Web 2.0 Pixlr: Photos, Pixels, JEPGs, and More!

Look at this photo:

Now look at this snazzy photo:

Pretty sweet, right? Well with Pixlr anyone who has internet connection can transform "nice photos" into "wow photos". I took a digital image I found online, made a few clicks in Pixlr, and voila! There are also some pretty goofy things you can do to alter your images, such as I did in this photo:

USA! USA! USA! 

Anyways, that's beside the point. 

Checkout http://pixlr.com/explore to create projects of your own. 

Web 2.0 Tool Glogster...Say What?!

Glogster is basically a fancy way to make an online poster. You can add URLs and hot links so that when you open the poster on your computer, you can click on the links and be taken directly to other sites. I didn't really see much value in Glogster, other than having URLs in one place as to easily find different links. Sure, it looks cool, but it takes a little bit of time, and I don't see how it could be used educationally. The only way that I would use this in my classroom would be for an alternative form of assessment. Students could post pictures, historical documents, links to websites with more information, and quotes on this e-poster. I could then grade them for content, design, layout, and technology integration.
Overall, I don't think I will use Glogster in my classroom.
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The above is who I felt when first introduced to Glogster. Since then, I have created a few projects. Take a look at this cool poster!



 I like it because if you were to make a poster that looked like this in paper form, it would take you several hours! You would have to cut out the different photos, scrapbook photos, and more! Plus, you wouldn't be able to play the audio and movie files that are embedded on the Glogster. I actually like this website, however, I would probably use it sparingly. I DO think that I would use this as a form of assessment to evaluate my students. Not only is it easy to put together, but it takes a little bit of thought and design in order to know which pieces to include on the poster.

IBA (Inquiry Based Assignment) Project

This was one of my favourite, yet most time consuming projects. I love the idea of designing a worksheet that lets kids explore the internet, but also gets them thinking about what they are reading and learning. My website was full of information, pictures, artwork, and movies all about early Greek theater. I would love to teach plays as literature in my classroom! I think giving students an interactive website is just one more way to integrate their culture into their school life. There are so many fun things you can do on the internet and I am so glad I am learning more ways to use it in my classroom. If I put myself in the shoes of my future students, I definitely would rather go through this IBA instead of listening to a lecture, or even reading the textbook and discussing the material in small groups.

Web 2.0 Tool Piscasa Scavenger Hunt

Last week in class we did a photo scavenger hunt. I liked the idea of using this in your classroom and adding educational content to accompany the integration of technology. With deaf kids especially, it is important to do hands on activities so they will be able to pair language with the activity. One way I think I would use this in my classroom would be for students to do a photo scavenger hunt while we are out on a field trip. Then, when we get back to the classroom, the next day, I would have my students put together a powerpoint in Google Docs. That way students would be able to review what we did and saw on our field trip, plus, work in cooperative groups.

Here is a the photo album from my scavenger hunt.








From that, I made this presentation:

Spell with Flickr and Free Digital Photos.net

Check out this cool site! It will create photos of things you want to spell out. Simply go to google.com and type in "spell with flickr". Click on the first listing. Type the word you want the generator to spell. Voila! You can change each letter if you don't like the looks of it simply by clicking on it. The generator will select another picture until you find one your like.

The second site gives you access to hundreds of photos of everything under the sun. Simply type in FreeDigitialPhotos.net and then you can search in the search bar for any photo you please. It's a lot like Google Images, but these photos are more artistic and more professional. The one drawback is that they don't have a very large database for less common objects. For instance, if you type in "Eiffel Tower" there are three photos you can choose from. If you don't like those three photos, you have to look elsewhere.

