Digital Stories

I have never experience creating a digital story. I have used iMovie to do simple editing like cutting a video down. However, as far as the more advanced editing like adding captions, transitions, and music, I have never done up until now. I now feel very comfortable creating a digital story using the iMovie program. I discovered it is very simple and self-explanatory to use. Even if I were to try something more advanced than editing still pictures into a movie, I feel competent in my abilities to do that. I really like the idea of using digital stories in the classroom. I will be teaching in a deaf classroom, and I feel the deaf kids would really benefit from this technology. Obviously, the music added to the digital stories may not add as much as it would for a hearing student listening to it. However, having short captions paired with pictures or video is very beneficial for them. Also, it would be helpful to include a voice over. That way, students with more mild forms of hearing loss would have the auditory and written language. Here is my digital story that I created about visiting aquariums. Recently, I went to the Chattanooga aquarium and took these pictures. Many of my students have not been to the aquarium before so I think this would be a great way to build their background knowledge before reading or studying sea life or aquariums.

Digital Diagrams

This week's assignment was to create a digital diagram. In the current deaf classroom I am in, we use diagrams often. So, I was excited to learn about digital diagrams. I see some of the benefits of using digital diagrams. They are easy to save and retrieve later, hyperlinks can be included to provide more information, and pictures can be easily added to enhance understanding of the topic. However, this was not my favorite technology skill we have covered in this class. It was very easy and a quicker process than other skills, but I still feel like it is better for students to be able to draw out diagrams on their own. When I was working with the Inspiration technology, I found myself getting frustrated with it because I couldn't get the format just how I wanted it. I think the same thing can be achieved with paper and pencil in a much more efficient and faster way. The picture provided is the digital diagram I created for a 3rd grade classroom on the topic of rocks. There are two notes provided under the rock and sediment headings.

Interactive White Board

I had never worked with IWB or ActivInspire software prior to this class. I was somewhat skeptical of its benefits when I was first introduced to the technology. I was having trouble envisioning elementary kids using it in the classroom. However, once I started my own flipchart, I immediately saw all the possibilities IWB has in the classroom, especially for deaf students. ActivInspire flipcharts provide students with the content in an interactive way. It helps for the teacher to not have to only rely on expository teaching for providing a lot of content information. Deaf students receive very little from straight lecturing; they need a way to interact with the content and be hands-on. With the IWB, they can be interactive because it is very student led. It is also very visual, which any visual aid is extremely helpful when presenting new information to deaf children.

The directions provided in the packets were very helpful when creating my own flipchart. When I was using an interactive tool that was provided in the packet, the directions were very clear and step-by-step. I think there are many more ways to include interactivity with the flipcharts that were not discussed in the packet or class. I think it would be very beneficial to provide additional ideas and examples for interactive tools for those who would like to experiment more with the ActivInspire technology.

Here is a screen shot of my flipchart on the water cycle.

Flipcharts

Flipchart is a very new idea for me. Prior to this technology class, I had never heard about or seen a flipchart. I have always found PowerPoints to be lacking in something. They almost seem one dimensional to me unless teachers use them in a more creative way. Flipcharts fill in what Powerpoints lack, and that is the ability for students to interact with the lecture/presentation. I love how interactive flipcharts are. I can see how students would be very excited to use them and learn the information they provide. Flipcharts turns the focus back onto students rather than the teacher being the only one talking and presenting. For deaf eduation I think they would be very useful. Deaf students really benefit from hands-on, visual activities. I think flipcharts can be designed in a very visually aided way that deaf students could respond well to.

Scavenger Hunt and Digital Images

I thought I knew a lot about digital images before this course, however, I have realized that I actually knew very little. When I have posted pictures onto the internet in the past, I have always just taken them from my camera and put them directly on the web or taken them off of one website and moved them to another. I did not realize that the resolution was so important. To become more familiar with working with digital images, our class was separated into small groups to go on a scavenger hunt. We were given a list of shapes that we must find around campus. With our phones, we took pictures of items that were one of the shapes listed. Once we found all the pictures, we had to upload them to the computer and change the size and resolution. We also had to rename the pictures using all lower case letters and an underscore to separate the words. This was for easy retrieval and organization. Once we had all our photos resized and renamed in a folder, we used Google presentation to put all our photos in a slideshow and share with on our website. Now I know that for pictures to be the best quality on the internet, they need to be set to 72. If not, it can take a very long time to load because the picture is so big. I have always wondered when I am on certain websites why it takes so long for some pictures to load. I become frustrated because I have to wait. Now I know how to fix this so when people come look at websites I create they will not get so frustrated.

Resource Wiki

The past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to collaborate with other classmates on a resource wiki. It was a new experience for me, working working together via the internet rather than face-to-face. I can definitely see the benefits of interacting through the internet. You all have access to everyone's work. In other words, you do not have to worry about making copies or copying down notes. Also, you have the freedom of working on your own time. I found communication to be more difficult. While you can leave comments to one another, some things are more difficult to explain through only text. Therefore, I felt that there were some communication breakdowns that occurred because we are not all used to using this type of communication. Once, we are all acclimated to collaborating through wikis, I definitely feel communication will improve and group wikis will become more preferable to use with groups.

Also, I felt much more comfortable using a wiki than I had at the beginning of the semester. Now that we have had quite a bit of practice with them, I was more confident in what I was doing and had very little trouble maneuvering around and editing the wiki.

Educational Wiki Summary

When I was searching for an educational wiki to review, I had difficulty finding one I liked. I wanted to find one that I could get ideas for my future class. However, many were for older students like high school age and the ones for elementary age were never quite right. Many times they were too disorganized and confusing. The wiki I settled on was Mrs. Anderson's 2nd grade class. While 2nd grade is probably younger than I will be teaching, I really like the overall idea of the wiki. This wiki was designed as a way for parents and other family members to view their child's work. Each child had their own personal page that was a showcase for all their projects. Not only does this make the parents feel included in their child's class, but it also gives the child a since of ownership and pride in their hard work. While I liked the idea, the only thing I have to criticize is the front page. It had a lot of great resources on it, but it was too cluttered. You had to scroll all the way down to find the links to each student's page. When I create my own wiki for my classroom, I will take this into consideration and possibly have those resources on an entirely different page. Overall I loved the idea of having a classroom wiki as a way to exhibit the students' work.