Wikki Contribution

My Wikki contribution can be found at: http://k12instructionaltechnology.wikispaces.com/GreatExpectations

I think wikkis can be great for collaborative work. It allows the students to help edit a group project without having to all meet at the same time. Wikkis also allow students to see how others do projects and can generate great ideas for their own projects.

accomplishment for the semester

I think for me, that my best accomplishment this semester was my teaching video that was put on youtube. That project probably took me the longest and I think it turned out the best. Something like that could make a very interesting project for students and can be just as rewarding for them as it was for me.

Discussing Internet Safety

I shared my internet safety information with my mom; who still has a teenager at home. She was aware of a lot of internet safety things. We were able to discuss how having something as simple as a screen name that tells your gender can be unsafe. Internet predators can access all sorts of information about a person just by finding your screen name. Our discussion was positive. My parents know a lot about internet safety and follow a lot of the tips that are basic internet safety tips. Like have the computer in an open area where everyone can see what is on the screen; and making sure they have parental controls to block bad sites and see where their child has been.

Internet Safety

For me I think the most shocking thing I learned from the readings and videos was about cyberbullying. Now students aren't just bullied at school any more; the bullying can follow them home and invade their whole life. I was not aware how prevalent this type of bullying was. As a teacher I will do my best to be aware of this problem and address it as soon as I find out. I think getting the parents more involved with what's going on in the child's life is also something that needs to happen. Teachers and parents should be aware of what students are saying to each other both in person and thru text messages and online.

I think the government does a good job of trying to give teachers and parents information about internet safety. They have websites specifically dedicated to helping adults understand the importance of internet safety.

I think as teacher we need to be involved in our student's lives; not just teaching them our assigned subject, but really willing to get to know them. Letting our students know that internet safety is a big problem is something that teachers should make a priority.

competition groups

My favorite group that presented was the first group. I thought that their class wikki was a really great idea. And using primary sources to do interviews from the past was a really great way to get students excited about learning about history. Having their students used their classmates videos to help them learn about the Revolution sounds like a great way to get everyone involved and excited. I felt like all of their lessson ideas helped contribute to their students learning. Their project probably wasn't the most "put together" for lake of better words, but I thought it was a fun way to involve the whole class. I think the group that had their full 2 weeks of lesson plans was the most pepared for the competiton, but I felt like their projects might be a little compecated for students. I think I would have to hear more about thier project to be more excited about it.

iMovie project

An instructional video like this can be very helpful in a classroom setting. Especially when working with a difficult poem. By making a video like this a teacher can present the poem to their students in a more visual way. Students seem to becoming more visual learners; especally with all of the technology that is avaliable for them. By presenting a difficult concept in a visual way can help them undersand new concepts. I think using videos like this will be particuallry helpful when working with poetry.

new technology

Finishing up my imovie project was a little more time consuming than I had originally thought it would take. imovie is a great tool that can be used for creative projects, but I felt like it would have worked a little better if I had actual videos as opposed to just still photos. Once I figured out all of the little tricks to imovie it wasn't very hard to put everything together. My problem was that I felt like the program wasn't as user friendly as it advertised itself as. But at the same time, once I figured out the little tricks for imovie everything went smoothly. I would consider using imovie is a classroom setting for creative projects. It takes a little while to get the hang of, but once I figured that out I didn't have any major problems.

new technology

So working on the iMovie video project started out as a little bit of a challenge for me. I was not able to just upload pictures from my usb stick onto iMovie. But the beauty about macs is that you can drag things from one page onto another. so I've been doing my project through that method. Overall I like iMove, once I got past the initial shock of having to learn something completely out of my comfort zone there are a lot of cool things about this technology. I think it's cool that you can make movies out of previous videos or out of still pictures. Everything is fairly easy to access. The only trouble I've really run into so far is being able to save it to my usb drive, but it's not that bad since I have a mac at my home to work on. something like imovie could be a useful tool in a classroom setting to encourage students to think about projects in a more creative way. It has been fun to explore this new technology.

