ETC-Final Project

Wow! What a month it has been! I have learned so much this month, and am really excited about sharing my learning with my students, and my peers at work!

My final project for this class was originally designed to be used with my English I honors class; however because of circumstances beyond my control I had to make some adjustments at the last minute to get the project done.  Initially I was going to have my students create binders on www.livebinders.com that they would be able to use over the course of the semester as a portfolio.  But, I was unable to do this.  So, I decided to try Livebinders with my sons who are in 7th and 8th grade.  I did not get the response I was hoping for from them, but at least they volunteered to help me get the project done.

First, I would like to share with you a copy of my original RILS plan.  I will then share the video my boys and I made, and then I will tell how I modified things to work with my sons.

The Original Plan:

1.     Target Audience – The target audience for my RILS project will be junior high school and high school language arts students. 

2.   

  Materials:  computers with internet access, presentation software (Presi, Power Point, or the open office version of Power Point), podcasting software (Audacity, Garage Band), copies of original student work, DVD’s and or flash drives for students, digital cameras, video cameras, ear phones with microphones for creating pod cast, computers with some kind of word processing software, student email accounts, student’s set up on Live Binders, student access to Wordle or Tagxedo, Adobe acrobat (PDF’s), and multimedia slideshow software.

3.     

Objectives –

a.     To enhance computer and technology skills.

b.     For students to gain experience in creating, selecting, organizing, editing, and evaluating portfolios.

c.      For students to collect evidence of classroom work.

d.     To display, share, and present an electronic portfolio.

e.     Students will understand what it means to manage and maintain a digital portfolio.

f.      Use web based publishing tools to build a digital portfolio.

4.     

Procedure –

a.     Students should collect a sampling of their work for the duration of a semester.

b.     Students will set up an account with Live Binders.  This is where they will create their portfolio.

c.      Students will create a podcast detailing their journey through their language arts class and how using Web 2.0 tools has enhanced the course, or detracted from it.

d.     Students will populate their live binders with artifacts from the course. 

e.     The live binders will serve as a digital portfolio for their language arts class.

f.      Students will share a link to their portfolio with their teacher and at least 3 other students in the class.

5.     Web 2.0 Tools – As a part of this project I will have students explore a variety of web 2.0 tools over the course of the semester.  As heir final product they will use Live Binders to create a digital portfolio to share with their teacher and other students in the class.

6.     

Social Participation/Social Learning – The social participation and social learning portion of this assignment will be partially fulfilled as students share their binders (portfolios) with the teacher and other students in the class.  The teacher and other students will have the opportunity to discuss and critique the contents of each portfolio.

7.     

Making Connections – The lesson or scenario must allow the learner to connect with previous knowledge and to create new knowledge.  The learning situation needs to be relevant for the target audience.  These connections can be within your environment or on a global scale.

8.    

Create/Produce – The end product for this lesson or scenario will be the digital portfolios and the student presentations of the portfolios.

9.    

Reflection – Portfolio’s are a perfect tool for student and teacher reflection.  Students will be able to reflect on their growth and progress over the course of a semester in a course.  I will be able to reflect on the growth of my students.

Follow this link to my video:

 www.viddler.com/explore/eforte/videos/10

As I stated before, I was unable to implement the project according to my original plan, so I asked my boys to test out Livebinders and tell me what they thought.  I got mixed reviews from the two of them.  My 8th grader, who likes things to be very simple, did not rave about it.  He quickly stated that he would rather have a binder with real notebook paper and dividers.  He did point out that Livebinders could be beneficial if teachers created a binder and pack it full of documents and links that could be beneficial to their students.  He created tags within in his binder and after doing so he found that his teacher already had a Livebinder created for his class.


My 7th grader was a little more receptive to the idea of having a binder online.  He quickly began to add links to cites he uses on a regular basis for his science class.  I asked him to send me a link to his binder via email, so that we could test this feature.  Once I received the email I was surprised to find links to The New York Times, an online calculate, Study Island, and Science Daily.  When asked how he felt about Livebinders, he said he thought it was a novel idea, and he would return to his binder regularly. He also asked me if he would have to shut his binder down once he was finished helping me my assignment.


