Assignment 8

This past week we were tasked with creating a desktop movie/digital story and upload it to TeacherTube. I really enjoyed creating this as I had never before used Windows Movie Maker. But it seems my computer wasn't so keen on cooperating with me.

While creating the movie, my computer would freeze at various points causing me to have to reboot....and my computer takes FOREVER to reboot. So this was really frustrating. Then while trying to save my movie maker file as a movie file, my computer froze a total of 6 times. Again, I had to reboot. After the sixth time of freezing, I was finally able to save the file and upload to TeacherTube...only to find that the video was uploaded but could not be viewed.

It was 2:30ish in the morning at this point so I had missed the assignment due date (Monday at midnight) which really angered me. I went to bed and when I got up in the morning, I checked TeacherTube. Still no active video. AGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! So, I uploaded my video to YouTube instead and submitted the URL for grading. When I viewed my uploaded movie, I realized that some of the last changes I had made to the video had not been saved.

So, I had to go back to the original movie maker file and make those changes, re-save as a movie file (as you can guess...my computer froze two more times) and uploaded again to YouTube.

GEEEESSSSHHHH!!!!

Despite my computer troubles, I still enjoyed creating this digital movie and can't wait to make more...although I will not attempt to create such a movie again on my current computer...unless I absolutely have no choice!

Assignments 4,5,6 & 7

So, I'm back again for my second blog post. It has been a rough semester in terms of my not having enough hours in a day to get everything done that I need to get done! But, I'm managing to stay afloat.

Now...looking back to assignment 4, Visual Learning through Inspiration software. This was a fun assignment. I am a very visual person so I enjoy creating learning tools to enhance the classroom instruction. I created a learning tool that would help with teaching the differnt cell organelles as well as mitosis. The Inspiration software was user friendly and I was able to quickly figure out how to add different shapes, change font color, incorporate images and add hyperlinks.

Assignment 5 was helpful in learning how to create a gradebook using Excel. This will be a great tool for organizing students grades and will be helful in generating various charts to show grade distribution amongst students.

I absolutely loved Assignment 6 as I LOVE PowerPoint. I had fun creating a game that reinforced the learning of my subject and prepared students for an upcoming quiz.

The WIKI, assignment 7 was interesting as I had never posted a WIKI before. I researched Voki's and Digital Storytelling, both of which I knew very little about. I love the idea of having students create Voki's or a digital story as ways to enhance their visual literacy while building various skills throughout the process. I also learned about Virtual Fieldtrips and Skype through looking at a classmates WIKI. This assignment opened my eyes to so many opportunities to include technology in my classroom.

Looking forward to the remaining assignments!!! :)