Scavenger Hunt

This is the link to my Scavenger Hunt on Textures!

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AYewxDId4ImJZGdocWZkMmJfMWRrbTI5Ymc0&hl=en_US

PodBean

Today we had a presentation on classroom podcasts. I personally have never been a fan of podcasts because I am not an auditory learner! For me, I cannot keep focus when somebody is speaking. However, that does not mean that I will not use these in the classroom. My problems with listening are very different from students who are auditory learners, and every student is different with the ways they learn. Podbean seemed to be very easy to use, and I will definitely use this to increase differentiated learning. I think this is a good way to let students receive information in many different ways, or a way for students who struggle with visual learning.

Scavenger Hunt and Digital Collection

This was a fun project that the Special Education people in the class did. We decided that our collection would be about different textures. So we went outside and found different textures such as bumpy, smooth, fluffy, and gooey. It was a fun way to integrate technology into a real world lesson. However, I really do not feel that Picassa is necessary for classrooms all of the time. It seems like just a place to keep photos, and it could be a dangerous thing in a classroom. Although I did like this project, I will most likely not use things like this too often in my classroom. I feel like other educational tools that we have talked about would be a better use of time.

October 24th...Busy Week!

https://picasaweb.google.com/104767195422297248769/Counting#5664600410400159218
This is a link to an almost complete slideshow that I made for counting. It was a fun sort of project to find pictures that related to a topic and collaborate them. I have yet to find a picture and scan it since this and last week has been hectic, but I will post a link to the finished slideshow on here once I add that fifth picture! :-)

Smilebox and Picnik!

Tonight our presentations were on Smilebox and Picnik. I have used Picnik multiple times and I love it. I do tons of events where I take hundreds of pictures, and I always have fun editing pictures afterwards. Picnik always has the basic features that are needed, but they also have many effects that can be used for fun or just to add to create a specific effect on a picture. One thing I enjoy about Picnik is that you do not need an account, and you can log in from websites such as Facebook and import and export photos from online.The one drawback from Picnik is hat in order to get full access to every feature they offer, you must have an account and pay a monthly fee.
Tonight was the first time I heard about Smilebox. I really liked the concept of being able to make very cute and fun slideshows, announcements, or anything that you can do digitally. I wish that on Smilebox I was able to choose from more formats than they offer, and that was the only drawback I could see.

Wordle and Timetoast

Tonight's presentations on webstes were on Wordle and Timetoast. I'll begin with Wordle. Wordle is plain fun. During the presentation I couldn't think of anything interesting to type to make my word cloud, so I just used the example of a poll of a class's favorite colors. I had fun playing with the word clouds that came up from that. I could see this being a great site for classroom polls and specific vocabulary that is important in certain readings.The presenters mention a website called tagxedo, which I enjoy more than Wordle, and when in the classroom I will most likely use Tagxedo rather than Wordle.
Timetoast is a site that makes timelines. This site would be most useful for social studies, but it can be use for history of anything. There were a few drawbacks to timetoast, such as it makes every bubble pop up when you are just browsing, and it also has a limit to how far back in time you can go. One example that was on the site in the popular categories was a timeline of Disney movies. These included links to sites where the information was given. I feel that this Timetoast would be a good idea, as our presenter said, to use as an interactive way to build a timeline in a class that included a Smart Board. This way, the whole class would be engaged in a certain project and they would build it together.

Delicious

When the presenters were explaining Delicious, I wasn't really that interested in it! However, once I set up my own account with Delicious, I saw the potential in this site. Often, I will stumble upon a cool website that I really like or need, and then a week later I can't remember for the life of me what the name was. With Delicious.com, I can save a site's name and information, and pull it up no matter where I am. This makes for easy access of multiple saved sites that I need to use at any given time. Last week I presented Glogster to the class and I blogged about that site last. These sites are very useful to teachers, especially Glogster when it comes to presentations. Delicious is a site that I can easily see being beneficial to anybody who uses computers often.

Glogster

For our project on educational websites, Brittany and I decided to learn about Glogster.com. Glogster is similar to blogging, except they make everything you put down into a digital poster. It is very entertaining to choose the designs, layouts, pictures, and browse through the hundreds of videos that they have archived. Glogster can be used for classroom projects, lesson overviews, and can be adapted to fit into any curriculum. I made many cutesy and fun glogs when I was just playing around with the site, and I had a fun time doing so.
Glogster had a couple of setbacks. If you want the full and complete features that they offer, there is a $99 fee for the school year.  Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to keep the focus on the information being acquired when making glogs, not just making a cool layout and design plan.
For me, making learning fun is a challenge, but it is the most effective way to teach something.  If you can have kids research loads of information and construct what they found into something artistic and original, they will appreciate the knowledge more than if it was just a boring old lesson or project.