Resume Project

This project didn't require very high tech skills, however I so appreciated it! I don't have an updated resume and it was so wonderful to spend time in class creating one. It was amazing, because the day after I finished the resume for this project, I had an employer contact me asking for a resume! Not only that, but the day after that, I had another employer who wanted me to email her my resume. I was so incredibly thankful that I had one that was updated, looked good, was formatted professionally, and most of all, was all set and ready to go! This project basically saved me in many ways.
As far as the content of the project, I felt like the amount of time we spent working on it in class was perfect. I know some other people finished before me, but I had just the right amount of time. Also, I loved how we were able to take the template, download it, change it, and then make it our own. In MS Word, I think one of the most challenging things is to figure out how to get all the bullets, and lines, and dashes exactly where you want them. A lot of times, the auto format is so annoying and I wish I could turn it off permanently for some features... By already having the formatting done, it gave me a lot of relief because all I had to worry about was typing in my information. I would definitely have my high school seniors do this project the exact same way we did because it will greatly benefit them and save them lots of time.

Resource Wiki Project

In terms of the overall assignment, I really liked this one. Basically, we had to use and design a wiki with several other people from different sections of our TPTE class. The point of the wiki was for each person to post 5 websites they thought were helpful in the field of education. They could be on any subject, however, our group was assigned to special education, deaf education, and interpreting. I am  deaf education major so it was great for me to be able to share with other pre-service teachers some useful sites that are widely known in the Deaf community.  Sometimes, sites like these go unnoticed by folks who simply do Google searches. I was glad to provide this information and had fun going back and playing around on a couple of the sites.

As for doing it as a group project, it felt like there could have been a few more rules/guidelines given by the instructor to the students. There wasn't really a template for how the wiki was to be designed. I spent a lot of time designing tables and creating separate pages, and then it was frustrating when I learned there was a specific format that we were to follow...but I just didn't know about it (maybe that was my bad...no one else in our group seemed to know about it either...)

Overall, I really see the benefit from this project! It wasn't necessarily "fun", but I will be so glad to get so many different websites (and with the annotations! that is the best part). My only concern is that other students won't put as much time into this wiki as I have.

One Minute Post

How are things going in the class?

So far, I really like this class! I do feel a little overwhelmed, though, because there are so many sites we use for the class. There is the TPTE main website, BlackBoard, Blogger, PBWorks, Google Docs, Google Sites...it's too much for me to handle. I would rather maintain one or two or three sites, and have the others be demonstrations/in class examples and then we don't have to work on them anymore. I have totally lost track of where everything is located and where we are supposed to be posting/adding formation.

On another note, I like how this class is 3 hours. Even though it makes my days really long (because I'm taking 2 other summer school classes this session!), I like the time to go to class and focus on one thing. The two days a week, three hours a time really works for me.

Web 2.0 Tool Assignment: Wordle

Wordle.net in an awesome site that creates "'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends." (Information taken directly from wordle.net.) For example, suppose you are doing a unit on the Civil War. You can enter key terms such as: Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclimation, A War Between Brothers, North, South, Union, Confederate, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and more, into the text generator. The results would look like this: 

You now have a colorful poster for your classroom that either you can create for your students, or you can create with your students as a whole class, that shows key terms of a unit study. 

I really liked this tool! I think that because my deaf/hard of hearing students are so visual, this would be a good way to get them to see words associated with any given topic. Hopefully by simply seeing the words, students will become more familiar with them, with how to spell them, how to sign them, how to lip read them, and how to pronounce them. 