So, all in all, my project was not a failure, but I would like to try my original plan to see if it could actually work. I think that Livebinders is a great resource and I think my students will see the benefits of it.

LE5_LiveBinders

Now that I am sure creating a digital portfolio is something I want to tackle with my students, I must dedicate some time to choosing the right platform to complete this task.  I would love to use LiveBinders as the tool for this.  So, I set out to create a binder and determine whether this is going to be the tool my students and I use.

The first step in getting a binder ready for use is to have students set up a user account.  This can be done very easily.  Students simply need to get on the LiveBinders site and complete the sign-up information.

Once students have completed sign up they can begin creating binders and adding information to the binders.  I like the fact that users can create more than one binder to organize lots of different material.  Within each binder, students can create tabs with sub-tabs to further organize their binders.

I have created two binders that I will be populating while working through the EMDT program.  One for  collecting and organizing my CBR information, and one as a resource for my English I students.

Within in the binder for my English I classes, I set up tabs to organize documents my students can refer to on a regular basis.  

The tabs I chose to set up for my students are based on the genres of literature that we study.  I also included a welcome tab where I will place the course syllabus, and a picture of me in my classroom.  The rest of the tabs will be home to short stories we are reading, poems, The New York Times Daily, a glossary to literary terms, and any other documents or URLs I think might be useful.

As I explored LiveBinders and tried to do different things I realized that basic functions were easy to do, and were pretty self explanatory; however, there are some other functions that need a little more explanation.  I was able to explore LiveBinders further by clicking on the  help button.  

One of the problems I found with LiveBinders is that students will ned to have access to Flickr in order to customize their binders. Our district has blocked access to flickr. This is a minor issue, but it is something that will need to be worked out when we begin to populate binders.

Initially I was thinking I would have students use this tool as a place to create their digital portfolio, but I will need to do a little more research to determine how to get full use a LiveBinder.  I will also have to work to create a good system for managing how students are working with their LiveBinders.  This will be my first real experience with digital portfolios, so it will take a little time for me to work out the details.  As I am preparing to do my project I will continue to research LiveBinders and find the best way to use this awesome tool while completing my CBR project.

PE4_Livebinders

Over the course of this month I have learned quite a bit about using Web 2.0 tools in my classroom, and for  general productivity.  One of the tools I am really excited about using and introducing to my students is LiveBinder.  LiveBinder is a great resource.  It mimics the traditional 3 ring binder, but it is an online digital binder that students and teachers can fill with information.  

One of the great things about LiveBinder is that students and teachers can access it from any computer as long as they have internet access.  Any LiveBinders can be made public, or they can be private and only available to students within a certain class.  

Another plus that LiveBinders offers is it's ease of use.  In a matter of minutes, students and teachers can set up a binder, organize, tabs, create sub-tabs, and begin populating a binder.  LiveBinders has the capability to hold many types of documents and a variety of media.  Pictures, video, presentations, and audio files can all be added to a live binder.  When it becomes difficult to add these items, teachers and students can simply enter a URL and upload the URL to their binder and have access to that resource every they open their binder.

As part of my RILS project, I would like to see each of my students create a LiveBinder and populate it as an eportfolio for the class.  I'd also like to create a LiveBinder that is specific to each class that I teach and populate it with important documents for my students.  This particular binder would be made available to students and parents.  LiveBinders makes it easy to share a binder, and to collaborate.  Binders can be shared simply by sending an email to the person we want to share with.  For those teachers and students who are familiar with, and use Googledocs, LiveBinders offers seamless integration!

Best of all, LiveBinders is free for students and teachers!  I am really excited to see if LiveBinders offers what my students and I will need to create and maintain our eportfolios.  Thanks for reading everyone, and Happy Blogging! 

