This weekend in class we were asked to design a classroom website. I have been contemplating creating a class website for a while, so this really interested me. I was initially contemplating creating a website on myteacherpages.com, however after John demonstrated how to use the templates on Google Sites, I was willing to give Google a shot.
I was able to quickly set up the site and arrange my pages in a way that made sense to me. Ideally, I would like to make some color and format changes before I am satisfied, but when I initially started working on those tasks, I quickly grew frustrated with the many different components that go into all of the different parts of the website. I wanted to change the header color on my website from a blue and white color to a red and gray/black to match our school colors, but there were so many parts and I was finding it difficult to make sure that my shades of red matched from one part to the next, so I decided to simply go with the colors in the template.
Other than that and some minor formatting concerns, I found Google Sites fairly easy to work with and I was able to create a fairly extensive website in a relatively short time. I plan to continue working on this and keep it up for the rest of this school year.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
YouTube Video
Last class we were shown how to take clips from YouTube, edit them, and then splice them together in Windows Movie Maker to create our own conglomeration of clips. I had decided to skip this initially due to difficulties with finding Windows Movie Maker, however I did return to the project simply out of curiosity.
I ended up taking several clips from The Big Bang Theory, a CBS sitcom, and splicing them together to create a tribute to Sheldon, one of the main characters. I enjoyed editing the clips and developing my collection, however I experienced difficulty when I tried to upload them to YouTube. My initial difficulty arose in the fact that my video was 16 minutes and 47 seconds long and I didn't realize that YouTube has a 15 minute time limit. I then had to return to my editing process and cut my clips back further to make sure my video was under the time limit. This was slightly frustrating because if I had known about the time limit I would have planned for it when I created my collection.
I have since re-visited my video and I have uploaded it to my YouTube account. I hope you enjoy my Tribute to Sheldon.
I then continued to work with the video and edited out a clip on the Best Number Ever to use in my math class.
I have also used my new YouTube movie snatching expertise to capture and share a Jack-in-the-Box commercial to use in math class when we talked about ratios and why order was important. The students really enjoyed it and it was fun to add a little humor to math class.
I ended up taking several clips from The Big Bang Theory, a CBS sitcom, and splicing them together to create a tribute to Sheldon, one of the main characters. I enjoyed editing the clips and developing my collection, however I experienced difficulty when I tried to upload them to YouTube. My initial difficulty arose in the fact that my video was 16 minutes and 47 seconds long and I didn't realize that YouTube has a 15 minute time limit. I then had to return to my editing process and cut my clips back further to make sure my video was under the time limit. This was slightly frustrating because if I had known about the time limit I would have planned for it when I created my collection.
I have since re-visited my video and I have uploaded it to my YouTube account. I hope you enjoy my Tribute to Sheldon.
I then continued to work with the video and edited out a clip on the Best Number Ever to use in my math class.
I have also used my new YouTube movie snatching expertise to capture and share a Jack-in-the-Box commercial to use in math class when we talked about ratios and why order was important. The students really enjoyed it and it was fun to add a little humor to math class.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Disease WebQuest
I decided to do my internet scavenger hunt on diseases since we study them in science. I started with questions on diseases we studied in class to help the students get started, but I branched out into others to get them exploring. I chose to use the Mayo Clinic's Diseases and Conditions website as the internet resource so my students won't be trolling all over the internet looking for answers. I think this will simplify their search and provide them with the opportunity to spend some time on the site exploring other diseases that they might be interested in.
I took the answers to my internet scavenger hunt and used the Discovery Education Puzzle Maker to create a word search for the students to find their answers. This was a fairly simple way for me to get my students searching a database and researching diseases. Overall, I was able to easily and efficiently make a worksheet using Discovery Education and Google Docs. I found it to be simple and I didn't get hung up on the same formatting issues that sometimes arise when working with Microsoft Word.
Like many of the other assignments, the part that took the longest was creating the questions. If I already had a bank of questions or words, creating the puzzle and document would go rather quickly. I will definitely use this again with my classes!
I took the answers to my internet scavenger hunt and used the Discovery Education Puzzle Maker to create a word search for the students to find their answers. This was a fairly simple way for me to get my students searching a database and researching diseases. Overall, I was able to easily and efficiently make a worksheet using Discovery Education and Google Docs. I found it to be simple and I didn't get hung up on the same formatting issues that sometimes arise when working with Microsoft Word.
Like many of the other assignments, the part that took the longest was creating the questions. If I already had a bank of questions or words, creating the puzzle and document would go rather quickly. I will definitely use this again with my classes!
