Presentation

I really enjoyed having Deedra in class on tuesday. The things she discussed were very interesting and I think what she is doing is a great idea and will be become a great resource for science teachers in the future. I think there are several methods that we learned in this class that could benefit Ms. Deedra in setting up her sites. Incorporating a voice thread would really allow the children to get involved and understand better what the site is talking about. The history and work that her and her team have put into this site will soon pay off. I really enjoyed having her speak.

CCMS Week 3

Now that the project time is over, I have yet to make any kind of constructive contact with my student. Me and the parent kept emailing each other but the parent could never decide on a good time to meet. The parents schedule was not very flexible and therefore it made it hard to get together. I was really looking forward to this project but I guess things just weren't meant to be.

CCMS Week 2

I have emailed my students parents and have got one email back and I responded to that email and since then, I have not recieved a reply or a phone call or anything. I'm not sure what to do. I havent done any of the assignments because I am not able to get a hold of my student and or their parents. I have completed an outline of my own ideas for how the project could turn out and how it could be presented. Since my student is doing Volcanoes, I thought it would be a great idea to get all the materials together and have my student actually construct a volcano and talk about it as he goes along. At the same time I would be vidoeing what he is doing just with his hands, trying to keep his face out of the picture and just using his hands and voice to create the video. Then maybe at the end he could talk about some of the different volcanoes and we could insert pictures of those volcanoes while he is talking about them. I really hope I get the chance to do this project but as of right now I dont see it happening but I am going to be optomistic.

CCMS Week 1

I emailed my students parent on Monday and I have yet to recieve an email back, therefore my blog this week will not be very long. I am really looking forward to working with my student and kind of getting the feel for teaching someone and helping them along in their learning. Something that is going to be hard for me is letting the student do most of the work and me just sitting back and pitching in when I am needed. I really hope I can instill in my student and show them different tools that will not only help them with this project but future projects as well. As a teacher in training I want to know that I can influence my students with tools and methods that I have learned and that have helped me and hopefully they will enjoy them as much as I have and or do. Hopefully my next blog will be filled with information about my student and what we talked about in reference to their project ideas.

Using Spreadsheets in the Classroom

Spreadsheets are a very useful tool that can greatly enhance students learning both visually and mentally. You can use spreadsheets in many different ways, whether you yourself are using them to keep track of your students’ grades or by having the students create their own spreadsheet.

With my unit plan, spreadsheets are not going to be that easy to incorporate into my lesson plans. Why is writing important?, is my main unit question and I could only come up with a few ways for my students to use spreadsheets and incorporate this question:

How many of each of the following different types of papers have you written?

After reading your peers paper, rate them on how they did in each of the following categories.

I really like this last question because it allows the students to experience peer review and get the feeling for it. It also allows them to communicate with their peers and get feedback on their papers.

Below is a link to a spreadsheet that I created using a wedding budget and it just gives a little insight to what I might have my students do in their projects.

My spreadsheet

Creative Writing

I really enjoyed doing this assignment because I learned a great new tool to use and plan on utilizing it in the future. Movie Maker is a great way to imbed your thoughts and learning processes into something that the students will not only enjoy but take something from. I used a lot of different techniques in my project and explored even more. I really like the fact that they have so many choices for your effects and transitions. I wasn’t exactly sure how to embed them into my video but I found a great website that explained in great detail exactly to use Movie Maker and everything that it offered. I had always heard about imbedding music to your videos and title overlay but I had never explored it or been given the opportunity to explore it.

Title overlay is a great way to incorporate words into your videos without using voice threads or a different type of voice narration. I also liked that they had a tab that would create a credits slide for you and all you had to do was type in the words; it even shows it like you would see credits at the end of big time movies. You can also change the length of each slide/shot and adjust your music accordingly and at the end if the song is longer than the video, you can have it fade out at a certain point instead of it just cutting off when the movie is over. In the end, I think someone could learn a lot using Movie Maker and I'm sure there are many more options that I didn't even come across that would be amazing in constructing a video. Here is the link to the website that was a huge help in teaching me how to use Movie Maker.
-Movie Maker

My Digitial Storytelling

I’m not a big fan of the whole technology scene yet but because of this class and especially because of this particular assignment I am beginning to have a little fun with it all. In my first slide I presented my dramatic question which is “how can different objects and or people influence someone in writing an imaginative paper?” I like this question because there can be many different answers; especially if they are coming from children. Emotion is another element that I think I bring up because when you look at something or see someone, you get this feeling of inspiration whether it be that you want to be a superstar like Carrie Underwood or a “rad” surfer dude or dudette. I asked my boyfriend this question and we basically had the same answer in that the first thoughts that you think in something you see is your imagination coming to life. Without an imagination there would be no fun in life. As kids we use our imagination more than ever and as we become adults we tend to forget about our imagination but for me, a life is not a good life without an imagination.

My storyboard:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc5tgnpb_3fq8sswc9

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc5tgnpb_4czmnjmhj