Final

We will be presenting our digital story in class. Digital Story is a story made up of photos and can be narrated and put to music. The digital story should tell a story and cause emotion to the viewer. It should stimulate the viewer in a way of learning. It is difficult to say how each student can see the story, so it needs to be a subject matter that would cause the viewer to think about what is being shown.

So What? i was thinking hard ob what to do our digital story about. It was difficult finding a subject matter that would hit home. One of the classmates suggested that we do it on the bombing in Japan. It didn't sound that great, so we decided to do it on something that hit home with the rest of us. My mother has had cancer for sometime now. She is ill and is going to die of cancer. I thought it would be good to educate the rest of the class about cancer. Most of the class knows what cancer is and how it kills. I just want to show how cancer can also be battled against. It is possible for us to battle against it and defeat it. We need to have good diets and exercise. We need to have a good attitude towards life. My mother has been a trooper through the whole process of cancer. She has had a good attitude for ten years, unfortunately there is not a winner all the time. The digital story was fun to play around with. It was fun trying to make a movie. I am sure it is not as good as I really think it is, there are going to be some classmates who have much better ones. I did enjoy making it, since I did it almost by myself.

Now what? I would like to say I will be the best techie around because I have taken this class, but I am still an amateur. I did enjoy the class and all we had the chance to accomplish. I think the world would be great if everyone knew just a little more. I will use what I have learned in my future classrooms. It is the best of the best. We are learning more everyday now than last year and just the recently graduated. There are more things to learn and teach, and we are the ones doing it. It is great to have the opportunity to study something I know I will love doing for the rest of my life. It will be a benefit to me to learn all that I can to be prepared. I feel I have taken the time I needed to learn this semester. I have great ideas for the future. My wife is a teacher, and she has asked me some things she could do in her class to be better with technology. See, I am already teaching the material I have learned. It is exciting and all will be well.

Video Education Fr All

I think there are many opportunities to teach with different ideas. I like how we were going to try a twitter thing in class this semester. It was an idea for something different. I will always welcome a new idea in my classroom. I do not want to be one of the teachers who get in a rut and use the same thing over and over again, never using anything different. It is awesome how we can use a new idea in the classroom and integrate it into the classroom.

digital story 3

What? I have been learning a little bit more about digital stories. This week in class we learned how to use photo story. It was really easy to use, I was amazed at how easy it was. I expected to have more of a difficult time with the digital story. To be honest I was a little intimidated with the whole thing. I thought I was going to have a hard time finding all the things to put together. After going over photo story, I was able to see that it was actually quite simple. I even messed around with movie maker from Microsoft which was even better for entering in the sound and having it coordinate with the pictures. I don't know why I was worried about doing the story before hand.

So what? Well, I think the digital story is a great way of doing things to get students attention. It may not teach the whole story of a subject, but it definitely is a way to show the students the material with some emotion involved. I have had a fun time learning about the tools that are necessary to make a good digital story. It is not really that difficult to do a digital story. I thank with even a little more practice one could become quite efficient at it and could do a digital story for almost any topic that may be presented. It is a great way of showing material and having the students see it in a different aspect. Everyone likes movies and stories, right?

Now what? I have a goal of using much of what I have learned in the class. I want to use technology in my future classroom. I do understand that it is a supplemental use of knowledge, and I will not be able to use the all the things all the time. I will use digital stories on the topics that may be boring to most of the students. I could use it for Social Studies in sixth grade. In field we used actually thought about doing a digital story about Rome. We decided not to do it because it seemed like to big of a task for one lesson. We ended up doing a PowerPoint instead. Now that I think about it, the digital story would have been just as good. I will use one sometime in the near future in my classroom.

Video I think I have watched this video before, I did like it. I couldn't help thinking about how cool it would be if I walked through my house and ordered everyone around like he did. I think we are what we make ourselves in this day and age. In the past we could have slid by without really giving anything much of a try. If we did not want to do something with technology, we did not. Today there is no way we can do that. We need to jump at any opportunity to learn everything that will benefit our own future. Good video though!

Field Experience 3

I have finished my field work at Edgemont Elementary School with cooperating teacher, Mr. Jennings. He was very informative on the technological view of teaching. He has been on the tech training staff at his school for many years, so some of the things he was doing in the classroom was amazing. He would assign his students a report that would be due on a given date, and he would let his students explore options on on the web. His classroom was unique because he was able to have Macs in the classroom. Each student had to share the computer with one other student. This made it possible for Mr. Jennings to effectively show the students what needed to be done. One thing in particular that made the computers even better was the method of sharing what Mr. Jennings had on his laptop with all the monitors in the classroom. It was difficult for some of the students to see the smart board on the wall so they were able to view what the teacher was showing directly in front of them on the screen. Each student could see what was being done on the board and it would be seen on the screen as well. For one of my lessons I had a website about ancient Rome that the students needed to view. Mr.Jennings was able to place it in a folder on the desktop of each student. We did it the day before the lesson was taught. When it came time for the students to view the website, each student clicked on the folder and the site came up on every screen in the classroom. I could have all the class view the page and split up into groups to do the project I prepared for them to do.

I know it is not possible for all the classrooms to have computers like Mr. Jennings' class, but I can see how the technology really helps students to be better learners. Mr. Jennings gave an assignment to do a comic book about a made up superstar. The class was engaged in doing the project, all but one I heard liked it and was really excited about the assignment. The assignment was to take pictures that could be used in the comic and write the comic all on the computer. Mr. Jennings did not have to explain how to do it because the class already knew anything there was to know about the computer and it's programs. It amazed me how the students knew how to do the things they were required to do. I would not know how to do many of these things. This is why it is so important for the teachers to experience technology classes in order to learn what these students are learning in the classroom. I will be prepared to do what is required of me to be one step ahead of the students in my future classroom.

Video: Cyber Summit on 21st century skills

This is not hard for me to believe after I have seen what is going on in the today's classroom. I see the students involvement much more than if the technology was not there. In class we have had many videos showing how technology is going to be in all the classrooms while we are a teacher. We have to remember that we are preparing students for jobs that are not even created yet. How can a teacher teach skills that are not invented yet? It is all about teaching the basics and having them grow them into what that will be someday. Technology is the only way we are going to be able to accomplish the task at hand. Teach a child computer basics and have them master them and they will be unstoppable later.

spring break

This week is my spring break. Have a good time.