to get cavities and the proper way care for young teeth. The program Photo Story 3 made it pretty simple to edit and record my information right into the program. I preferred using the microphone on my laptop to the one on my headphones, it simply sounded better. My one issue with this project was inserting music. I tried countless ways to turn my music into different formats to get it to work. I had really adorable music I wanted to use too (Yo Gabba Gabba and The Wiggles anyone?). Either way, I put music into the story. I ended up creating my own custom music for the story using the music maker feature in the program. Overall this was a really fun project that I would definitely like to use in the future!

PhotoStory Projects

I was really pleased with how my photostory turned out. I enjoyed putting it together and creating my own lesson, and then on top of that it actually worked! Plus, seeing people's end results for the Photostory project was incredibly interesting! There were a lot a creative ideas and good information being presented. A lot of the elementart lessons were really cute and educational at the same time, and I think they would really hold the attention of younger kids. And the lesson on calculus actually helped me understand the subject a little better! This technology can be used in so many different ways and is a great instructional tool for students. The music adds a really nice touch, and it gives students a visual on what youre talking about. I really enjoyed this project a lot and I think that I will definitely implement it in my classroom.

The only frustration I had with this project was getting the music to work with the program. Some types of files weren't compatable with Photostory, and it got frustrating when I couldn't use the ideas I wanted. But in the end, everything worked out alright.

Photo Stories

I really enjoyed watching the photo stories in class today! I believe they would be incredibly helpful in any classroom, whether it is an elementary, middle, or high school classroom. The photo stories enable students to learn new concepts in a new way, rather that simply listening to a teacher explain them. Photo stories appeal to both visual and auditory learners because students are able to learn the content by listening AND looking at relevant pictures.

Photo stories would be very useful to introduce a topic, practice a new skill, or summarize something that has already been taught. I think students would really enjoy watching photo stories every once in a while because it adds variety to classroom instruction and holds their interest. In my educational experience, I remember enjoying photo stories that my teachers showed in class because they are concise and interesting.

Sharing photostories!

Today's class was really interesting. I enjoyed watching the different photostories that people created. I think everyone did a really great job with the narrations! While watching them, I couldn't help by picture myself as a high schooler in the classroom, having to watch a photostory as part of a lesson. I think it is a great break from the traditional lecture/notes, but it still offers a ton of content. Also, the time length of about 3 minutes is perfect! It is short enough to keep students engaged, yet long enough to be able to contain substantial information. One of my favorite presentations was the causes of WWI by Andrew. History is one of my least favorite subjects and I have a huge problem with learning it, but the 3 minute video we watched today was extremely helpful. The pictures, music and narration kept me interested and the breakdown of causes was really easy to understand!

I really like the technology of the week. I think timelines can be incorporated into many different activities and can really help students visualize when things were happening. Also, like I said in class, it can be used (at least in foreign language) to offer a reenforcement of tenses, concepts or vocabulary.

iMovie presentation and Tech of the Week

I really enjoyed the result of my iMovie presentation. Although it took a lot of time to research the material and find photos to correlate with the concepts I presented, I think it turned out really well in the end. Once I had all my materials, it was easy enough to record my voice and incorporate other music into the project.

One of the hardest parts of this project, however, was finding photos that were not copyrighted. Wikipedia actually had a lot of photos available that were either open to public domain, or were allowed to share with attribution to the original photographer. Another great site that I used was the Morguefile.com, which I found from the Flickr presentation given on the Tech of the Week google site.

As far as Dipity, it seems like it would be hard to incorporate math into timelines. The only projects I could think about that would be relevant for a time-line would be the history of math, when certain theories and breakthroughs occurred, which would give students the ability to see how long certain math concepts have been known to the world and accepted. This would be able to show students how far back mathematics goes in history, as well as the current discoveries still being made, like larger and larger prime numbers being discovered more recently.

Photo Story Sharing and Tech of the week!

I found all the photo stories that were shared in class today to be extremely interesting. I loved Karin's hawaiin lesson and thought that it did a great job appealing to the younger students. Bobby and Andrew's photo story were both great because they did a great job triggering the lesson towards the older students, yet not making it too boring. I think it's so important that the tone of voice fits the type of students you are aiming to teach. I found that the photo story was a fun way to teach students and interact with them in a unique way.

I thought the tech of the week was really cool and I actually can't wait to use it myself! Dipiti was really neat, because it provides me with all the information I may need throughout time. I can see utilizing this program in the classroom all the time no matter the age level.