Week 5 Journal

What technology tool(s) do you use often to enhance your learning or teaching? How do you use them?

In my masters program the majority of the classes are on-line.  Via blackboard I am able to interact with classmates across the state and country.  The discussion board is helpful for exploring ideas when everyone is on different schedules.  I am still able to learn from discussions rather than solely books when discussion boards are utilized.

As a learner, I find my tablet very helpful.  I can store documents I want to refer to and I can "carry" as many books as needed without my bag getting heavy.  E-books are so handy, especially when the software allows me to highlight and write notes as I read.  I also use my tablet to entertain my daughters when I am trying to cook supper or get something done.  They can play educational games to learn their colors, shapes, letters, and numbers even when I am unable to directly or exclusively interact with them.

Week 4 Journal

 

Questions for the Week 4:

You've been working on the movie-making for a while. What movie-making techniques have you found useful and effective for creating a good instructional movie?

The story board was more helpful than I thought it would be.  All the planning ahead of time was very useful in making things go smoothly during filming.  After filming is where I learned the most.  I was amazed at how much we were able to edit the movie to make it look better.  Adding titles and removing extra movement made the message more concise which will be more effective.  I wish I had the movie editing software and a video recorder that I owned.  I think I'll look into it.  I video my children's programs and it would be nice to edit the videos and then only save the best parts.  I can see how I learned things that will help in the classroom and in my personal life.

Week 3 Journal

Questions for the Week 3: 

What techniques and strategies specific to teaching with SMART Board did you like a lot?

I like how we were able to make the answers bounce out if wrong and give audio feedback when it was correct.  I also like how the board will work with the touch of a hand.  Preschool students who aren't yet holding a pencil correctly can still manipulate the board.  With the board giving the feedback, I would be able to set up the board as a learning center that a small group of students could do without constant adult supervision.  My only concern with that is the height of the board.  Preschool students won't be able to reach it without standing on a platform.  A table in front of the board would solve that problem assuming the students could safely stand on it and be aware of the edges so they wouldn't fall off.  

While I can see the advantages of the SMART Board, I still am advocate of hands on learning.  Preschool students will learn the parts of an apple better if we are cutting open a real apple.  All 5 senses can be involved in learning the parts that way.  The SMART Board would be good as a follow up using sight and sound.  Touch is involved but the touch wouldn't be about the apple, just the board.

Graphic Design Project

Graphic Design Project Part 1

Graphic Design Project Part 2

Smart Board Lesson

Apples Smart Board Lesson

Making a Movie

I've been working with Kylie and Sarah to create a movie about making Monster Cookies.  Here is our lesson plan and our story board.  Overall, it's gone smoothly in my first movie making experience.  We've filmed the making of the cookies and they tasted great!  Next up will be editing the movie.  Hopefully that will go as smoothly.

Lesson Plan

Story Board

Audacity Recording

Here is a recording telling about how the girls and I were Locked Out of My Truck last night.

Screencast Video of Google Calendar

This is a neat tool that I learned how to use today.  I am still pondering in what situation I would want to narrate a computer screen for children birth to 5 years old.  In this video I explain how my ex-husband and I share a Google calendar to keep track of what days the girls are at mom's house and dad's house.  Not too bad of a video, but my speech and movements on the screen were a bit rough with my never having done this before.  If you want to give it a try visit http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Week 2 Journal

Question for the Week 2: 

How would you use video for your teaching and students' learning? If you can, think of some innovative ways to use video for instruction. 

My first thoughts are that video might be more useful for me in the area of documentation.  I can see video clips being useful for showing the parents at the end of the year how much the child has grown and developed.  I can also see a video at parent night would be a fun way to show parents what we do during the day in an early childhood environment (birth to 5 yrs old).

In a lesson environment, I am thinking how this would make a lesson I did a couple of years ago even stronger.  I was in a Christian environment at the time and teaching the children about Zacchaeus.  I made a tree on a poster with a cut out for the children's head to peek through.  The children climbed on a step stool and looked through the tree.  The rest of the class sang the Zaccheaus song and I took a picture of each child.  A video for the kids to watch afterwards would have been great for review time.  Watching the song be sung so many times would have gotten long, but maybe splicing all the individual pictures to the children singing the song once would have been great.  

I want to learn more about editing of videos.  I would use that skill on my personal blog when I video my children's programs and in my career working with children.

Week 1 Journal

Questions for the Week 1: 

Which cause(s) of Death by PowerPoint does your PowerPoint often have? Which Multimedia Learning Principle(s) do you often violate? What would be your biggest challenge(s) overcoming those habits or shortcomings?  

I gave a presentation last session and my biggest error was text overdose (DBPP #2).  I had no pictures to illustrate my points and I had lots of bullets on each slide.  I was trying to include all information for each point on each slide.  Next time I would break it into more slides.  I had a few examples to explain my points on the slide, but frequently I was just reading the slides (MLP #3).  Giving more information in my narration than in the slide is a difficult task for me.  I use the slides as my cues for what I am talking about.  The slides where I included notes at the bottom and then printed the slides with notes made it easier for me to give a better presentation.

I am actually torn on the MLP #3 of Redundancy Principle.  I want to provide my slides to the audience as notes for them to take home and allow them to only add to it what would help them understand what I was saying.  If I don't include my whole point then they could potentially be spending so much time trying to write notes that they would miss some of what I said.  I want to work on a good balance of enough information on my slide that my students could remember what my point was without overdosing the screen in text for them to read.

Good vs. Bad Project

Use this link to access my Good vs Bad Project to view examples of the 8 Graphic Design Principles applied well and not so well.