Summer I--Video Class

Summer session one has begun and already I'm totally hooked on video! I've just finished creating my first assignment, an educational PhotoStory. I chose to create a documentary of my son's day trip to Philadelphia with his cub scout den and our whole family. Philadelphia is a great city with lots of history, and it made a wonderful subject for my educational PhotoStory. Check out my PhotoStory below to see some of the interesting sites in Philadelphia!

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Reflections on Year One in T.E.A.M.

What an amazing first year this has been! I cannot believe the amount of technology I have been exposed to, played with and actually used over the last few months. Although this past year has been extremely stressful, trying to finish up my library degree at the same time as starting this Ed Tech degree, I don't regret my decision at all! Believe it or not, working on the two degrees at once really complemented each other. I have been able to use all this new technology in the library lessons I've created for my student teaching this semester and in my assignments for my library classes. Being able to integrate technology in this way into my library work has really been a bonus not only to me, but to my students, and it has made me more confident in my teaching abilities. Now, as I prepare for graduation from library school on Mother's Day (the best and only gift I want that day!), I can look forward to focusing exclusively on T.E.A.M. in the coming summer sessions. I love video and photography and can't wait to get started on those classes, that it doesn't even seem like class work to me! In addition, I have been busy with searching for a library media specialist position for next school year (yes, it has been a very hectic semester!)and am looking forward to finding a job where I can incorporate all this great technology am I learning into my library lessons and media center website.

Having fun with VoiceThreads

I just took yet another workshop, this time on creating VoiceThreads around images. The workshop was held at the Hecksher Museum in Huntington. What a great location for a workshop! We were introduced to VoiceThreads and then given an assignment to engage us in actually working with and creating our own VoiceThread. First, we viewed some of Long Island's best student artwork, then we had to take pictures of certain works, upload them into VoiceThread, then record a description of each piece including our comments and reactions. I really enjoyed the whole process, from the picture taking to working with VoiceThread. Just think of all the possibilities this tool can present in a classroom or library! Now I have another addictive tool to add to my Web 2.0 toolbox! Below is my first VoiceThread I created at the Hecksher Museum:

Live from ASSET!

Here I am, at my very first technology conference. So far it is similar to the library and research conferences I have attended, with the name tags, free bags and breakfast. However, I find the vendors and all the cool technology much more fun to look at! As I wandered around the exhibits before the keynote address, I fell in love with a SmartBoard type of technology called Mimio Interactive, which turns ANY whiteboard surface (including a piece of white foam core board!) into an interactive surface! The ramifications of this little piece of technology astounded me, as I pictured teachers being able to share the Mimio, making it much more cost effective than large SmartBoards. Every class has a board, so just clip the Mimio on and you're set to go. I will definitely remember this piece of technology when I get a job in my own library next year, because if there is no SmartBoard already, I'll budget for the more cost-effective Mimio!

Rushton Hurley was the keynote speaker. He was great, very funny, informative and inspiring. His message was a good one, that technology will enable us to learn along side of our students, creating a fun learning environment which will increase focus and confidence of our students. He demonstrated a few fun and free technology tools and connected these to the curriculum and also to testing and assessment. His use of the interactive "clickers" was a lot of fun too! Now off to my first session on technology projects in the classroom! I'm having so much fun already!

"Which Technologies Will Shape Education in 2008?" Article Response

My first reaction to reading this article was that I am so happy that I'm in this program now and I can recognize some of these technologies! I like the way this article broke down the technologies into time frames of when we will feel their impact, whether in the near term, mid-term or a bit further down the road. I was excited to see that grassroots video will have a significant impact in the next year or so. I'm amazed by the easy to use and relatively inexpensive video equipment that is now available for student use and the simple and free internet based services supporting the sharing of these videos. If a new computer geek like me can figure out how to make a video and upload it to You Tube or Google Video, then anyone can do it! The mash-ups and mobile broadband in the mid-term range I'm not as familiar with, but the idea of virtual field trips really interests me. Finally, I was a bit surprised to see the "collective intelligence" and "social operating systems" in the further down the road category, since I've seen their use quite a lot recently. The implications for education and learning when using technologies such as wikis or social networking are enormous. I've just begun to use these tools and I look forward to incorporating them into many future lessons!

Survey Monkey Workshop

I've been playing around with Survey Monkey in order to get ready for the workshop this afternoon. The link for my first survey is listed below. Can you guess what it's about? Reading of course! Click the link and take my survey when you get a chance. Thanks! Click Here to take survey

Metacognition Module Response

For this assignment, I chose to present my answers to the module questions in a PhotoStory format. Now, if you know me, my strength is my writing, so I definitely decided to work outside my comfort zone and try something new. Since I am student teaching at the moment and working with two 9th grade English classes who are working on my world hunger webquest, I thought I'd create my own PhotoStory, since that's the format the students are using too. I figured I could use the practice so I could help the kids. Well, the actual process of creating the PhotoStory went well, and the project came together easily, I'm happy to say! However, I did not account for the fact that I did not know what to do with the PhotoStory once it was complete! I realized soon on that the file was too large to email to Michele. Then I decided to embed it in the wiki, but how to do that? Well, don't use YouTube, I can save you a lot of time here. I tried uploading my PhotoStory to YouTube and after several tries I realized that wasn't going to work, even though they kept giving me a code to embed, it never worked. At 1 a.m., I gave up and did the only smart thing I could think of the next morning, I emailed Karen! Thanks for your suggestion Karen, which was to upload the PhotoStory to Google Video. This worked perfectly, and I was able to embed the code in the wiki. So, all I can say is, I learned a lot about "Metacognition" in the module, but my learning did not stop there, I've learned alot about PhotoStory, YouTube and Google video too! Here's a copy of my metacognition video, in case you want to check out my first PhotoStory!

Another New Start

Wow, did that school vacation go fast or what? I can't believe that I'm already knee deep in the spring semester, my last one for my library degree (hooray!) and my second semester of T.E.A.M. I'm once again learning things at lightning speed. For example, I took the SmartBoard workshop and now I'm creating lessons for it and doing a lot of my student teaching with it at the high school. The students love when I pull out the SmartBoard, it's not a technology they're that familiar with and I notice I collect a lot of onlookers when I'm teaching with it, as other teachers wander into the library to watch! I just finished a workshop on WordPress and am already creating a new blog with this great, free, online tool, so look out Blogger, as soon as I get my WordPress blog up and running, I'm switching! Now, I'm waiting for my next workshop about creating banners in PhotoShop, which I desperately need some guidance and direction in, so I'm looking forward to this class. I have to design a banner for my Dreamweaver site, which is no easy task, not so much in the technical aspects, but because there are so many choices and to narrow it down and come up with an idea that really pops off the page is going to be difficult to say the least. At least I'm following this whole CSS layout which we are now using for our sites and I'm finding CSS much more easier to use than what I had been doing. So stay tuned for some of the new exciting technology I will be learning and using this semester and possibly a new blog!