Old Friends

I have tried over a dozen times to post this IMovie, but haven't had any luck, until now! It looks like this worked and I'm happy to see it posted. This IMovie was created for my family so they would forgive me for missing so much family time with them by taking three University classes at night, while working full time in the day. I hope they like it half as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Digital Video assignment

This week's assignment was fun and interesting, albeit for me a bit self-indulgent. I have created I-Movies before and even used one in class for an introduction to the Vietnam War and the turbulent 60s, but it has been six or so years since I've played with this technology. Just like my last foray into this technology, I got carried away with family photos (especially of our little girls) set to some of my favorite music. But I see the value of video, especially concerning history. I am in the midst of creating an IMovie about the Harlem Renaissance, complete with blues music and spoken poems. I'll use it next year during my poetry unit. Its value is strong because students will see and hear the poets, view some of the historical milestones of the era (Great Depression, Jim Crow laws, etc.) and come away with a better understanding than if we read a textbook.

What's invaluable about IMovie is when students are assigned a topic, they really have to learn it. If their interest is sparked, they will voluntarily seek more information about their topic, which may not necessarily enhance their production, but will better educate them about what it is they are producing. If they do not pursue additional information, that's okay, because they wouldn't have done so from reading a text book. But if they do seek supplemental information, just to satiate their new-found curiosity, well that's the first step in getting hooked on the discovery of knowledge, which is really the goal of every teacher.

Of all the technology we've covered in this class so far, I believe this is the most accessible to students for two reasons: first it gives them power to direct the action and narrative; second it is relatively designed to be user-friendly. The hardest part of using IMovie is self-control - it's easy to get carried away and want to create too much.

PowerPoint as an Instructional Tool: Learning to learn

This week's blog is imbued with frustration due to my lack of progress on my upcoming assignment for my ED 429 class. I have been given the task of creating an interactive Power Point presentation that serves as a tutorial on how to use the wonderful computer program Garage Band. My main frustrations echo problems most educators have had with the encroaching technology that has become part of our educational mandate: the learning curve is too difficult. My experiences with computer technology have been fair, and I have held my own (see my 350 plus page HSGQE website I designed by myself), but I feel I may have a learning disability when it comes to understanding certain programs. I do fine when I have an expert available, but I seem to get tangled up in dead ends when I'm left on my own. This is exactly what is occurring this weekend. I have put in over seven hours, which may not sound like much, but working as a teacher, with its deluge of lesson plans, papers to grade, and misc. housekeeping chores, along with two other UAF classes I'm taking and my family obligations, even seven minutes seems precious: thus the rant.

My specific problem with the Power Point presentation is that I haven't learned to easily navigate Garage Band, so it's difficult for me to write a tutorial on a program I don't fully understand. Match that with my incompetence at Power Point, and I am experiencing serious angst over this assignment. I could throw something together, but it seems disingenuous to create a tutorial that will never be used. I like everything I do in all my UAF classes to have some relevance to the children I teach on a daily basis, but time is of the essence and I'm losing my joy with this fun software. Worse yet, I feel that I'm not learning anything, and that is always troublesome.

What I'm trying to accomplish with this assignment is to create an accessible tutorial on Power Point for my English 9 students so they can record their Poetry Out Loud (POL) on to Garage Band without too much one-on-one assistance from me (in order to help expedite the assignment). I am hoping they can also layer music as a background in order to create a cool presentation to their peers, and have fun manipulating this interesting computer program. The only problem I have is trying to figure out the program and any bottlenecks that pop up.

Well, I reckon I've complained enough and it's time to get back to work. I apologize for using this space to complain, but perhaps in a week or two I can look back at this lamentation on wasted time and realize it was time well spent. Or not.

Peers as resources

Wow, what a great resource the students of Skip Via's Education 429 class have turned out to be. Each student has their own blog and each blog has interesting, educational sites that really supplement my educational tool box. The purpose of this class is to learn new technologies and apply them into our lesson plans. Although this work is stimulating, it could be a bit overwhelming due to the vast number of resources available. The act of sorting out the great from the mediocre has been significantly shortened when the class works as a team, with each reviewing sites that are worthy and passing them on via the blogs. This week we begin building Power Point tutorials that should cover relevant educational software. I hope I can contribute as well as my peers.

Alaska Standards resource review

My final resource review this weekend was a smart-board website that confused me greatly, due to a combination of my inexperience (and ignorance) and the programs' innate difficulty. I originally downloaded a Capital Cities smart board, but later went after something easier to navigate. That search lead me to a webpage with the Alaska Standards. On that page I found the Language Arts standards for the Freshmen I teach, along with multiple links to smart board pages I could use in class. These pages have promise and could be utilized into my lesson plans.

Language Arts resource review

My second website observation was another driven by my daughters’ curiosity and came from the same Fun Brain website as the math resource. Grammar Gorillas is a colorful grammar game that is actually useful for the Freshmen I teach, as well as my elementary-aged daughters (and some adults who could use a refresher). The graphics are adequate and there are many levels on which questions are based. The best part is the corrections that are offered if a student makes a mistake. Along with that are are the definitions of the parts of speech at the bottom of each page. I recommend this page and have had my children spend time on it, and they have enjoyed it too.

Math software resources review

Since I have two grade-school children who always need help with their math facts, finding a good math website would really make things easy for them. Their love of computer games (generation on-line!) and the ubiquity of the web in their lives can be used to their advantage. The first site I found was a wonderful jumping-off point, but it contains the all to often problem with internet searches: too much information. To make things easy, I chose the baseball website which seems like a good way to test my daughters’ mental math abilities.

The positive aspects of this website include easy navigability and straightforward instructions. The negatives include a lack of bells and whistles and no tutorial to explain mistakes (which may be good because the flow of the game would be slowed).