BP6_Link to another person's blog

Follow this link to my comments on DeMarcus' blog post about Edmodo.

BP5_Link to another person's blog

Follow this link to my comments on Melissa's blog about Glogster.

BP4_Penzu

So, I am researching and trying out Web 2.0 tools that I think will work in my classroom, and while completing my CBR (Challenge Based Research) project.  And finally, I think I have found the Holy Grail! Penzu! Penzu is an online journaling tool that offers a plethora of practical uses for students and teachers.  As a 9^th grade English teacher I just love this tool! Language Arts and Literature classes lend themselves very well to journaling, but an online journal that offers the same features and advantages of the tried and true, hard-bound composition book is just awesome!

Penzu offers 2 versions: a free version, and a paid (19.00), Pro version.  The Penzu interface is just like a diary.  The free version of Penzu enables you to create entries, add pictures, share entries via email, and also lock entries you want to keep private.  In addition to these features, Penzu also has a search feature that will allow you to quickly search through all the entries within your journal.  For those of us that need a little push or a reminder, Penzu also has an email reminder feature that will send you an email reminding you to write. 

The Pro version of Penzu offers all of these features and more. Within the pro version you can customize the work space by adding custom backgrounds and custom tablets.  You can also customize the font style, color, and size.  The pro version also gives you the ability to high light information that is important.  Two really neat features offered in the pro version are tagging, and importing and exporting.    The tagging feature functions like a typical tagging feature, giving users the option to tag their entries with topics related to those being discussed within an entry.  Another feature I found useful was the importing and exporting feature.  This feature makes it possible to import entries from a blog and export entries to PDF, TXT, or XML; thus, giving a user the option to print entries.  One of the best features of the pro version, in my opinion, is the ability to access Penzu from a mobile device. 

Students can use Penzu to:

• Document their daily activities for a class
• Take Notes
• Keep and Online Journal
• Reflect on Their learning
• Respond to literature
• Respond to writing prompts

Because Penzu is free, it is available to all students (at some point).  Free is good, but that fact that Penzu is hosted online is even better. Students can access it from any computer with internet.  This alone is great because it extends the classroom beyond the classroom right into a student’s home.  Beyond this, Penzu has an incredibly easy user interface.  So easy, even an elementary student can use it.

For teachers using Penzu, the possibilities are endless.  Teachers can document the daily activities of their classes.  They can maintain a reflective journal where they reflect on their classroom practices, and they can even add pictures to each of their entries.  For teachers who do not want the responsibility of maintaining a full fledge web site, Penzu is great.  Teachers can post vocabulary, daily bell ringers, writing assignments, and much more.  Students with a password can easily access this information from their personal computers, or any computer with internet access.  Penzu is also a great place for teachers to keep anecdotal notes on students in their classes.  Penzu offers another forum for communicating with parents.  Teachers who keep anecdotal notes on students can do so in Penzu.  They can keep these notes private (as documentation) or they can share them with parents.

There are a multitude of Web 2.0 tools out there. Some I will never try, some I will try and never use, but Penzu has not seen the last of me! I like the possibilities it offers, and I am excited about sharing it with my students next semester!  I’ve already signed up for the Pro version, added it to my Blackberry, and my iPod touch, and I am busy looking for more ways to use this very practical application!

Happy Blogging every one! Thanks for stopping by!

PE3_iMovie

In my last post I shared with everyone my first experience of creating a photo slideshow in iMovie.  In this post I am going to share the actual movie I created.  This is the first movie of this kind that I have attempted to create, but it certainly won't be the last.  It was a little time consuming, but I think that is because I don't know my way around iMovie.  I'd like to master this particular type of movie, as this is something I would like to require my students to do at the beginning of each semester.  This project will ultimately become a part of a digital portfolio that each student will submit at the end of the semester.