new technology

I realize that this technology has been out for a little while, but I just discovered it, google buzz. It is linked to your email and is kind of like facebook and twitter combined. You can do posts and put videos and pictures on it. It claims to be a faster way to look at what's going on in your friends lives. Plus you can add links on to your buzz page. I kind of see goggle buzz as a quick way to do blogging; you can put pictures up and tell what's going on in your life. I just see it as a more interactive blog. I haven't played with google buzz that much but it seems interesting; I'm curious to see where it goes.

Something New I Learned about Copyright

I was unaware of the copyright laws before this week. Basically everything that the informational videos went over was new to me. I think one of the more interesting bits I learned about copyright had to do with text, specifically poems. I wasn't aware that a student or teacher could use all of a 250 poem or more from a longer poem. And that you can only use three poems from the same author or 5 from different authors. I think that bit of the multimedia guidelines was one of the most rel event for an English teacher. Teachers constantly use different texts and poems in their classrooms. By knowing how to use this portion of the copyright law correctly it can be very helpful. I was also unaware that students can keep copyrighted info. in their portfolios indefinitely and that teacher's work lasts 2 years. That is also important to know because a lot of teachers use the same media presentations for many years. It is good to know how long you are allowed to use the media.

Copyright Video #2

Right off the bat, this video cites the song it uses for the background music. I'm not sure if they are technically allowed to use as much of that music as they did, but at least they cited it. From what it looked like each video clip they showed followed the multimedia guidelines of only having 10% of the original video. Although the author of this video only used the allotted 10% they did not cite where they got their videos from. All they need to do to fix that is to just add a citation on the page or at the end of the video. I'm not sure if they made their own graphics of the solar system or if they obtained it from another source. If they obtained it from another source all they need to do is cite that as well. Overall this author tried to follow copyright laws; they just might want to cite some of their video clips and graphics.

Copyright Video #1

Although this video is well constucted it lacks proper citation of where all of the pictures come from. The author of this video has put together a slide show of paintings depicting the war of 1812, but no where does he cite where he received the info from. At the end of the video there is a website that is noted, http://www.americaninstituteofhistory.org/. This website could contain all of the paintings, but there is no real indication of that. The video is put together very well, but nothing is really cited. There is also music in the background that isn't cited, and the material he used to come up with this presentation is also not cited. The presentation is put together well, but does not follow copyright laws. All this author needs to do to correct their mistakes is to cite where they obtained each picture while it shows on the video. Or if they got all the pictures from the same place; they could just cite the pictures at the end of the video. Just having the website at the end of the video is not sufficient. The author also needs to cite where the music is from. If the information he used about the war came from a specific text that should also be cited. The music also should be sited and the author should make sure it follows the 10% guidelines. By adding the citations into this video it would make it an excellent teaching tool. Something as simple as putting where you received your info. from can be helpful for staying inside the copyright laws.

new technology for me

I know this isn't really a new technology, but it is a new technology. Google Docs. For the lesson plan I did for the personal technology project I used google docs. I had never actually used it before, and it was surprisingly a lot more like word than I expected. It is easy to navigate and not hard to work with. Plus bonus, it saves your work about every 30 sec. or so, which is always good. I know this isn't a big technology but it can be a really useful tool if you don't have a thumb drive on hand. Just save your work on google docs, go to another computer and open the same doc. That is way easier than worrying about if you have a thumb drive or not.

Personal Technology Project

For my personal technology project I chose to do a WebQuest. WebQuests are a creative way to have students do projects and search for things on the Internet. Although I enjoyed putting my Webqust together; it was time consuming to do. It is not hard to put together; there are step by step instructions. It just takes time. Along with putting together a webquest I also did a lesson plan that goes along with it. Overall I really enjoyed this activity. I think that using a Webquest in a classroom setting can get students more excited about doing assignments.

