Blogging About Blogs

     I think that the blog posts have worked wonderfully for this class! It is a convenient way to share information, and it is a great way to post up screenshots and snippets of all the projects we worked on. I think having a place to process information about the different Web 2.0 tools was extremely helpful. I will keep this site running for a long time because now I have a whole battery of resources to go back and look at my examples, and critiques of those examples.
      One thing that I also liked about blogging for this class is that the instructor can see when each of the students write their posts. It helped keep me on track and accountable with my deadlines and timeframes for the class. This way the instructor can see who threw things together at the last minute, and who has been working on the blogs and assignments all throughout the course.
     Another thing I loved about blogging is that we didn't have to print off response papers. I have done that for many of my other courses and I like the idea of saving paper, being able to go back and edit your ideas, and not having to keep track of paperwork. Blogging for educational purposes is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom! So much of our society is online now, anyways, so why not add the technological part of students' lives into the classroom?
     Overall, I hope to use blogging in my future classroom for things such as one minute essays, collection of assignments, responses, and reflections on reading assignments.

iMovie Project

I loved using the iMovie software! I made a movie of an educational virtual field trip to Washington D.C. Click here to be taken to YouTube.com to view my movie.

I loved how adding the audio and pictures was as easy as clicking "import". I think one of iMovie's best features is that it is "click friendly". By that I mean you can simply click on something and it shows you what the font looks like, how it moves, etc., and then you can click to undo that action. I found the program really easy to use and it created very professional results. I love that you can share the video on YouTube and that it was a synch to upload onto YouTube. I posted this video onto my Facebook and many, many people said that it was extremely well done. I will definitely use the iMovie maker in my classroom, and for personal use, too!

Web 2.0 Tool Storybird

This is a great site that helps you create a digital story! I love the idea of having my students outline, draft, and the compose an original story that is inspired by the artwork on Storybird. I made this simple story entitled "Lily Marie, the Parisian". (Click here to be taken to the site and read the whole story!)

This website can be used for creative writing, or you could even have students compile a biography about a famous author or historian. I definitely will use this website in my classroom!

Web Map: Inspiration 9

I don't know if you can see this screenshot very clearly or not, but it is a shot of my figurative language web map. I love how easy this Inspire 9 software was to use. It is very user friendly and only takes about one hour to learn all the ins-and-outs. I think this program is a lot less time-consuming than ActivInspire. I would be 100% more prone to use this than the ActivInspire software. I love the crisp look of the web map and think it could be useful for many, many educational lessons. I would give this program a 10 out of 10 because of how easy it is and how wonderful the results are.

Web 2.0 Tool Animoto

I love this animoto.com website! I found it extremely easy to use with very professional results. I am planning my wedding and think this would be an excellent idea for a reception slideshow! I love how it took me about 20 minutes to create this whole video. The free music you can add is pretty good too...none of that 1990s free download music like it used to be. I would totally use this in my classroom to create a storyboard telling the life of a famous author, background history on a famous place, or to detail a classroom field trip. This is a very helpful, free, time saving tool that can be used inside and out of the classroom.

Interactive Whiteboard/ ActivInspire

This was my first time every using the ActivInspire software and I did not like it at all! I found the program extremely cumbersome and difficult to navigate. I really hope that I am not expected to use an interactive whiteboard in my classroom! This project took about nine hours worth of work and I feel like I could have churned out the same product (or better!) using MS PowerPoint in 1/3 of the time. I was frustrated and bored during nearly the entire project. I had to use the "search" features multiple times just to find the items I wanted to use. The most frustrating things about this program are: 1) the fact that each piece is built independently 2) these pieces move around unless you "lock" them down 3) there are three ways to do the same things in the program; the tool bar, the icons, and the menu. That feature alone made the program so much more complicated.
As far as learning about interactive whiteboards in this TPTE class, I found it extremely helpful! I would much rather be frustrated as a learner than as a teacher/professional. Now I at least know how to use the site and could use it if required to by my administration. Other than that, I will not be returning to this program anytime soon.

Web 2.0 Tool Google Forms

I have actually filled out a couple of surveys for friends on Google Forms before. I never knew how they were able to make such snazzy surveys and post them online for free. I really like this website and see MUCH educational value in it. I would love to create surveys for my students to fill out about how the unit of study went for them, how they are keeping up with the homework I am assigning, what they think of the book we are currently studying, and more. I would also use a Google Form for different types of assessment. I was told that you can print out the forms once you have made them online. Instead of fooling around with MS Word (which was basically the only thing I knew how to do before this class), I would totally make a test or quiz in Google Forms, print it out, hand my students scantron forms and let them get to work taking a text or quiz that I designed. I love being organized and love for anything that I print up or turn in to be orderly and look good with some sort of pictures or graphics to add interest.

Please take my reading survey here that I made in Google Forms.
Below is a screenshot of what the survey should look like when you click on the link above.

Web 2.0 Tool TimeToast

TimeToast.com is an excellent tool for creating online timelines. I thought this would be helpful in the classroom in many ways! One way that I would use it would be to post homework due dates. I think when you have a visual of when everything is due, it is easier to plan.

Below is a screenshot of a TimeToast project I made of my vacation to Europe last summer. You could even use this tool to plan a future trip and have other people edit in their comments, and pictures, and interesting websites to checkout about each city.

There is a lot of value in having an interactive, and therefore changeable, timeline. I will definitely use this Web 2.0 tool in my classroom.