Before I share this with my students I'd like to fine tune it a bit more.  I would like to work on the transitions, add some video footage, find some different music, and edit the pictures a little better.  Editing the pictures was the hardest part of creating the movie.  As you will see, I couldn't get the pictures that were shot in portrait  mode to work well with the Ken Burns affect.  Those shots are either chopped off or they are still. I tried to add my themed transitions before each of the pictures that was shot in portrait mode to distract from the fact that the Ken Burns effect did get applied to them.  Using the transitions at those points in the movie worked well to mask that, but I'd still like to work on it a little more.

So, everyone, here is the link to my first iMovie slideshow! Enjoy!

iMovie Video Slideshow

PE2_iMovie

The Lynda.com training videos were great, but learning to use iMovie is certainly going to be a hands on experience for me.  After watching, and watching, and watching some more, I finally decided to sit down and play with iMovie.  I decided the easiest, and most practical use for me at this point, would be creating a photo slideshow with some still images.  I chose this particular type of movie because I am toying with the idea of having my students create digital autobiographies at the beginning of the next semester, and this is also something I have wanted to learn to enhance my photography business.  

So, the first step in this process was to open a new project in iMovie.

After opening a new project, I thought it would make sense to import the photos that I was planning to use for the movie.  Because I had not obtained approval from any of my clients to use their images for this exercise, I chose to use my family portraits to create my movie.  The family portraits that I used are from a session that we had done with Carrie Small, a local photographer here in Fayetteville. 

Adding pictures to iMovie was pretty easy, but the pictures had to be added to iPhoto before they could be imported to iMovie  I was a little unsure of how to add pictures to iPhoto, so I consulted my trusty videos from Lynda.com to get some help with that.

Once the pictures were in iMovie the fun began!

After choosing the photos I wanted to work with I added them to the project area and began to edit them by cropping, adding transitions, and working with the Ken Burns effect. This was one of the more difficult parts of creating the movie.  I couldn't seem to get all of my pictures to transition the way I wanted them to.

After adding the transitions, and the theme I wanted to use, I decided a little music would be appropriate.    So, I added some royalty free music from http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ , a website managed by Kevin Macleod.

I didn't bother with any of the advanced editing techniques in this video, because I just wanted to see if I could handle creating a basic video.  And I did!  Its not the greatest video, but for a first time I'm ok with it.  

While working in iMovie, I found that creating this type of movie is not too difficult.  It does take some time, and if you want to create something great you have to really work at it. Its also a good idea to know  the tools, and the keyboard short cuts.  

Thanks again for reading my blog and following me on this journey! Happy Blogging all!

 

PE1_iMovie

I made it! 2 hours and 22 minutes later, I am now iMovie certified!  So, what does that mean?  It means that I have completed the iMovie training at Lynda.com.  Do, I know how to create and edit awesome videos, absolutely not! I have simply completed the training!

The training movies on Lynda.com were very informative.  They were very detailed and covered a breadth of information.  They were so detailed and packed with information that I am going to have to refer back to them as I work my way through using iMovie.  Watching all of the videos at one time was nothing short of overwhelming.  I tried to take notes as I followed along, but without the videos as a reference, my notes made absolutely no sense to me.  The more I watched the videos, the more confused I became.  After watching the whole 2 hours and 22 minutes of training videos, I finally decided to go back and chose 3 things I would like to master in iMovie, and those are the videos I studied very carefully.

While watching the videos I was amazed to see that iMovie offered so many advanced options.  At first glance, iMovie appeared to be a very basic software application.  But, I was surprised to find that it offered so much more.  iMovie offers basic video editing techniques, and a place to store and manage home videos.  For users who are looking for more of a challenge, iMovie also delivers.  Users who are really to study iMovie in depth will find that it offers tools for video stabilization, working with audio, adding transitions, precision editing, and creating movies with photos.  These are just a few of the things that can done in iMovie.

Learning to use iMovie is going to be a challenge for me, but as always, I am excited about learning something new! I look forward to working with iMovie and learning more about video editing!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Blogging everyone!

