Venture completed....well sort of.

I feel like I learned an awful lot this summer. For one, I learned that I prefer the Mac OS to the PC OS which I never thought I would say. Though I must say, I was knocking it without trying it. I really liked the Google tools we learned about and the way that they can be used in the classroom. I was really worried about being able to stay connected with my parents and Google sites and Blogs make that super easy to do. I really like how BlackBoard helps us stay connected at UT and being able to bring that to the HS level is really exciting to me. All in all I really learned a lot about ways to work technology into the classroom at the high school level, and I had a really, really good time doing it.

Oops....

And it just occurred to me that I haven't posted my video yet....oops.... Sorry Jeff.
Anyway, I tried to pick lyrics that went with my photos which in some way connect to the story. I feel like it probably makes more sense after you've read the book, but anyway...Here it is....

and because I failed to include them in the video:
Music:
"Vindicated" Dashboard Confessional
"How to Save A Life" The Fray
"Seventy Times Seven" The Used

Digital Story

Once I got the initial kinks worked out with my music files that I was trying to use everything went pretty smoothly. I really liked this assignment, and I like the fact that I'll be teaching this book in the fall so I could potentially use this as a way to (hopefully) get my students a little bit excited about reading the book. Probably wishful thinking there. At any rate, I think the digital story thing is a pretty good idea just for fun. I know a couple of people have posted theirs to their facebooks and whatnot. And I know it was fun for people to put their pictures together and look back at some good times. So far this has been my favorite assignment we have done, and while I had a couple of little technology issues it was nothing that would discourage me from using something like this in the future. I will say, though, the software in the library is much more user friendly than the software in the classroom.

One minute essay

I was really unfamiliar with Google docs and presentations so that has been some of my favorite work that we have done. Also iGoogle is something that I was introduced to in this class that I really really like. It's actually my homepage on my computer at home now.

For me...far from inspirational

This program really didn't do much for me personally. Admittedly, one reason for that is probably that I'm not a very creative person so I don't really get into this sort of thing as much as many of my colleagues do. I think I could use this (as I attempted to do in my assignment) as a pre-writing handout; something to get the students started and headed in the right direction. I also know that I will have visual learners that this sort of thing will appeal to so it may be something that I need to play with a little more because it seemed really simple to use. I guess I'm on the fence on this program until I get in and play with it some more and try to think of some more practical applications for the classroom.

The ABC's of embedding slideshows

Digital Collection