Making Movies

The digital story project was a lot of fun. We chose a topic relevant to our subject matter and using pictures, either our own or those we got off the internet (free of copyright), we created a digital story with iMovie. The iMovie software was really simple to use, especially if you followed the directions from our packet. Once all the pictures were put into the sequence we waited all that was left was adding captions, a title, credits and a soundtrack. Again all of this was pretty easy if you followed the directions and there were plenty of websites provided to get royalty free music.

The topic I chose was our 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm a big FDR fan and his presidency covers a time really interesting to me so I was excited to do this project. I think that it all turned out well and that I have a solid short movie (about two and a half minutes long) talking about FDR's 12 years in office from the Great Depression through Pearl Harbor and World War II.

I liked this project a lot. It wasn't too hard to do, it was fun, and has plenty of uses in the classroom. Making several of these videos for class presentations or to have as an introduction to topics would not be difficult to accomplish and I think would be fun for the students. Below is the video I made.

Getting Digital with Diagrams

Most of the hands on activity this week in class revolved around the Inspiration software which is used to create digital diagrams and outlines. This software allows you to create a web diagram linking different subtopics and themes to a major topic. The software comes full of pictures that can be used to enhance your digital diagram, as well as a way to add notes to each "bubble" that provides further information on the topic. In the software you can also hyperlink phrases or themes to take the user to a website with further information on the subject. Of course when this is done it is important to make sure the website is reliable. Here is a screenshot of the digital diagram I created on World War II:

This was probably one of my favorite programs that we have used this year. It was simple and easy to use and with a little tinkering, could be spaced to look really good. Each "bubble" only contains a couple words maximum, but the note feature alleviates this. This tool is super useful in my opinion. In a classroom with an interactive whiteboard the digital diagram can be displayed and notes and links within the web can be accessed as the subject is approached. In instances where students have computers with them they can use the diagram as supplement to instruction following along and using the extra information given while studying. Even without the software the screenshot of the image is a successful basic study tool, linking topics and subtopics together. I see a lot of uses that can come out of the Inspiration software. 

Interactive Flip Charts

The majority of class this week was spent working on our flip charts for the Interactive White Board assignment. I find the project extremely useful because many classrooms today have Smartboards or Promethean boards. There is definitely a learning curve trying to figure out how to work the software and get the flip chart to do exactly what you want. I've found that as I have gone along and gotten better with the different aspects of the program I've had to tweak the outline of my flip chart. One thing I don't like is that while ActivInspire can be used on my home laptop, it doesn't seem to cooperate as well as it does in the classroom. This is more likely a problem with my laptop itself as opposed to the software, but it is nonetheless frustrating. Thankfully there have been plenty of hours where the lab is open and can be used. This is probably one of the more fun assignments that we've done in the class and I'm excited to learn more about Promethean and ActivInspire as time goes on to perfect use in the classroom.

Classroom Teaching, IWBs and More

This was a very busy week in the classroom. On Tuesday my group, TimeToast, presented our Web 2.0 along with Google Forms. We also spent a decent amount of time working with the Interactive White Boards and our flip charts, as well as learn about Animoto.

The presentation was not as great as I would have liked and came across fairly bland. As a group we did not do a great job splitting the information up and presenting to the class in a manner that showed all of our competence with the software. We could have prepared much better, especially because TimeToast will be especially useful with subjects like history.

I am excited about the interactive white board flip charts. The Promethean board looks to be a very useful means of teaching in the classroom. Whether it be for lecture or interactive activity it is definitely something I wish I had had in the classroom as a student. The flip chart I'm working on deals with the Great Depression and the cultural and economic effects it had on the American people. I'm excited to work on it and with the ActivInspire software.

Last but not least we worked with Animoto on Thursday which was actually quite fun. The 30 second videos aren't bad and it doesn't cost too much to upgrade to have more opportunities with it. Here is the video I made in class Thursday:


Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Campus Hunting

The last couple of weeks we worked on a scavenger hunt themed towards our specific program areas. The scavenger hung I participated in was social studies oriented and involved finding items around campus that had political and historical relevance. We worked in groups and used either cameras or iPhones. My group used an iPhone camera and shared them with each other via a dropbox upload from the phone.

Once the photos were uploaded we individually worked on editing the photos and creating an album in Picasa Web albums. We organized the album and named the photos according to the scavenger hunt list. Once the album was complete we created a slideshow and uploaded it to our websites. We did a similar process with photos we found online to create a google presentation. The photos I used were of U.S. Presidents from the 20th century.



Scavenger Hunt

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Get your own

U.S. Presidents of the 20th Century

Wonderful Word Clouds with Wordle

This week began the web 2.0 presentations. The first group up was Wordle, which is a program where you can make word clouds. The program was interesting but I didn't see how it could be super useful in a classroom. The presenting group went over certain things you could use word clouds for like vocabulary lessons or listing student names. I'm sure there are more uses that I'm just missing but at first glance it Wordle didn't seem that useful. I'm sure the word clouds would be great for posters in the classroom which is helpful because I am lacking artistically. I suppose another use would be to use the word clouds to spice up assignments so that its more than just a sheet of paper with directions. I hate that this web 2.0 didn't really excite me too terribly much and hopefully I'll be more excited for the others to come.

Toasty Timelines: Using Timetoast

Timetoast is the Web 2.0 tool my group was assigned. The site is designed to help the user create timelines, which is especially useful for social science classes but also helpful with other subjects. For the Web 2.0 assignment our group split our wiki page into sections and we each completed it separately in a Google Doc. Once we checked each other's work and all agreed that it was complete, we transferred the data from the Google Doc to the wiki page. My part of the wiki page was the overview, as well as the strengths and weaknesses. As mentioned before, the site is designed for creating timelines and requires creating an account (a simple task). It had plenty of strengths, but also a few weaknesses. Any timelines created on the site can be uploaded to the server for all members with a publish button. Timelines can be printed off of the site by placing them into text view, a feature provided by Timetoast.