BP2_Schoology

Web 2.0 tools for teachers...there are so many! I am amazed at the variety of free Web 2.0 tools available for teachers and students.  I am excited about learning to use and introducing some of the tools to my students.  Schoology is one of these tools.  It is an LMS (Learning Management System) that allows teachers to create an online classroom with the look and feel of a social network.  It is similar to Moodle, and Blackboard, in that it provides teachers with a website where they can post assignments and course material for their students.  It also allows students, and teachers to collaborate and discuss information in an easy to use format.  Because students can access the portal from home, it also benefits students that may be absent from class for extended periods of time.  Within the online classroom teachers can create, edit and share academic material such as tests, quizzes, assignments, homework, discussion boards, projects and grades that can be completed within the portal or printed and brought in to class.  The site also hosts a digital drop box where students can turn in their assignments, and a message feature which allows students to communicate with their classmates and their teachers.

 When I first discovered Schoology I knew it would be a great tool to use with my students.  It offered me the look and feel of an online classroom, and gave my students the "facebook" feel.  My students were excited o set up their profiles and upload their pictures.  They also liked the possibility of having their syllabus, course materials, and access to their classmates in one convenient location.

Schoology also provides teachers with an online grade book where teachers can track and record student grades and attendance.  Parents can also access the digital classroom with a special access code.  With this access code they can check the progress, grades, and online activity of their children.  

I am planning to use Schoology with my test class while completing my CBR project.  I realize that technology is an important aspect in the lives of my students.  Research says that incorporating technology offers great benefits to students.  I would like to see if this is the case.  Schoology with help me to extend my classroom to the home environments of my students, and it will also be great for my students that are more self directed.  Maintaining this digital classroom environment will be a major part of my CBR project. Through Schoology I will be collecting evidence related to student involvement, engagement, productivity, learning, peer to peer collaboration, and parent/teacher collaboration.

BP3_iGoogleScreenShots

Back in August when I began the EMDT program I knew many new challenges awaited me.  I also anticipated another year of school when I would be busy writing a bunch of useless research papers! Boy was I wrong.  My first four months at Full Sail have been nothing like what I had envisioned they would be.  These first four classes have been filled with learning.  The assignments have been hands on and very practical! I have been so excited and relieved to not have to write another boring research paper! Many of the tools we have been using have been very easy to use and great for streamlining the workload.  One of those tools is iGoogle.

Prior to beginning my studies at FSO I had no idea what an iGoogle page was.  I just knew it was going to be another rudimentary task I'd have to complete! But again, I was wrong.  iGoogle is awesome! It offers tools for time management, organizing, document sharing, email, and many things.

iGoogle is set up so that different tabs can be created and different information can be organized on each tab.  On my home screen I have a direct link to Facebook, Twitter, a To Do List, the local weather in my area, and a few other things I'd like to know when I log on to the internet.

I have also set up three other tabs.  Each these tabs is specific to the EMDT program and the ETC class.

At first glance iGoogle appeared to be time consuming and cumbersome, but as I began to explore it, I am finding that I like it quite a bit.  I really think it helps to have all of the links I will be using in one place.  That is certainly a time saver!  I don't know about anyone else, but I sure can use a great tool that will help me to be more organized and more conscious of my time!

BP1_Welcome to My Blog

Wow! I can't believe it has already been three months, and I am now moving into Month 4 of the EMDT program.  So far this experience has proved to be time consuming, challenging, fun, and full of learning. Having said that, here I am beginning yet another journey...BLOGGING! I must admit, I am extremely nervous about blogging, and I worry that I will not have anything to say that people will want to listen to.   Although I am nervous, I have been toying with the idea of blogging for some time, and I am a self-proclaimed blog stalker!  Deep down inside I am glad that blogging is a requirement for this class, because if it weren't I would completely skip this opportunity to share with my peers, and the rest of the world.  Maybe blogging will be something I find enjoyable, maybe it will be a chore! Either way, over the next month I hope to share with you my journey and discovery of Web 2.0 tools that I would like to use while completing this program, and tools I find that will be beneficial to my students and other educators like myself.  Happy Blogging Everyone!