Disney Dreaming Photo Story

I had a great time making this little project. It was incredibly user-friendly, taking you through step by step and allowing a wide variety of modifications in font, color, and transitions, etc. I couldn't figure out how to put music on it, but that would certainly add something more--especially with a Disney soundtrack!

One of my favorite classes in college was a literature and film class. These days if someone writes a good novel, instantly the movie buzz begins. People long to see the characters they get to know so well on paper come to life on the big screen. Characters become incredibly important to people, and watching a movie can be a magical or infuriating experience. Using photostory in an English classroom is a way to allow students to be a part of that process, without taking lots of time for actual film-making, something that most schools wouldn't have access to. I found one website called "english teacher's friend" that listed different ways to use photo story or movie story. Some of their suggestions were to do biography on themselves or an author, create a trailer for a book, or use it to create a review. I think the last one would be a great way to recap the year. I believe in lots of different hands on, cultural experiences in studying literature, and having the students create a photostory review of our different experiences throughout the year would not only conjure up positive memories, but help them review all the major works of literature we'd studied throughout their year. It would be a wonderful refresher. They could also do a team project where they create scenes from the literature, taking several still pictures, and then working them into a sort of movie. The software is so accessible and usable, it wouldn't take the time or expertise that a real movie might demand, but would still give them a chance to bring a novel or poem to life in a unique way.

WebQuest Trials and Tribulations

Wow. This one was really hard for me. I fully admit that family visits made procrastinating this far too easy, but it was still a real struggle. I think what was most frustrating was that I couldn't really capture the vision of webquests in general. I looked at alot of really cool webquests, but I didn't see why the students couldn't have done those same wonderful projects with just a paper explanation and some links emailed to them. I don't understand the magic of a "webquest." So, I had a hard time figuring out how to make one that I would use in a high school English lit class. I actually, in the end, like my webquest. I could not figure out how to use a template, and by the time I'd heard back about the powerpoint, I was almost done making my webquest on the questgarden site. I cited the sources of each picture with a link "Picture Credit" on the bottom of the pages where I had pictures. I hope that is okay. I didn't think about it until I was done with it, so I had to go back and track down all the pictures I used again. Not a big deal, except for one. I could not find the exact picture again! I found one of the exact same pose featuring all the Bennett sisters from Pride and Prejudice, but the one I used on the webquest also had the mother. Oh well. I think it is a fun webquest, and I could see myself using it with a class as a fun introduction to Jane Austen, and I do think it takes some independent thinking to take in lots of different information and create journal entries that can tie them all together in an interesting way. Still, I'm not quite sure that I couldn't do a similar project without a webquest. The only thing is that the webquest has the active links on it to all the different Jane Austen sites, so the student wouldn't have to copy and paste or type them in.
It is a very basic webquest, but I hope it hits all the major components. If anything, it certainly made me want to re-read Pride and Prejudice! Mission accomplished.

Here is the link

Enjoy!

Facebook in the Classroom

I mentioned this in my graded assignment as well. I taught an early morning scripture study class for highschoolers. We met at 6am before they went to school. I used facebook to communicate with my students in several ways.

First, a parent helped me by setting up a groups and invited all the students to it. Originally I was going to just make an email group, but I realized that fewer and fewer teenagers are using email these days. I feel so old. Anyway, the majority of the students were in the group. Since it was a church class I couldn't really require participation. Every week I sent a message to everyone to outline what we would be reading and studying during the week. If we were having special guests, I made note of it. I would also send out announcements if they needed to be aware of any changes. It was also really helpful in communicating to the parents. Many of them were also in the group. Some of the parents who didn't allow their children to have facebook accounts joined the group and would pass on the information to them.

In doing this, many of my students became my facebook "friends." They didn't have to in order to join the group though. Being "friends" with my students helped me in many ways. Since it was a church class, it was really helpful for me to be aware of their activities, thoughts, and challenges. I could send uplifting messages, happy birthday notes, and see what sort of things were going on in their lives. It created a sort of kinship that I might not have been able to create with only 45 minutes a day. For instance, two of my students just won a national high school film-making competition. School is out, so I might not have heard about it, but I saw it on facebook and was able to hoop and holler in celebration electronically, communicating to them long-distance how proud I was of them. It really was a wonderful tool to stay in touch, and communicate important messages for the class. I rarely used facebook for anything else, but keeping it active just for that class was completely worth it.