Prezi
I was really looking forward to making the video clip, except when I got home I realized I didn't have movie maker on my computer. So instead of making the movie, I decided to use wedding photos to create a Prezi presentation on our wedding day.
Overall, creating a Prezi was a very simple process once you get the hang of the tools and what each of the editing circles are used for. It was simple and easy to make. It's important that you preview your work often because initially I had created a presentation with images going in many different directions and as the presentation advanced, I felt somewhat sick by all of the twisting and turning it took to get from one image to the next. I then found myself going back in and making the most of the transitions between pictures simpler - either a size change or a directional change, not many with both.
I did experience some difficulties with getting my entire images to show up inside the viewing window and not getting cut off. I'm not sure if part of the problem was the panoramic view or if it was something I could have remedied. I think this is a program I will need to play with more in order to come up with better quality presentations.
As far as classroom applications go, this could be a fun way for students to create a flow map of words and images to show how they are processing an idea or a concept. Since it doesn't have to be created linearly, the students can bounce around and jump from idea to idea and then connect them in a manner that make sense to them at the end. I think that this might really appeal to some students. I also think that this would be an interesting program to have students reflect on after they use it to see how they like it.
I know that I am a linear person and I found it to be an effort for me to change the angles and sizes of images for no apparent reason other than to make my presentation more interesting. I wonder how many (if any) of my students will feel the same?
Overall, creating a Prezi was a very simple process once you get the hang of the tools and what each of the editing circles are used for. It was simple and easy to make. It's important that you preview your work often because initially I had created a presentation with images going in many different directions and as the presentation advanced, I felt somewhat sick by all of the twisting and turning it took to get from one image to the next. I then found myself going back in and making the most of the transitions between pictures simpler - either a size change or a directional change, not many with both.
I did experience some difficulties with getting my entire images to show up inside the viewing window and not getting cut off. I'm not sure if part of the problem was the panoramic view or if it was something I could have remedied. I think this is a program I will need to play with more in order to come up with better quality presentations.
As far as classroom applications go, this could be a fun way for students to create a flow map of words and images to show how they are processing an idea or a concept. Since it doesn't have to be created linearly, the students can bounce around and jump from idea to idea and then connect them in a manner that make sense to them at the end. I think that this might really appeal to some students. I also think that this would be an interesting program to have students reflect on after they use it to see how they like it.
I know that I am a linear person and I found it to be an effort for me to change the angles and sizes of images for no apparent reason other than to make my presentation more interesting. I wonder how many (if any) of my students will feel the same?
4 x 2
I created a 4 x 2 website on the character Percy Jackson and the series of books chronicling his adventures. It includes the images and titles of the books in the series, information on the movie based on the first book, and basic information on Percy. I also included links to the movie trailer, the official Percy Jackson website, the website for the spinoff series, and the author, Rick Riordan's website.
Once I got the hang of the program, I found it rather simple to create a very basic website. I think this would be a great way for my students to show their understanding of a topic and to create something lasting.
Once I got the hang of the program, I found it rather simple to create a very basic website. I think this would be a great way for my students to show their understanding of a topic and to create something lasting.
Stock Market Project
We were asked to go to the Virtual Stock Exchange website and join a stock trading game. We were given $100,000 to play with and required to select a minimum of 12 companies to purchase stock with. Each transaction comes with a $9.95 commission charge. Since I began selecting my stocks on Sunday when the market was closed, I was unable to view my portfolio to keep track of my spending. To ensure that I didn't go over my limit, I tried to spend approximately $8,000 per stock and I created a Google spreadsheet to track the start values of the stock. While I don't think I will track my stocks daily, I do think that I will come back to this at the end to see how each stock has changed. I thought this was a good mental math activity to do with students as I found myself mentally calculating about how many shares I need to buy to get close to the $8,000 mark. I also think this would be useful to use in my math class to talk about percent of change, percent of increase, and percent of decrease.
Google Survey
Today I created a Google Holiday Survey. The survey I created has 20 questions and was rather easy to do. The hardest part was coming up with the questions. If I already had a list of questions (like a test, quiz, or worksheet) it would be an incredibly simple way to make a document. Google also has several themes that I can apply to my survey to make it look visually appealing. It was the presence of the themes that led me to coming up with a Holiday/Christmas survey. I want to play with this more to see what other things I can develop.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Death of Lincoln Powerpoint
Today we each used Google Docs to create a slide in a presentation for a slideshow on Lincoln's death. It was a very quick and easy jigsaw activity where each of us researched a person of interest in the assassination and added our portion to the class file. I found that I learned much more about the Lincoln assassination than I knew previously, but it required very little effort on my part.
