websites and flash!! bam!

i almost forgot what we had talked about on monday, and i just got back from the aggie bball exhibition game; we smoked them!

anyways, this week has contained a plethora of new information for my little brain.

on monday we learned about making websites in aggiemail. i liked it because we didn't have to know any code, we could just fill in the blanks with what we wanted. i wish we had had more time to learn more about it because websites are a great educational tool and i would love to be able to incorporate them into my classroom. it's great to be able to have a place for students to go to receive information right away.

oh my gosh! wednesday was so intense! we learned about flash and my brain almost exploded with awesomeness! i really like flash because it remindsd me of the days when i worked for my dad as a landscape architect and drafted with autoCAD. however, i think that flash is not something i would use in my classroom because it would take me FOREVER to learn how to design good quality videos, and i think my time would be better employed by developing quality lesson plans, rather than flashy vidoes.

Podcasts and googledocs

this week has been pretty intense, as always.

on monday we learned all about podcasts. i think podcasts are awesome! i found a great one that i could download to my ipod that could teach me German with one lesson a day. i am trying to think about how podcasts could be used in the classroom...and i'm coming up blank. i'm not as familiar with them as i would like. as a teacher, i can think of other things i would rather do with my time than create regular podcasts for me students to learn from. just because we have all of this wonderful technology, it doesn't mean that we must abandon all conventional methods of teaching, such as face to face classroom instruction, which i think works pretty well.

on wednesday we discussed and played with google docs. now that was fun. i really really like google docs and i think that this is one form of technology that is worth looking in to and utilizing in the classroom. students can work on projects and collaborate from distances, and i think it's great. i could have my students write papers or make a presentation, and the good thing about google docs is that the students don't have to always find times that they can all meet, and it's a great way to do group projects. i like google docs.

week...uh...when is christmas break again?

so anyways, this week we have just been continuing to work on our iMovie projects. i finished mine at 11:00 last night after choir practise. it was pretty intense. this is definitely the best part of class so far. i really like iMovie. like i've said in my previous two posts, iMovie is really user-friendly, and videos are a great classroom instruction tool. i don't know if i would want to take the time to make a video for every lesson in every class i ever teach for the rest of my life, but it could be fun once in a while. also, i would probably incorporate videos from other sources, such as youtube or studies and exercises that other teachers and researchers have already done.

but sometimes it's fun to shake things up and make your own video to get the specific point across that you want to convey to your students.

i make iMovie

here is my iMovie video. i loved this project, it was a lot easier than i expected. iMovie is very user-friendly and there are enough options to keep it interesting. the process was pretty stress-free, and i knew that it didn't have to be perfect. in fact, i'm pretty proud of myself as a first-time movie-maker. if i were to do this again, i would record my voice separately at the beginning as a voice-over, instead of saying it into the camera's mic, so that we could all be spared the fuzzy hum of background noise. in my classrooms, i think that videos will aid instruction immensely. i can use videos for demonstrations, examples, and role-playing. videos are great!

iMovie

this post is a little late, but i wanted to submit it just so that i don't get confused with the numbering...

anyways, this week we had a short tutorial on iMovie, filmed a movie, and starting editing it ourselves. i love iMovie! i think it is a great program and very user-friendly.

i think that learning how to use iMovie well will be very beneficial for me as a teacher. i'm a very visual person, and some concepts can only be grasped through watching demonstrations. the good thing about a video is that the teacher only has to show and explain it once, and then the students can watch it as many times as they need to if they don't understand. the bad thing about that, however, is that maybe some students can't learn well with a video, and if they didn't understand it the first time they watched the video, they may not understand it no matter how many times they watch the same thing over and over.

for that reason, i think teachers need to be flexible and have variety with their instructional methods. they can't present material in the exact same way every time, because then they will always have students that don't understand because that is not their learning style. it's important for teachers to change things up every so often in an effort to accommodate as many different learning styles as possible.

show and tell

this week has been pretty intense. we wrapped up our photoshop projects and shared them with the whole class. we have some talented people out there! and on wednesday we had a rundown of how to use iMovie.

i'm actually really excited to use iMovie. i think that it looks very user-friendly (as are most things with the apple logo). i think that videos are a great instructional tool. for people like me that are visual learners, it's very beneficial to see something demonstrated in a way that is large and detailed and able to be seen by everyone on a screen.

for my area of teaching, i think that videos will be a nice way to break up the lecture routine. i can show vidoes demonstrating various sewing techniques, as well as examples of projects that other people around the world have come up with.

oh yes, i'm very excited to make a movie!