Digital Storytelling Week 4

While reading this week's pages in "Presentation Zen", I found it very interesting that Garr suggests to "Never go over." He says that if you have 20 minutes, use 18 or 19; if you have an hour, use 55 minutes. Leave them hungry for more. This might work in a professional/business setting but I'm going to just throw this out there....if I use only 18 of my 20 minutes or 55 minutes of my hour, I don't think, no matter how engaging or cool my presentation is, that my students will be begging for more. I think it might work if I'm presenting at a conference or an inservice showing faculty cool tech tools/sites/applications but I'll bet it doesn't work the same way with 14-18 year olds. :)

Another point that Garr makes is "Make a connection with your audience" and he suggests that when presenting that you don't use a podium. During my first year of teaching I found great comfort in my podium but haven't used it since then. I love being able to walk around my classroom when I'm presenting. I think by moving around I stay more enthusiastic while I'm presenting; if my body stays too idle, I feel like my energy & enthusiasm starts to become idle as well. Another point that Garr makes is to not turn the lights off; if the audience can't see you they can't make a connection with you. I never turn off all of the lights in my room but I do turn off the first row of lights so the audience can see the slides easier.

Garr also mentions "Kaizen" meaning continuous improvement. He says that very tiny improvements are important. I think that is the only way I can look at my presentations at the moment. It isn't realistic to think I'll be able to redo all of my presentations to be more Zen-like but if I make tiny improvements to each one and set a goal (like do 1 section in each presentation each time I use it), then I'll be able to get them all done in a fairly short amount of time.

When showing my redone presentation that we did for class a few weeks ago to a co-worker, she made a comment that I found to be very interesting. She said she really liked my presentation but didn't think it would be effective to make all presentations in that fashion because if all presentations were "Zen" then it wouldn't be anything "special". I can see what she means but what do you think? If all are Zen-like, do you think it will keep them more engaged or do you think presentations should be Zen-like here and there so it is like a "treat" to them. ??? Hmmmmmm...???

Digital Storytelling Week 3

I really liked this chapter with all of the before & after slide examples. When reading about signal vs. noise ratio, I was struggling a bit to really understand what the author meant. I haven't heard this concept before. After examining the example slides on the following page, I was able to easily grasp the concept. The slides with the higher SNR definitely look more professional and are easier to understand at a quick glance.

I also liked the Animoto assignment because I love that tool. I use it frequently for school and for personal use. It is so quick and easy, and the end result looks like professional quality work. The music library available within the website is really convenient; it is comforting knowing that the music in their library is available to use without having to worry about copyright/royalty issues.

I've been thinking lots about the Pecha Kucha assignment and trying to figure out what topic is going to be the best to do. I'm hoping that after talking to my group tomorrow I'll feel drawn more to one of my three brainstormed topics. I'd like to do something school related that I can use in the future but at the same time I think it would be eaiser (maybe???) to do something on a personal level like "All About Me" or "My Family". I could use a Pecha Kucha that is more personal like the 2 topics I mentioned to introduce myself to the class at the start of the term; although, I normally don't spend 6+ minutes talking about myself. It is usually more like 1 minute. :)

Digital Storytelling Week 2

"What way can you use digital stories in what you do?" is the question posed this week for our blog reflections... I guess the first thing to do is define what a digital story is. In my mind, digital storytelling includes digital cartoon strips, digital flip books, digital movies w/pictures, music, and animation, a voice recording talking about a particular pictures or diagram, and so much more. I currently use many digital storytelling tools in my classes and help other teachers integrate digital storytelling tools into their lessons. I love to use Animoto as a first day of class activity. I have students find pictures (about 12 for a 30 second video) that represent themselves, pick out music, & create a video that we share for the class to see. The students learn lots about each other and seem to have a great time doing this activity rather than just standing up and saying, "I like pizza. My favorite sport is basketball. My favorite vacation is..." You get the picture. I also have used Animoto to create a department video that we play at our "Back to School" night and at our "Preview Night" for prospective students visiting our school. It is so user friendly and quick, and the videos turn out very professional looking. I also just showed some preschool teachers in my system how to use Animoto and helped them create a video of their "Fire Station Field Trip." The teachers were SO excited about it, and the parents just loved being able to see the pictures in a fun format. I think they are hooked on creating the videos & will continue to do so throughout the school year.

