Week 4 (January 26 - February 1, 2014)

Digital storytellling is a powerful communication tool. Unfortunately, I haven't used multimedia as often as I would like at this point to tell stories and communicate information, but I am going to start using it more.

I want to use all kinds of multimedia including: slideshows, pictures, animations, video, digital books, audio and podcasts. I think storytelling is one of the best teaching tools there is because a good story keeps people interested and usually has a moral or a main point that most of us end up remembering. The other great thing about all the different types of multimedia is that their ARE so many of them and if you use it as a teaching tool it also gives you the option to provide your pupils with a variety of reasonable options for communicating their learning. If a group of students are expected to make a presentation about the planets in our solar system, for instance, they could be given the option to make a short video, a collage of pictures with descriptions or an audio recording. That would create a lot of variety and appeal to many different learning styles.

The types of multimedia and digital storytelling programs I have used include: Movie Maker, Audacity, Paint, Photoshop and PowerPoint. The one I've used the most is PowerPoint. It has been the best way (or the only way, in some cases) I could do a presentation to class as a student or as a teacher. I do like PowerPoint because you can include images and audio recordings while flowing nicely from slide to slide. You can also add in website links to quickly go to a useful website with one click and then get right back to the presentation. I am aware, however, that PowerPoint isn't the "be all end all" and while it is a good presentation tool there are many other ways to present something and communicate effectively. As for Paint and Photoshop I have only used them sporadically over the last number of years when I want to make a slight edit to an image such as resizing it, changing some colours, adding a bit of graphical enhancement and these have all been mostly for personal use, not for teaching, yet. But I am at least familiar enough with Paint and Photoshop that I would be comfortable using it or helping students use it to make a presentation better. My experience with both Audacity and Movie Maker have been brief but memorable. These tools I have actually not used in a few years but I am glad that I was interested enough in them at an earlier age that I now can realize what great teaching and learning tools they can be. When I used Audacity it was purely for fun as I included a recording of myself singing or rapping, rather, to a top chart 90s rap song, which will remain nameless, but rest assured it was popular at the time! My Movie Maker experience was trying to piece together various hockey clips to make a highlight reel with music included. At the time I didn't have the patience to make the whole 'movie' very long so I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near an expert at the program but I know it is a very easily accessible program and I would be comfortable trying it out again.

So the final statement I will leave you all with is this: Oddly enough, the multimedia programs I have used were mostly brief experiences, years ago now but from my brief exposure and from what I've observed others do using similar programs I know that they are worthwhile tools to explore more in-depth now and because technology advances very quickly, I know these programs become more and more user-friendly and that is a good thing, in my opinion!

Week 3 (January 19/25, 2014)

Looking at creating websites this week. I first thought Google Sites would be the best, mostly because I already have a Gmail account and wanted to keep from making more and more accounts, but alas, Google Sites isn't as easy to use and I prefer something ease-of-use over keeping things all in one place.

The website to create websites I will be using is Weebly. Just from my brief experience with it so far I find it has a lot more options of themes and it is easier to use to start building a nice looking website with plenty of information.

Okay, now that I have had some time to look around at some other teacher websites and also really play around with my Weebly site I can say that I am pretty comfortable with a lot of the options available to create a pretty solid website. After about four of five attempts I was finally able to decide on a theme I liked, that's oddly enough what took me the most time to be comfortable with. Once I decided on the theme I was able to put together the rest of the sections of the site pretty easily basing them off some ideas from different teacher websites I looked at.

I found adding images to the site was very easy as well as creating multiple pages, including sub-pages for some. Adding text was very easy as well as changing the font and colour. I was able to add a Google Calendar quickly and easily as well as add in a YouTube video in my "Cool Links" page. The links page I decided just to have typed out links instead of inserting something like Symbaloo. I actually like the design and benefit of using Symbaloo for a links page and I may work on that at another time. Time will tell if I see enough education-related Symbaloo pages that will convince me to add one to my page. I decided to keep my Home page very basic and just have welcome message and leave the rest of the information on the appropriate sub-pages.

I did not include a blog, picture gallery, contact form, map, search box, document download or social media links, however, they are all features that I believe could be a very nice addition to the website but only if they will be used and appreciated. I feel I will have a good idea when that might be and the simplicity of just dragging these features into the section of the website that you want them makes me comfortable in the feeling that anytime I might want to add them to the site I could do so with not too much difficulty.

Week 2 (January 12/18, 2014)

I was introduced to a bunch of bookmarking websites the other day. Diigo, Pearltree  and Symbaloo were the main ones. With Diigo it is great to be able to connect so quickly to many different topics all from the same website and it would make it easier for students in a class to help them on research projects. It does seem like it would be most beneficial for a High School class and possibly the upper Middel School grades just because I don't think the work that goes into it would be worth it unless the students are able to use the sites often.

The bookmarking website I liked the most was Symbaloo. I had a very clean and easy to understand design. It uses a bunch of boxes that can be customized in colour, location and most importantly, the website they connect to. Even just looking at the sample on the Symbaloo main page it shows how many useful websites can be at your fingertips ... or mouse clicks, that is. Google, Encyclopedia, Translate, News, CBC, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, the time, weather and maps are all websites one-click away from a Symbaloo custom page. Another nice thing about Symbaloo is you can make different tabs that are public or private so you could have your own with websites like eBay, E-Mail and Facebook and another for students in your classroom.

I think Symbaloo would be useful, as I said, in an upper Middle Years classroom or High School because those students will benefit from being made aware of or reminded of all the great resources the Internet has to offer. Of course, there is a good and bad side to the Internet and not every information website can be trusted. So one very good use for Symbaloo would be to create a page with all the appropriate researching websites that students can try when they are first starting to do research projects. This type of site is really the best way I could see giving students an opportunity to try different sites without all having to look at the exact same ones but still within some boundaries. Now that I am aware of these bookmarking websites I will be more aware, going forward, about what type of websites would be useful for students and how a bookmarking website might help make it easier for the students to understand and access them.

I do continue to see a huge benefit to being able to use sites like YouTube in the classroom. I am using that as a short introduction so I can post a YouTube video here as well as experiment with embedding video in my blog.

The video below is HD video on Protists which I showed the students in the classroom I taught in for the Living Things unit. The respond from the students was great and they really enjoyed the music and visuals of the video. It was a great way make Protists more interesting to Middle Years students who won't always find the topic exciting just from the mention of it. Anyway, without further ado, here is the video:

Week 1 (January 5/11, 2014)

Trying this out for the first time. Technology will be the topic for these blog entries. Mostly, it will be related to technology in Education.

I think technology is a very important tool for schools. I've started using a SMART Board and I think it is great and it has so many more uses than I have had the chance to experience. But I hope to be able to learn more and more about it.

I have been introduced and reminded about many different "Tech Tools" from class and they include: Pinterest, Google Drive, YouTube, The "Cloud" and SMART Phones. I have a Pinterest and YouTube accounts and I have a SMART Phone. I am a supporter of all the positive things they can do and ways they can help educate and inspire. I admit, I have not used Pinterest very much yet but I really hope to use it more often in the future. Google Drive and The "Cloud" I am not sold on yet. As I continue on in this ICT class I will stay open-minded to the possible advantages of Google Drive, The "Cloud" and other "Tech Tools" I have not really experienced very much of yet.