WebQuest, part II

So I'm doing a WebQuest for my personal learning technology. I was really nervous at first to be working with a technology that I've never used before. But WebQuest is pretty user friendly. First, if you're confused or lost on anything it has tutorials on youtube that can walk you through the basics. It also gives you a lot of info. about WebQuests even before you sign up for one; which is nice to see what it's really like before you get one yourself. Plus after you get a WebQuest it gives you a 5 step process on how to make your own WebQuest. It is a pretty cool technology that allows students to use the Internet as a way to explore and make an assignment more interesting. Plus WebQuest are totally user friendly for the teacher putting it together for their students. I'm excited about putting my WebQuest together, and seeing what the finished product will look like.

Personal Technology Project

For my Personal Technology Project I have decided to do a webquest page for a class. I think this technology will be realivent to me as a teacher later down the road. I'm hoping to make a webquest page on a english based topic. I haven't narrowed my topic yet, but I'm debating between a literary work, like Great Expectations, or some sort of grammer page. I'm excited to get to explore this tool, and hopefully incorporate it into my knowledge of technologies that can be used in the classroom. I'm a little nervous about this project because I'm not great with technology. But I'm willing to learn new tools and hopefully improve my tehcnology skills. I think that making a webquest will be a great way to have an interactive technology for my students to use.

Class Website

I just finished my class website. I ran into a few problems while trying to put the whole thing together. My biggest problem was figuring out how to embed different things. The first thing that I had trouble embedding was a youtube video. Instead of using the embed gadget I went under the insert tab and went down to the subheading titled video. From there it let me just embed a youtube video thru the url. The other thing I had a problem with embedding was from slideshare . It turned out that the default embed code on the page for my powerpoint was not correct. So Danny helped me find another embed code for the same powerpoint. Doing this website has been difficult, but will be a great tool to use as a teacher

Google docs

I know that google docs is not a new thing to most people, but it is new to me. I've been playing with all the different things that google has: like presentations, sites, etc; and google docs has stood out to me this past week. I think this can be a really good collaborative tool that students can use when studying for tests. All that needs to happen is someone (student or teacher) needs to put the study guide on a google doc, and everyone can fill in the answers collaboratively. This is a good thing to use if a student has missed a day or just doesn't understand a concept. It is a good way for peers to help one another out for studying for tests.

Latest Technology I've discovered

So my husband is really into all the lastest mac stuff out there and he showed me something this past week that I thought was really cool. It's called the Ipad; basically it's a beefed up version of th iphone mixed with a computer. It is about a ten inch touch panel screen. It gives you the ability to buy books and read them straight from the ipad; which is perfect for teaching in the class room. It could also be really good for college students becasue it will give everyone the opportunity to just buy their books electronically using this as a tool. And hopefully the prices for text books will be cheaper than at the book store. This seems like a really good resource for college aged people.

google reader

I have put 5 blogs on my google reader that either deal with technology, literature, or a combination of both. I choose to use Professor West's web-logged, and his our diigo group as suplementary material for teaching and technology. I thought that both of these sites were good material to use with teaching and technology. I also found a site called free technology for teachers; which shows the latest kinds of technology and how teachers can use them. A lot of the posts were put on by teachers and how they used them. Another site I found focused on integrating technology into teaching; which is exactly what this class is about. So I thought that was way cool, and helpful. The last site I found was by PBS and dealt with resources for teachers in the classroom; which is always helpful. I am excited to really get to search through these different sites and be able to find helpful information to make me a better teacher.

At the beginning

I have always had an aversion to technology; so when I found out I had to take a teaching technology class I was a little nervous. Then finding out on the first day of class that I have to make a blog right off the bat; well my nervous level went to about a 12. I'm hoping to become more comfortable navigating things like blog sites, and learning how to create both web sites and google documents. So here I go...