Week 5 - Glogster

Above is my first glog creation. The process was more time consuming than the other two tools in Group 3. The tutorial helped me out with embedding it onto my blog which I have found the most difficult with the blog. It was fairly easy to create and embed images and videos from YouTube. It seemed as though there was plenty of advertising on the pages leading up to creating my glog and on the glog homepage itself. If you are willing to pay the money then you can create glogs for your classroom that is kept for private use. On my glog I decided to focus on Mathematics, Year 2, gathering information and creating block graphs. This is how I would set up the homepage of the glog for parents to help as well. There is a video embedded on the page for parents to view on the steps in creating a block graph. That way they are encouraged to help out their son/daughter with some ideas on what other sources of information we could gather to create another block graph. Glogster could definitely work in a classroom environment. The teacher would need to first spend time creating the page, all of the student's pages and changing their passwords if necessary. Compared to the other two tools it would be more time consuming but it could be more beneficial once it has been set up. Children are able to post their work on the own page within the classroom. The teacher will be able to keep track of each student's glog, their progress throughout the year, who needs to be extended and who needs more work on the topic. The great thing about glogster is it could be used by more than one classroom, teachers will be able to collaborate ideas towards the glog as a team project for their students.

Week 5 - Prezi

Well I can definitely say that this week has been a whole lot better using the multimedia tool Prezi! It was very quick and easy to get started. I just needed to sign up using my email address and could get started right away. The video tutorials helped me create my first prezi with ease. I went onto my Facebook and saved a few pictures of my family and created the presentation within 15 minutes. Very easy to create and embed the link onto my blog. Here is the prezi I created about my family.
http://prezi.com/oihcnszsduey/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Prezi is a great tool for teachers to use for creating quick presentations to the students. It can also be a way for students to create their own presentations. Students can create their own narratives using prezi, rather than typing up a story on word. Each slide can contain an image with some text, whether the images are found on the internet or the students art work is scanned to the computer and embedded that way. Parents/Caregivers will be able to access the story online, they can also save it as a pdf file and print it out for safe keeping. The students will be more engaged using prezi rather than typing up the text on word, they will be able to see their story come to life, making their story even more meaningful to the students.

Substitution:
Prezi can be used in the classroom to show the students how a narrative is structured. The first slide can go into more detail on the orientation of a narrative, then the next slide on the complication and then on the resolution.

Augmentation:
The children can now start to think about some ideas on what their narrative will be about. Viewing narrative stories on Prezi and begin writing down all of their ideas for their very own story, choose a layout and images to use as well.

Modification:
After viewing narratives on Prezi, the students can now start editing the stories and even change the characters, the setting and the mood. The students can begin to start predicting what might happen in each event, based on the title and images.

Redefinition:
Now the children can put all of their ideas and planning into creating their own narrative using prezi.com. By now through each stage they would of been able to gather enough information on how a narrative is structured and many ideas on what their story could be about.

Week 4 - Podcasting and using audio

This was my least favourite this week! I first used Audioboo but I couldn't find a way to link it to my wiki or my blog! Then I tried to create a voki for the first time. I recorded my voice and created my character and then clicked publish. I was able to save the voice recording but there was no embedding code to post it on my blog and I was unable to email the link either? I have spent far too much time stressing about how to use this type of technology this week. I understand how it can benefit learners but there needs to be more of an explanation on how to actually use the software that is recommended in order for us to create them. I have found the downfalls in using multimedia and that is there is far too many complications with most of them.


This is the transcript I used when trying to create my voki:

This week’s engagement activity was to record a short audio clip, I decided to create a voki, for the first time. Podcasting in education gives children the opportunities to express themselves using multimedia. A podcast is an audio recording that can be uploaded, saved and accessed online. It can also be embedded onto a blog. There can be safety precautions as a podcast can be accessed by anyone. The best way to ensure your recorded files are readily accessible is to also download them and save them to your desktop.

Week 4 - Digital Video

Digital video is an excellent way for students to create an engaging presentation to their class. This week I decided to create a video based on my hometown, Kaikoura in New Zealand. Students in Australia, Year 3 Geography could benefit from this video by seeing the similarities and differences of places in neighboring countries like New Zealand. Students could then create images on their hometown and create a blog to share with students in Kaikoura. Through e-learning, children will be able to connect with the world on a topic that relates to them.