In addition, I've used Windows Movie Maker with my students when they do their country project research. They find information and pictures about their selected country, import the pictures into MovieMaker, add transitions, text, music, and video. They can then narrate the pictures with the information they found out about their country during their research. The students much rather do this than create a PowerPoint with the information. They are much more engaged & excited about the project.

While working with one of the history/psychology teachers, I suggested using VoiceThread when doing the genealogy project. The students could get voice recordings of their relatives, especially their older relatives like grandparents and great grandparents. They could then put pictures up in VoiceThread & have the relatives narrate the project where applicable. I think it would be such a treasured, neat project to be able to have that saved with the relatives' voices and be able to share that for generations to come....and be able to actually listen to real voices of relatives for years and years to come. I think VoiceThread would also be a nice alternative to my country project as described above instead of using MovieMaker. That way the students could work on it collaboratively and web-based.

Kizoa is another really cool tool that I've played with personally but haven't done anything with it in school yet. With Kizoa, you can edit pictures and create slideshows/videos with those pictures. It is meant to be collaborative as well which is nice for having students share work or work together.

A few "flip book" type of digital stories that I've used or played with include MixBook, Tikatok, and Storybird. Storybird is nice because students don't need email addresses so this is a great tool for the younger grades when this often becomes the limiting factor. Dipity & Capzules are great tools for telling a digital story in a timeline format. I had my Web Tools class do a project with Dipity; they had to pick a person or a business and create a timeline of that person/business. The projects turned out GREAT and the students had a blast doing the project.

I've used lots of digital storytelling tools personally & am starting to integrate them more & more into my classes as well as sharing ideas with other teachers. I look forward to hearing how others are using the digital storytelling tools and learning about other tools that I'm not aware of right now. That's all for now....Have a great day!! :)

Digital Storytelling Week 1

This class is a breath of fresh air! I know the next 6 weeks is going to be much easier than some of the other classes because I LOVE this stuff and LOVE working on fun, creative "stuff" like this. I am really looking forward to learning more about presentations & digital storytelling/pictures. I think I have a pretty good handle on digital pictures & storytelling but I know there is always room for growth & improvement.

I'm excited about the Posterous assignment but am a bit worried about posting the picture each day. I've been taking pictures every day but just got them all posted today. Now that I see how easy it is I'm hoping that I'll remember to do it each & every day. Once in a routine I'm sure I'll be just fine. I'm really interested in what we are going to be doing with the pictures at the end of the activity. It will be fun to check out all of my classmates' pictures to see what their hobbies/interests/etc are and learn even more about each of them.

Okay, now off to read some more & meet with my group. Lots of work to do....but I know it isn't going to seem like it is as much "work" as some of the other courses since this really is of interest & fun for me. :) G'night for now...

CEDO 525 Week 5

Because of a school commitment, I wasn't able to attend the class session last week. However, I did watch/listen to the recording, and I am still thinking about one part of the class over and over....and that is Kris's example of the business she toured and how the business incorporated each of the learning strategies that we have covered in this class. After her explanation, I started thinking about how my school incorporates each of the learning strategies or how certain strategies could potentially be improved. I really like the example provided about "Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition" at the business she toured. I would love to make a suggestion to my principals of a way that we, as a school, could do a better job of this. A simple bulletin board in the teacher work room/mail room with room for people to pin up "way to go" messages cheering on someone who is doing a great job or a public thanks/recognition on a particular project would go a long way. I realize that public recognition isn't necessary for everything but once in a while it sure is nice to have someone compliment your efforts or celebrate your success(es) in a way that can be shared with others.