As far as using this in my class, it could be an interesting way to jigsaw a topic for student research. For instance, we are studying cells and I could group my students into two groups, a plant cell group and an animal cell group. I could then assign each student in the group a cell organelle and it would be their responsibility to find the function of the organelle and an image of the organelle and add it to their group presentation to create a cell overview. The slide show could then be shared with the class so all of the students can see all of the organelles and the accompanying images.
As far as using this in my class, it could be an interesting way to jigsaw a topic for student research. For instance, we are studying cells and I could group my students into two groups, a plant cell group and an animal cell group. I could then assign each student in the group a cell organelle and it would be their responsibility to find the function of the organelle and an image of the organelle and add it to their group presentation to create a cell overview. The slide show could then be shared with the class so all of the students can see all of the organelles and the accompanying images.
Wunderground Activity
I used the Wunderground website to find monthly temperatures for Paris, France for 2010. I arranged the temperatures into a Google Docs Spreadsheet and created a line graph to display the data.
I could definitely use this website in class to have students gather data to put into a graphical display. Google docs is a convenient way to have students organize their data to create charts and spreadsheets. A possible alternative assignment would be to have students gather annual temperature data for a particular location over the years and to create a graph showing change over time and then have them discuss possible ways they could use the data to answer the question: "Is global warming really occurring?"
I could definitely use this website in class to have students gather data to put into a graphical display. Google docs is a convenient way to have students organize their data to create charts and spreadsheets. A possible alternative assignment would be to have students gather annual temperature data for a particular location over the years and to create a graph showing change over time and then have them discuss possible ways they could use the data to answer the question: "Is global warming really occurring?"
Interactive Oil Map
I used the interactive oil map to create a math worksheet (answers are included). I am actually incredibly excited about this worksheet and I think this is definitely something I will use with my math class. I can see the students really getting into this assignment and it is a real-world way to practice estimating fractions, finding percents, and calculating proportional relationships.
Photo Editing
I am currently teaching a cell unit, so I looked up images of cells. I chose an image of blood cells to edit and manipulate. Here is the original image:
I then edited the photo using be funky to get the resulting images:
As far as using in my class, I think these websites would be useful because I could have students take images applicable to science class and crop and edit them to best display a given feature or portion of an image. This could be used to have students take a large, unlabeled cell and edit and crop the image to match it with a designated label to show me that they can match the cell organelle with the name.
I then edited the photo using be funky to get the resulting images:
Finally, I took images I had edited in be funky and added borders using the webresizer:
Wikipedia Comparison
I looked up Harry Potter in Wikipedia and Britannica. Looking up Harry Potter in Wikipedia led to several pages of information that had been edited over 500 times since September 2009 and had first been started in October 2001. When I looked up Harry Potter on Britannica there was only a line in Britannica that J.K. Rowling "created the critically acclaimed series about a young sorcerer in training." Additionally there were some links to external resources for additional information.
The convenience of the Wikipedia article is that all of the information is in one location. It takes one search to come to a plethora of information. If I want to explore more, there are links to "further information" to expand on specific portions of the volumes of information available. The Britannica article was less user-friendly because I would have to go through and click on links to external sources in order to gather information beyond the initial sentence available.
This situation could be partially due to the fact that I am looking at pop culture/fiction rather than a non-fiction, factual article. Possibly Britannica would have more information about about an academic feature than something pop culture related.
As far as changes go, I added Mr. Ollivander to the list of other characters to the Simple English Wikipedia page, I also added Lord Voldemort's name (Tom Marvolo Riddle) prior to becoming infamous to the Simple English Wikipedia page, and I added Rita Skeeter to the list of other characters on the Simple English Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia also keeps a record of all of the changes made to their pages.
Overall, it was really easy to make the changes once I decided what I wanted to add.
The convenience of the Wikipedia article is that all of the information is in one location. It takes one search to come to a plethora of information. If I want to explore more, there are links to "further information" to expand on specific portions of the volumes of information available. The Britannica article was less user-friendly because I would have to go through and click on links to external sources in order to gather information beyond the initial sentence available.
This situation could be partially due to the fact that I am looking at pop culture/fiction rather than a non-fiction, factual article. Possibly Britannica would have more information about about an academic feature than something pop culture related.
As far as changes go, I added Mr. Ollivander to the list of other characters to the Simple English Wikipedia page, I also added Lord Voldemort's name (Tom Marvolo Riddle) prior to becoming infamous to the Simple English Wikipedia page, and I added Rita Skeeter to the list of other characters on the Simple English Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia also keeps a record of all of the changes made to their pages.
Overall, it was really easy to make the changes once I decided what I wanted to add.
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