I created a PowerPoint and then turned it into a video using PowerPoint as well. I tried to use Moviemaker first, but I didn't know how to add a slide just for credits and a title page. My computer is fairly new and therefore I had no music saved, so I had to spend some time downloading music for the video as well. Ever since starting this course I feel as though I am downloading a lot of apps and software onto my computer, not sure if this is a good thing or not. For me to be able to use multimodal designs in the classroom, I need to have more experience to be comfortable in teaching it. Here is the video I created below:

This week I chose to further explore digital videos in the classroom.
The technical aspects when creating a video like the one above are first gathering the images, analysing and evaluating which images to use and choosing an audio that relates to what the images represent. The 21st century student is already familiar with this type of technology, therefore relating to the student more so than traditional materials.

Substitution:
Students are given a task of creating their own digital story, using images of their own, it relates to the school and the characters are children in the classroom. Instead of looking and listening to a story book, the children are engaged with a digital video.

Augmentation:
The students can now be engaged in writing out their plan, using the digital video as a guide to write out a step by step procedure, based on the video clip. Once the plan has been marked off by the teacher, the children can then move on to the next stage.

Modification:
This is now where the children can start taking images that relate to their story. The children will need to analyse and evaluate each image and make the decision on which image should go where, according to the story plan they have already written.

Redefinition:
This is where the children can now be engaged with creating their digital story book. The chosen software to use would be PowerPoint. This can be an individual task or can be used as a group assignment. The children will be able to save their digital video to a USB stick to take home to show their family or can be shown to family members during parent teacher interviews. A great way to show them the capabilities of each student.

Image retrieved from:
http://gettingsmart.com/2013/07/using-samr-to-teach-above-the-line/

Week 4 - Resizing images on Mobophoto

This is the image I chose to resize on Mobophoto and was saved  as 105KB. Below is the exact same photo but is now 12KB. Can you notice the difference? The experience I found was quite easy, it only took a few minutes to download the software and choose an image to resize. When creating websites it is important to resize the images, this can make the downloading of the site a lot quicker, and Mobophoto makes the process easy and convenient.

Images are important because they can help trigger emotions, memory and every child perceives an image differently. Images are all around us and should be used in the classroom to help the children critically think about what they see, asking the questions of what, where, when, why and how. Images through multimedia can be a very effective engagement tool, especially when combining audio as well. But not only that, children can create their own images and anaylse and evaluate their work.

Week 3 - Wikis

On creating the wiki I found it to be quite overwhelming. For someone that is not familiar with technology it could be quite hard to navigate around the page. However, it is a great e-learning tool for the classroom. I would use a wiki for group assignments in the upper years of primary school. This way the students can share in information they have researched individually and eventually create a group assignment. I would create a wiki for my classroom during a science experiment where students could post about their findings on the topic. Even an exploration assignment in the environment where students could post images of either flora or fauna, and post information regarding their particular find. Students will be able to learn from each other and about new living things their classmates discovered.

While navigating through my wiki, I went into the settings link and found that you could add members and make the wiki private if needed. This was a great indication that a wiki could be used in a classroom privately, creating a safe environment for students, teachers and parents.

Here is the link to the wiki I created: http://meljane1087.wikispaces.com

Week 3 - My first experience with Weebly

My first impression of Weebly was how easy it was to sign up through your email. I had to spend some time exploring through the website on how I wanted my design, how to add on new pages and also how to format the page. For a first timer I found it quite easy to make a website that looked quite professional, as the design aspects were already done for you. Here is the link to the website I created: www.meljane1087.weebly.com

This type of e-learning tool I would use in a classroom to create a website for my students that contains information for a research project. I could post authoritative websites for the students to access, inspirational quotes and images for encouragement during the project, I could also state the expectations of the project and how they will be assessed. The blog could be a place for students to interact on how their learning is going with the project. The higher order thinking will be done by students self-reflecting on the blog and eventually creating a research project with help from the Weebly website.