My Impressions of WebQuest

I had never heard of WebQuests before this class and now I am very glad to be introduced to them! Basically, a WebQuest is an interactive lesson on the internet that taps into inquiry based learning in order for students to learn new information. In a day and age where the younger you are, the more you probably know about computers seems to be the trend, I think it is important that we engage our students in online learning. I know that my multi-handicapped students at the school for the deaf loved using the computer! For some of them, because of limited physical motor skills, typing on the computer and moving a large mouse was easier for them than writing with a pen or pencil. I feel WebQuests will not only generate interest, but will allow for a new style of learning to take place. Additionally, students will have the experience of learning from one another, consulting online databases, internet sites, and other non-traditional resources.
 One way I would use a WebQuest in my classroom would be for a substitute teaching plan. There are so many WebQuests online and by using Quest Garden.com you can narrow your search to fit your specific subject of a WebQuest. Secondly, I would love to use WebQuests in my classroom to begin a unit of study. I think WebQuests generate a lot of student involvement and curiosity, and what better to start a unit than with students who are eager to participate? Lastly, I would use a WebQuest to introduce how to do research. It is important that students learn more than how to Google a term when looking for good research. There are several WebQuests that I have seen that help students learn the skills and values necessary to conduct good research.

Wikis In Plain English

First of all, I loved the video "Wikis In Plain English"! I have used Google Docs and didnt even know it was a wiki. See? One more word to add to my vocabulary list of tech terms =) I love the idea of using a wiki for educational purposes! The only thing I don't like is how on PB Works you can steal the lock from another user. I see this being a potential disaster for working with rowdy high school and middle school students. Yikes!  One of the huge benefits of a wiki is it eliminates emailing back and forth. Also, I love how you can share with other people so easily--all you have to do is approve them and/or add them as shared users by entering their email address. Now if you are having a conversation with two faculty members about an upcoming field trip, you can use a wiki to plan the trip with ease. You could also create access for parents to chime in their suggestions.
So, next time you need to plan something with multiple people in a hurry, try using a wiki. After all, "wiki" means "hurry" in Hawaiian. Bet you didn't know that!

Reliable Websites/ Website Evaluation

I evaluated the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website.
Overall, I think this website reliability assignment was helpful, however, I felt it was a little juvenile. I had a lot of this information about the importance of websites being reliable taught to me in high school. I use websites all the time, and for the most part, with a few clicks you can determine whether or not it is valid and/or reliable. I don't know if I would say this assignment helped me learn about the validity of websites. I was distracted by the content on the US Holocaust site because I am very interested in WWII. On a whole, website reliability is important to teach our students, but I feel like I already knew that before beginning this assignment. If nothing else, I learned about flash player and real player and those are normally used to play a video (which I learned is called a "plug in"). See? I'm increasing my computer language already! =)

TN Curriculum Standards

I am very familiar with the TN curriculum standards as I have written many lesson plans for a previous class and we had to incorporate these standards.

Here is the main page for the standards:
http://www.tn.gov/education/ci/english/index.shtml

I think the TN.edu site that contains all these standards is laid out very well and it is easy to find information. I am sure I will constantly be checking this website once I have my own classroom and even next year during student teaching.

Computer Language...err English, Please?

Hi! I've created this blog for my technology class at UTK.
My older sister is a system administrator at a private school in CA (where we're from), so after many years of living with her, I know quite a bit about technology. However, I don't really know any of the "language" behind computers. In other words, it took me a few months to stop saying Amanda worked with computer servers and tries to keep the website  up and running and to say she's a system administrator; computer language.

My expectation for this class is not necessarily to learn how to do new things with the computer. It may seem a bit backwards and odd. However, my main goal is to learn what is "out there" to be used in the classroom. The technological world is rather large (and thrilling [or scary, depending on your point of view]) and I definitely need some help navigating around all the new products and sites!

I have taken only one computer class before. It was an introduction to computer applications course where we learned about MS Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. I found this class extremely helpful. I was able to expand my knowledge of database systems a few months after taking that class by working at a resort in San Diego that used an "in house" database system. I feel like I have a great handle on maneuvering around PCs and just about two months ago got a MacBook Pro (which I love!). So, I am new to the Mac world, but am a very quick learner. I am more of a click-and-see type of person than a spend-hours-on-Google-searching-for-ways-to-do-this-better type of gal. Thus, my scope of knowledge doesn't really grow unless someone tells me "you should really look into _____". I look forward to diving deeper into a world full of new terms and language that I only have a small amount of information about.