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My journey included working with digital images and digital video along with side trips to both Inspiration and Captivate. My journey went fairly smooth with only a few bumps in the road. I was able to return back home with no major damage, and full tank of new ideas.

The journey and side trip activities will enhance my math lesson plans. I plan on using the Inspiration tool at the start of the year with each class. The first few days of class usually include some math games and time to get-to-know everyone. Using a bio web is a great way to introduce oneself. As a class, we could use the computer lab to create and share the student bio webs. In order for the kids to understand how to use the Inspiration tools, I could incorporate the use of the Captivate side trip. Using the Captivate tool, I could put together a slide show that explains how to use Inspiration. The digital images and digital video journeys will also be beneficial to my math classes. Students will need to understand how to crop and enhance digital photos that are required for a yearly baking project I assign. Within the project, students will be required to use movie maker to edit a short video presentation. I will also use the digital video for my projects throughout the year. I also plan on creating a short clip for my symmetry, coordinate graph, and tessellation (reflection and rotation) projects. The benefits of the activities I took part in this class are many in the classroom setting.

When I become a media specialist, my role will change as far as the curriculum and the students and faculty I will be working with. My concern will no longer just be math. I will no longer be in the math learning community as far as planning. Soon I will be working with all subject areas, all grade levels, and the entire faculty. A few benefits of the course jump right to mind. The use of the digital video will come in handy for many reasons. I will use this experience to help with the TV productions course, creating short videos to advertise the media center as a whole, highlighting an author or genre, and for extras curricular activities like a book club. The use of the tools within Captivate will also be valuable when I become a media specialist. I will use this tool in making power point slide shows explaining how to use new technology, like Safari Montage, as well as highlighting media procedures for new teachers. I am not really sure how Inspiration could be incorporated in the media center except to use with students who sign up for the book club. Those students can use the tool to share ideas about characters and events in the story.

Ultimately, I believe that all the information on the various tools from this course will help me to introduce the media center to new students and teachers, and teach both students and faculty about the resources and tools available in the media center. As a media specialist, I will also be working with teachers or grade levels to put together research projects and presentations. While helping in the planning stages, I can offer the use of the tools to enhance classroom lessons and projects. Although the Windows Media Maker is available, the other programs and tools are not currently available in my county. Therefore, I will need to look for similar tools that are available if the school or media budget cannot provide the funds. Overall, this journey has given me the experience and knowledge to help put together presentations for faculty meetings and professional development opportunities.
Kelli

4/15 posting

My students have started to turn in their wiki spaces projects and I am so excited with the final projects. This was the first time I have ever assigned a project that required any "technology," so I did not have any high expectations. But, to my suprise, the students followed directions, they were creative and turned in work that was exceptional compared to what I had expected. I can't wait for this project next year. I already know what needs to be tweaked/deleted and added.

I was really fighting myself to get started on the digital video final journey activity. I can't even tell you how many times I reread the directions and looked through the various links. I am sort of a procrastinator,but usually I know exactly what I am going to do. Not this time! I even looked at what grade I would end up with for the course if I did not do the project at all. I eventually decided to play around with the movie maker tools and had so much fun with just my uploaded digital photos. So, with an unexplainable feeling of frustration, I tried to decide on what to video tape for the activity. Feeling a little defeated, I just decided to create a story using my sons Lego collection. When I told my son what I was thinking about, he got so excited that he decided what Lego scene to use and started created the Lego soldiers. His excitement and energy made me smile and forget my frustration. I had a great time with him and the Legos. I did find out that I do not have a steady hand, which I need since we do not have a tripod. I also found out that even though the video camera can zoom in, it does not mean the model (Lego man) will be in focus. The video for this first activity is uploaded and ready to be edited. Thank goodness the due date was extended:)
Kelli

4/8 posting

To be honest, I have not worked on the digital video journey project this week. I fixed a few things on my captivate project and then focused on getting ahead in another class. I was so relieved to learn about the extension for the due date, that I unintentionally pushed the project aside. I plan on getting a good amount, if not all, completed by this weekend though.

