Week 4 Making Your Own Slide Shows, Comics, Movies, and Gathering Inspiration
Week 4 Blog
I created a power point presentation to define what human life is and when human life "is." It is important that my students understand that they are more than just a physiological process of cell replication.
1. What was the presentation about and to whom did you present
it? My presentation was on how human life begins. I presented it to my teenage brother and his
girlfriend.
2. Of which item in your presentation are you the most proud? My patriotic mood that I created with my
picture of the Monument to Our Forefathers, an excerpt from the Constitution, a
picture of two marines, and a song about war.
Some of my slides went with the timing of song really well. Most of that was by accident.
3. What might you do differently if you could create the
presentation again? Pick different test subjects and an edited song
4. How did your students respond to the presentation?
Websites that I visited this week:
Watching these
videos would be a great way to begin class and/or start conversations. TED is a collection of speeches from SME. These speeches are all designed to inspire others.
The site sells software to allow
you to create comic book pages. It’s
about $20 for the base model software. A
teacher can get a license for the software and return to the site for regular
updates. It’s available for Macs and
PCs.
I looked at this site and
thought, “This is cool. How is it
helpful?” The site answers that as
well. The authors hope to engage the
uninterested reader, the beginning reader, the ESL student, and the struggling
writer. The uninterested reader is
someone who does not like reading. Creating
comics appeals to them. The text is as
complex as they want it to be. The
student has to create a story line, understand plot, and relay setting. They are able to tell their stories without
writing a novel. Comic Life hopes to
help young students and struggling students learn to read. Comic Life also wants to reach the
English-as-a-second-language student. Comics
can teach a small English lesson with each page.
I would love to use this in my
classroom. Science jokes are hilarious
but often the humor goes unappreciated.
It’s also a form of desktop publishing.
I do recommend this software even at $20 for basic software.
iSpeech http://www.ispeech.org
You can use iSpeech to convert
text to speech, convert documents to speech, convert web content to speech, or
convert blogs to speech. For personal
use, iSpeech's simple online text to speech software tool supports over 20
languages. Developers can take advantage
of iSpeech's free text to speech (TTS) SDKs for major mobile platforms. Human quality TTS is available for iPhone,
Android, and BlackBerry. iSpeech SDKs
are tested for rock-solid results with our iSpeech Cloud. With the free membership you can create
one-minute long files using non-commercial voices. You can create as many as you want. If you pay to upgrade, you can create an
unlimited number of 30 minute files. If
you upgrade to the max, then you can create an unlimited number of files up to
12 hours long (per file.) I tried to add
a podcast of my blog to my blog and I couldn’t get it to work. If you can get this to work, then it could be
a useful tool. You can create
mini-lessons for students. They could
access them from anywhere. You can create
a to-do list and listen to it. This is
helpful for me. I am notorious for
forgetting a stop when I’m running errands.
I recommend it if you can get it to work. I definitely recommend something of this nature to accommodate any learning or physical disabilities.
With VoiceThread, group
conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world.
All with no software to install. A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide
show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate
slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice through a Facebook Fan Page
(with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a
VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments
too. Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which
comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to
show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs
to play as archival movies.VoiceThread.com software costs one educator $80/year or $15/monthly. If more than one educator wants a license, then you will need a school license starting at $450.00 for a year.
The VoiceThread Wiki page gave
several educational examples.
I will share the few that I liked.
The first was uploading a picture to start a discussion. You post the picture and have the class leave
comments about how they think that object came to be. The second example that I liked was posting a
review forum. You would dedicate a page
to the discussion of what students enjoyed and/or disliked during a
lesson/unit. Kids are usually brutally
honest. The third idea that I liked was
uploading examples of student work. I
really liked the idea of contrasting great pieces with mediocre pieces using
teacher comments.
Do I recommend it? From what I understand, yes. I liked Voice Thread because it is user
friendly. You only need an updated Adobe
Flash player to use it. It is
versatile. VT allows you to upload
multiple forms of multimedia and allows users to interact with the content and
each other. This type of software is
accessible from any computer and from Apple devices. Anything that encourages parents to look at
and talk about their students’ work gets my approval. I am not a fan of paying for anything,
however. If you still want these types
of features for free, I recommend using wikispaces.com or webquest.org.
Storybird- I
love it. Storybird collects pictures and
illustrations from artists all around the world. Then users piece together those pictures and
write a story. It is free. The site has stories for all age groups.
The whole
concept makes me think of Tyler DeWitt’s video from TED called “Hey Science
Teachers! Make it fun!” He says that he uses storytelling and
analogies to explain science concepts.
He gets positive feedback from his student audience. In his video, he draws and narrates a story
of a “happy bacterium” that is sacrificed in the name of viral replication. I could definitely do the same thing! My students could use this same concept for a
presentation.
I recommend
this site for its creative uses and user friendliness. It is also free. Storytelling has always been a powerful way
to convey knowledge. This site empowers
people who may not know that they are capable of writing a book. You don’t need a contract with a publishing
company to become a famous author.
Scribblar http://www.scribblar.com
A free interactive online whiteboard. Essentially, it's a public version of Elluminate. I read the testimonials. I concluded that there were other sites that could do the same thing. Apparently, Scribblar is the most user-friendly and free. I read comments from teachers around the world from grade school to college, business managers, book club members, and playwrights. Obviously, the uses are limitless. While going through the tutorial, I saw that you could type on the whiteboard and in the chatroom in several different languages.
So how can I use this? I can use Scribblar to meet with students to help with homework, to study for a test, or to follow up with student that missed class. I could also use this medium to work with parents and students if the parents are concerned about their students' performance and visa versa. I could set up assignment drop boxes, like another user mentioned. I can facilitate collaboration among my classes. I can set up quizzes on here.I really liked the positive reviews. I would definitely recommend this to others and for my own use. I like the versatility and security. The other users really inspired me with their creative employment of this tool.
Xtranormal - http://www.xtranormal.com/
Mine: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/14308843/boots
Here is a movie that I saw using the
Xtranormal site. It is very well
done. I tried to replicate it as much as
I could. The Xtranormal site allows you
to make what I call Lego man animated movies.
You are able to pick settings, characters, and voices. Then you use text to speech software to give
the characters dialogue.
I can see multiple uses for this
in my classroom. Essentially, every
movie is a moving book. With Storybird, you
have still shots. With Xtranormal, you
have an animated story. I can use this
to convey science in a humorous way.
Students can use this for presentations.
I can create, view, and grade assignments. Instead of quizzes, students can create
videos about what they have learned.
The basic membership is free. You can pay more to do more. The educator accounts are $10/month and are
automatically re-charged each month.
Once you have an educator account, you can set up student accounts for
50¢/account. I don’t recommend buying an
account simply because the costs can get out of hand. I suggest having students make their own
basic accounts. Then, you can have the
student publish their videos and send you the URL.
VirtualManipulatives: http://nlvm.usu.edu
“The National
Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) is an NSF supported project that began
in 1999 to develop a library of uniquely interactive, web-based virtual
manipulatives or concept tutorials, mostly in the form of Java applets, for
mathematics instruction (K-12 emphasis).”
That was a direct quote from the site.
Simply, it is a place where you can play math games. The games are interactive and reinforce math
concepts. The user sees instant results
from their input.
I can use this
to help students’ math skills. There are
some math skills in science. I would
just have to figure out how to make my needs fit. It’s free and fun and geared for all age
groups.
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