CEDO 525 Week 4 Strategies

Identifying Similarities & Differences
One of the recommendations for this strategy is "Have students use graphic organizers as a visual tool to represent the similarities and differences." Whenever applicable I do have my students use graphic organizers to arrange information in a logical, visual manner. I LOVE the new SmartArt tools in Microsoft Office 07 & newer; the word clouds, mind maps, flow charts, etc are super easy to use and look great! The SmartArt graphics are broken into categories which helps the user easily and quickly select the best option.

Homework & Practice
I rarely give true "homework" in my classes where students have to complete/finish activities outside of class. 99% of the learning activities take place during the class block as long as the given time is used wisely. Right now in one of my classes the students are working on a group project. There was class time given but a few of the groups will need to finish up the project outside of class prior to class on Thursday. One group in particular was listing off a million reasons why they wouldn't be able to finish their project; here are just a few given to me... "Some of us are in extra curriculars after school so we can't all get together to finish it then", "None of us have PowerPoint at home to finish up the project", "Ya de ya de ya da!" I realize that these "excuses" are not totally legit but instead of fighting that fight I just calmly told the group that all of what they told me was okay. I told them, "Just upload what you have done to Google Docs & finish your presentation online whenever you each have time to work on it." We've used Google Docs for many activities in that class so I'm surprised they even tried to give me all of those excuses regarding why they wouldn't be able to get the work done when they knew I'd probably "gently remind" them about Google Docs. Funny students.... :)

Generating & Testing Hypotheses
In my Intro to Business class the students complete an online business simulation called JA Titan. The students are put into groups, and they make various business decisions. After the decisions have been submitted they receive instant feedback. The students then look through the business reports and make the next quarter's decisions based on what happened in the previous quarter. This simulation certainly requires them to generate & test hypotheses each time they submit their decision and then review their reports. The students enjoy this simulation because it is very much "video game-like" and gives them instant feedback based on their decisions in the simulation.

CEDO 525 Week 3 Strategies

Cooperative Learning
"...Cooperative learning focuses on having students interact with each other in groups in ways that enhance their learning. When students work in cooperative groups, they make sense of, or construct meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others" (Pitler, 139). Whenever possible, I use this instructional strategy in my classes. It seems that most students enjoy learning in this manner. In regards to the section on "multimedia", I enjoyed the rubric - "Rubric for a Cooperative Multimedia Project" and also the "Group Roles in a Cooperative Multimedia Project". They are both good examples to use & modify to fit many of the projects I do in my classes. I also liked reading through the subsection titled "Collaborative Organizing" because I employ many of these applications already. When looking over 'shared calendars' I really liked the idea of having the student groups create a shared calendar & then share it with the teacher to allow the teacher to monitor progress. I use Google calendars (embed on our class wiki with all of the due dates for assignments, tests, projects, etc) with all of my classes but haven't thought of using them like suggested above. Also under the same subsection is 'shared bookmarking.' Currently I only use social bookmarking personally; I collect all of the amazing resources I get from my PLN on Twitter & use Delicious & Diigo to keep them organized online. In my Web Tools class my students created a Diigo account where they will keep track of the resources they use for a group project. The last topic under this subsection is 'course management.' My school has had several conversations about getting Moodle up and running but that conversation hasn't gone anywhere yet (although Moodle is "free" it is really expensive to get up & running with the hardware & Internet costs).

Reinforcing Effort
"...reinforcing effort enhances students' understanding of the relationship between effort and achievement by addressing their attributes and beliefs about learning" (Pitler, 155). I do believe this in an important instructional strategy but am having some trouble accepting the suggestions illustrated in this chapter. Many of the suggestions include public recognition of students who are demonstrating effort; one example in the text talks about having a bulletin board in the main office displaying stories of "students putting forth a strong effort to achieve" (Pitler, 162). Does this type of public recognition need to take place? What about writing positive comments on the student's paper, a sticker saying "keep it up", or have a conversation one-on-one with the student expressing & reinforcing the effort put forth?