My student's wiki baking projects are due Monday, so I look forward to seeing what they created. Although I am a little uneasy at the same time, because as of last Friday, no one had even started on any part of the project....hopefully they work well under pressure:)

Kelli

4/1 posting

I put the final touches to my captivate project and feel good that I can submit it (and be done with it:)) I have looked at all the sites related to the digital video project and attempted the practice activity. I was not happy with the outcome, so I will be doing the activity again this weekend. Spring break is about to start and I am excited to have some time off. I should be able to complete everything for both classes before it is over! After Sprink break, my students will be presenting their baking projects. I have assigned something new for my gifted class. They have to share a digital presentation within a wiki that they create themselves. I am curious whether these projects will turn out the way I imagine them. I am sure I will have to tweak the project for next year, but it will be interesting to see what these 6th graders create.
Kelli

3/25 posting

I decided to get a jump on my second side trip (Captivate) because it seemed to be so simple. I downloaded the trial version of captivate and dove right in. In the mean time the digital video journey opens up and is due very soon and my trial on Captivate is running out. I feel a little stressed. I do not like the captivate program. I am frustrated with everything trying to make this slide show. But I will push through! The practice activity for digital video looks fun. I grabbed my camera and tried to make a video with it. Suprisingly, it was so easy, except, I could not get the camera to zoom in and out. I guess my camera does not allow for that...I will be using my daughter's camera for this job instead.

Kelli

3/18 posting

I finished up the side trip for Inspiration. My final project was a web for the book Gregor the Overlander. The file was huge!

Now I am working on the sidetrip 2 with Captivate. The practice activity seemed pretty easy, but I am having a hard time deciding what to do for the final project for the side trip.

I did not do much this past week. I was caught up on both my classes. The only difficult thing that occured relating to technology was getting my new DVD/VCR combo to work in my classroom. It seems that there would be an easier way to set this up without having to rewire things to turn on the DVD player, then the document camera etc...After I tried numerous times to figure it out, I called our math coach over. He was able to figure out how it worked and I was able to watch a baking video with my class. But we can't get it to play in color. I have not tried to figure that out yet, but I am sure it is just a case of pushing the right button. I am off to write linear function rules....
Kelli

weekly posting 3-3

I completed the practice activity for the Inspiration side trip. I was thinking about incorporating the use of the program into my math class next year if I can get the school to subscribe.:) I thought making a biography web may be a more interesting way to introduce the kids to eachother and myself. Using this activity will introduce the kids to the program and then I can use the webs for other math related activities through out the year.

Kelli

weekly post 2-26

What a week! I thought everything had went smoothly enough with the digital imaging activities, but I was wrong. The activities themselves were not difficult at all, but uploading the zipped files into the assignment drop box was quite a project. I thought I had found the problem and fixed it, but somehow all my files were empty. At least I turned them in early so I had a chance to resubmit. Somehow, there was an error in my comprssion application (no clue about the details). Once I realized this, I used winzip and everything turned out okay.
Off topic though, I love to read. I have been in a slump lately though, with nothing really interesting me. I started a few titles, but never finished them. Then last Thursday, one of my students let me borow a book they thought I may like, Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins. I loved it. There are 5 books altogether that create the Underland Chronicles. I am already in the middle of book 4. I am really enjoying the characters and stories. So, I thought I would share in case any of you read the young adult fantasy/adventure books.
Kelli

Weekly Posting 2/18

I have been working on the digital imaging activities. The hardest part of the beginning activities was getting my family to sit still or smile instead of being silly. Whenever we have family photos taken, we have to have a "silly" one taken before everyone, including my husband, will be still and smile.

Technology wise, I had a difficult time uploading my zip files of the activity photos. It took me awhile before I figured out that the file somehow had an extra .zip at the end of the file name. Once I deleted the extra .zip, the file uploaded nearly instantly.


Kelli

Weekly Posting 2/11

I started the digital images activity this week, using the trial version of Microsoft's Digital Image 2006. I had no problems downloading the trial version or using the program.
I have done scrapbooking for years with my photos. Some pictures were great, others were not, but I included as many as I could to save memories...I was amazed at what could be done with pictures with this program. After playing around with the features I realized that I could have saved many of those pictures that were not so great to begin with. Thank goodness I am about 3 years behind:) I can take advantage of enhancing my photos now before creating the scrapbook pages.
Kelli

Weekly Post

Well, I was an over achiever last week, by accident, of course. I finished all the Emerging Technology activities a week early because I did not pay attention to the due date. I used the extra time to my advantage and got ahead in my other class.
I was not as excited about the virtual world as some of my other classmates. It was different to walk around the site for awhile and warp to Yellowstone, Mars and Atlantis, but I was not all that impressed by the experience. I can see how it may be new and exciting to my students. They would most likely enjoy meeting in the world for class discussions. But I teach math, I am not sure I would have any effective discussions with text only and no visuals.... I need to jump into the world again and play around with the options. Maybe, I can find something, or create a scavenger hunt, that will benefit my class.
Kelli