In retrospect, I wish that I could have had more discussion in the group's discussion board. I tried to post some things there, but it never really took off. I also wish I had posted more pictures from our class activities and encouraged them to do the same. It would have been great to have them communicate to each other outside of our class.

Much Improved Flyer

I made this flyer for my husband's new private practice venture. He has opened his own family therapy office and is offering some low cost parenting workshops as a way to introduce his services to the community. We thought some simple flyers plastered around the shops and parking lots in the neighborhood would be a good place to start. I wanted to create a simple flyer that would convey the key points of information without being boring or tedious. One thing that I discovered in the presidential flashcard assignment was about text wrapping. I added a graphic of a family in various stages and using the format settings put it behind the name of his practice. The graphic is cool, but also dark, so I needed to change the color of the font so that you could more clearly see the name of the practice. I actually couldn't figure out how to save it as a .jpg, so I saved it as a PDF and saved it on a site that will save your documents and make them easier to view on a blog, like this:
VRC Flyer


I have used this before in sharing stories I've written on my other blog. I think it works pretty well. I look forward to learning more about desktop publishing and how I can make more interesting flyers for my classes. I am also looking into starting an after school creative arts centered care for kids, and I know that I can use these tools to create brochures and different projects for my students and parents. There are so many wonderful templates available as well that are really useful for slow technological learners like myself!

Spreadsheet Surprise

I found a short, but interesting article HERE that really gave me some quick ideas on how to go beyond the gradebook in using Excel in an English classroom. One way that didn't occur to me at all was to use it as a way to teach grammar, using Excel to build a dictionary of the different parts of speech, creating cells for the words and definitions as we learn them, and then it would be a running master list for review at the end of the year. Also, it is an easy way to keep track of number of pages read or poems memorized. Perhaps a chart taped to the wall would work as well, though, and I am not sure how one is better than the other. Except that a spreadsheet can be emailed to a parent and kids can access it when they aren't in the classroom. This could be really helpful over the summertime, creating a reading goal as a class for over the summer, and a spreadsheet is a way to track pages read even when the class isn't together. Another great idea is to use it to build a list of authors, tracking their birth and death dates and what their ages were when they wrote their texts. Then, Excel can make a chart or graph with that information and it could be really interesting to note a pattern of when most authors started writing, wrote the most, or were the most successful. This would be a great paper assignment, having the student take a look at when the author wrote the most or least and then do some research into their lives to try to make a connection as to what might have caused more or less writing in their lives.
These are wonderful ideas, but I am a little intimidated by the process of building another spreadsheet. I am so grateful for the wonderful instructions that walked me through the process of building a grading template, but there are still so many questions I have? How can I create a spreadsheet that will take into account all the different types of grades they receive? And I have no idea how to do charts and graphs. But, thank goodness for google. I am sure I will be able to find anwers to my questions as I go. The instructions helped me so much in simply learning how to navigate through the cells and functions. It was great. Now, if I can use it set up a budget!

Week One. . . Challenges

Unfortunately, I don't have a classroom right now in which to implement any of what I learned this week, but I do already sense a change in my perspective on technology and its place in the classroom. I have always been a "carry a novel in your back pocket and sit by a river to read it" kind of learner, and thought technology was the easy way out of teaching, planting a student in front of a computer, rather than engage them in learning yourself. But, I'm realizing that technology can be a really personalized tool to enhance learning, communication, and application. I think that is the most important thing I've learned just in these last couple of days.

I think the steps I'll take is mostly to approach this online course with an open mind and make a note of everything I can. I plan to take some time to learn how to use excel so I can use it for grades and charts when I teach (hopefully!) in the Fall. I know that a big challenge for me will be that computers and I sometimes aren't the best of friends. In fact, sometimes I think they all hate me. So, I get easily frustrated and intimidated and want to just write everything out on paper. But, I am realizing that all skills take time, and there was a time when even email seemed foreign and now I am a steady blogger.

I will try to be patient with myself as I take on new tasks, and I will try not to make huge sweeping goals, but simply find small ways to use technology to enhance learning, not just for the sake of cool gadgets or impressing high schoolers, but in ways that will really make learning individual and helpful.