Journal # 6 imovie review

I absolutely loved making the imovie. I have never done anything like this before and I found it so fascinating that I could make a movie similar to those you see on the T.V. or movies. The software was somewhat easy to use after I got the hang of it. We used video clips taken by professor Heil and music that was also provided by our professor. We got to cut things out, switch up the contrast of the clips, and play around with the order of the music using the different editing tools on the software. At first, the software was a bit confusing. When I was trying to cut down one of my the slides in the first part of my movie it would cut too much and then I wasn't able to gain the original back. Until I practiced and asked for more assistance I got the hang of the project and how to edit correctly. It was difficult for me to catch on right away but the software is pretty easy to use once you know what you are doing. It is a great software to experiment with. Just make sure you have your files backed up in case you lose something.

1.How could I use this software in my classroom? I feel that now that I am knowledgeable of this software, I would like to use it in my future classrooms for creating memories of my students' progress and also incorporating curriculum into it. It is a fun and creative software that can be helpful in the educational system. Not to mention a great resource for colleagues by sending it via email or posting the videos on a website.

2.What grade level or levels could benefit from this software? I feel that this software would only benefit children ranging from maybe 5th grade up to high school. I do not think students under 4th grade would be able to grasp the concept completely. For my personal experience, I plan to do a lot more movie making in the future with this software. It was way too much fun to only use once.

Journal # 7: Web 2.0 assignment/: Photo sharing

The Web 2.0 site is very helpful in providing many tools that can aid to many teachers or students with technology based tools. There are discussions and tutorials available introducing many different things that are out there in the cyber world. This website was also helpful in the way that you could easily navigate through it from one web link to another.All the tools were very interesting, but one that caught my interest in particular was the photo sharing. I loved this one because I am a photo taking junkie. Clicking on this tool I was informed about a particular website called "Animoto". This website is a site that you can upload your personal pictures on and create an amazing slide show with music and other editing tools. I learned that you can send it to friends through email, or post it on a website and soon to come burn it onto a CD. Throughout the discussions I read about this website I also found it interesting that your video only stays on your account for about a month. You also get the option of making a short or full length video. There was a tutorial on the website to show you how to get started. I also clicked on a link that was provided by one of the posters from Classroom 2.0 to view his own creation.I really liked this website because it is a new way for me to put some of my photo albums into a slide show to show to my friends and family. I love doing projects like these and this website has seemed the best tool for making such a slide show so far. Animoto is a great tool for teachers to use in the classroom to display pictures of classroom field trips.

1. What are some ideas that teachers can incorporate this website into their curriculum? Teachers can make a slide show to show things the children are doing in the classroom and posting it to the school website for all the parents to see. It is a great way to get the students projects out there and watch them grow along the way. I know for a fact that I will definitely use this website for all my future slide show making.

2. How could students get into this website? Students can get involved with this website because it has cool effects. They can upload their own pictures. They can mess around with the editing tools and add their clips of music. I think students would really like this website because they can explore their creativity.

Photo Sharing

Kidspiration

I downloaded the program "Kidspiration" and interacted with some of their activities as if I was a student at first. I found this program to be really fun and easy. Once i started to switch into teacher mode I found it hard to create my own activity page until I used the tutorials on the "Atomic Learning" website. By listening and watching step by step instructions from the Atomic Learning site, creating my own on Kidspiration became an ease to me. The only differences that I saw in the tutorials were different layouts, pictures, and sounds. However, the whole concept of creating an activity for students was the same and icons were easier to use.

I feel that creating my own activity page on kidspiration has given me an incentive to use this program in my own classroom. I would like to be able to use this type of tool to teach my students math activities, language arts, science and social studies. I would like to create a particular activity page that my students can use in the classroom to interact with.

The atomic learning tutorials were really helpful. Without using them at first creating my page was very confusing. I did not know where to start. This website is a great source for teachers, or others to help them with using kidspiration or other educational websites. The only thing that I disliked about the website was that it was a little hard to navigate throughout the links. I felt that you had to go around different paths to finally get to where you wanted; at least that is what happened to me.