Weekly Posting

Everything went pretty smoothly this week. The Emerging Technologies activities were all very straight forward and the directions were easy to follow. I have participated in a Blog before, so posting an image was not difficult. I was a little frustrated when tried to save the homepage of a website into .jpg format. With the help of a co-worker, I was able to do this quite easily using Photoshop software. I have created a wiki in a previous class, so adding the links and information to the class wiki was not a problem. I was a little nervous with the Social Web and the Virtual World activities. Signing up and creating bookmarks with Del.icio.us was a very user friendly experience, unlike what I had expected. I felt very overwhemed when entering Active world.
I have never liked communicating through anything besides letters (yes, handwritten and mailed), the telephone, and an occasional e-mail. Working within the Educational Media program has gotten me used to other forms of communication and sharing, but I am still not sold on the virtual worlds...

Emerging Technologies - Blog

Safari Montage-Video on Demand is a visual instructional technology that the district wants teachers to integrate into our curriculum plans. The site has seemingly endless educational videos for all subjects and grade levels. There are many different publishers to browse through, like National Geographic, PBS, A&E, Disney and more. The lessons come with downloadable worksheets and guides. The site gives you the ability to create your own playlists to be able to revisit or save for the next year. Close captioning is also available along with the compatibility for use with electronic whiteboards.

I have used a few of the math lessons with my students. Their responses were mixed. Some students loved it and others thought the lessons were too "cute" or too slow. I think it is a great idea, and in some subjects, the wealth of information, and videos of real life, scientific, and historical happenings are unbelievable and can improve learning exponentially. In math though, I am not sure just watching a video and pausing to discuss problems is the answer. A few of my co-workers and I are slightly skeptical. Some of the department use Safari Montage resources daily and others intermittently. School wide, this product is used daily in many classes. I will keep searching through the many videos for what will work well with my students, and use this to technology to teach and supplement the grade level curriculum.

Troubleshooting Reflection

Let's see, I am sure there are plenty of better examples I could use, but my mind can't seem to recall any major instances unless you count the red ring of death on my XBox 360. That brought a tear to my eye...when was I going to be able to finish Fallout 3?

Anyway, back to the real world. This reflection is about the time I created a Jeopardy game for my math students. I spent over an hour creating the question and answer slides. The next morning I was exited to play the game with my advanced students. They were exited also. The first few questions played out smoothly...

Shortly after starting the game, the question slides did not match the answer slides. Everything was a mess. I was so mad at myself for not previewing the whole game before introducing it to the class. I tried three times to move the slides around and get the correct placement for matching questions and answers to no avail. The students still had fun because we played using my hard copy of the questions. Technically, it took about 24 hours to resolve my problem because I gave up and waited until my co-teacher came in the next morning. She was able to fix everything within five minutes by copying and pasting information. I felt silly, but at least I had the game saved for future classes.

What can you do to alleviate stress and frustration? Take a deep breath and count to ten, go with the flow, be flexible, laugh a lot...use the help desk if applicable or computer savvy friends. Or just try to balance on one foot with your knee raised for 20 seconds..suprisingly enough, you forget about that stressor or issue bothering you for awhile.

Introduction Due Jan 21

Welcome to my first blog.

This may sound crazy, but I am not fond of the idea of writing about myself or my life for just anyone to read. So I will not be getting personal here.

What am I willing to share? I am working towards a Masters degree in Educational Media. Graduation is in sight now...In my spare time I have been learning to play the violin. I have written three books yet to be published. I love cats. And I just earned my yellow belt in Karate.

I look forward to visiting all the other class blogs. Thanks for visiting:)

My Computer

Browser settings? Browser tunings? File Management?
This week I learned how to zip files. Learning this actually helped at my work place. A co-worker requested I resend numerous files regarding a math skills series. I was excited to realize that the job would not take much time because of my new knowledge of compressing files and file management.
My computer knowledge has always been more or less "an understanding of the surface." I really had no idea about the inner workings of the machine or programs. This week I began to snorkle, so to speak. I learned about the"cache" in my browsing history. I had no idea that the computer saved previously visited sites and that I may not link to the most updated page because of that history. The tips and tricks section was also new to me. I have already played with the different tricks to find dialogue boxes and opening new windows...Although I could not get the font to change on the website. I was pleasantly surprised to see I have been taking advantage of the bookmark feature by having built my own favorites bookmark.
Overall, I was shocked to see that I knew so little about my computer, but I dived right in and have enjoyed exploring some of the different settings and features available to me. I do wonder what I have messed up though...
Kelli

Although I have participated in other blogs with previous courses, this is my very first blog creation! I will be documenting my travels through the course EME 5208 within this blog.
Welcome and enjoy:)