Reflection #9: Digital Story

These past few weeks we have been learning about digital stories and have been asked to come up with a digital story to show in our classroom for field experience. We have the topic of 4th grade Utah Geography. We are coming up with an awesome digital story. I am excited to get it finished and polished and let people view it. Digital stories are a great way to introduce different types of topics and do different things with. You can make a digital story with almost anything that you can find information and pictures on. I can use digital stories in my different classes and in my future classes for the program. Digital stories are an easy way to make something interesting and get peoples attention and minds thinking about those different things. This technology can make life much easier or more difficult. If you are a perfectionist like i am, coming up with the perfect digital story can take forever! It will most likely cause much stress as well. This technology can be very helpful to my colleagues and partners for field. Like I said you can make things more interesting by making your topic into a digital story and using the technology we have been provided by many different sources. My future students will be able to have a hay day with this technology. I look forward to teaching my students how to make digital stories and letting them go at it and see what they come up with. I can be a much more influential teacher by using digital stories in my future classroom. This technology is so fun and i cant wait to be able to make different kinds of digital stories to teach my curriculum in the future. I am way excited to start field and use the smart board at my school and learn more about the technology that they use!

Reflection #8: Creative Commons

This week we learned about Creative Commons and Copyright and Digital Citizenship. The assignment we were asked to perform this week was to take a half an hour and come up with research on the topic we were assigned. I was assigned Digital Citizenship and Creative Content. I learned a lot with this topic and researching it. I signed up for the free instructional program. There are a lot of different scenarios that you could give to your students to figure out and learn about Digital Citizenship and Creative Content. I'm not sure how i could use the information i collected on my topic in my life today as a student. If i was a teacher right now i would help my students understand what it is and go in depth about it. This technology is really cool and i wouldn't mind learning even more about it and the other topics that were assigned. I didn't learn very much on the other topics that were given out to the rest of my group. I have skimmed through the research we have all done on the Google Doc, but i don't understand a lot of it and i haven't had much time to do some research for myself. I am excited about this information for my future students to learn. i will need to do a lot more research myself if i expect my students to get anything out of what i am trying to teach them about these topics. For this information to change my current schema i need to do more research and understand Creative Commons and Copyright for myself. Once i understand all of this information and feel good about teaching it my future students will get a lot out of it and i feel like they would have a good time with it and would obey the different laws that are out there for copyright. If our students don't know the laws than how can we expect them to obey those laws?

Reflection #7: Digital Story

This week we learned about digital stories. I personally am excited for this assignment. I think that we can make or break a topic using digital stories. In our partnerships we are assigned a topic by our cooperating teacher. My partnership hasn't gotten a topic yet but i am excited to find out what that topic is. I will be able to use the information that i learned about digital stories to help me in my classes and also in my future classroom. I will be able to introduce topics in a variety of ways and make those topics interesting to my students. Having this knowledge of digital stories will help me with many of my assignments and different things in my life today. Having this information in my schema now i will be able to do different things with computers. I will be able to assign my students digital stories. My students will be able to collaborate with each other and do digital story assignments together and teach each other about different subjects. I am excited to be able to teach my students about digital stories and have them teach me different things also. I cant wait to be able to know my topic and make a digital story for field and introduce new topics in an interesting way to our students. I look forward to doing this in my future classroom as well!

Reflection #6: Vidcast Week 2

What is War? Viscast

5^th grade Social Studies Standard 2 Objective 2

We chose to do this topic because we thought our students should learn about war and learn about the Revolutionary War. Students will learn about war and a little about why war is going on and that we are still involved in wars today and will be in the future. They will also learn some about our troops and soldiers fighting for our freedom today.

This podcast connects to INTASC standard number 2 A and C. We demonstrated knowledge of content as well as designed and articulated our instruction and aligned it with the Utah Core Curriculum standards.

Some of the draw backs to using this vidcast in my classroom would be that it might not be age appropriate or that there is too much information and it might get a little old after a while.

I would love to use this series in my future classroom but I would make it more to my standards and personality than compromising with my partner because I am really picky. I would use this vidcast for an introduction to war and freedom and help my students understand and engage and connect it to their lives.

Reflection #5: Vidcasts

This week our assignment is to create a vidcast or an enhanced podcast. I really loved playing around with this assignment and using the different technologies. I really like photo story 3. i love how it is in steps. it makes things really simple and easy to use. i am really excited about this program. i have downloaded the free version on my computer at home and i am excited to be able to use it in my other classes or just for personal use. i will be able to make videos and things for my roommates, family, or even for me personally. This program will be easy to use to make some of our lesson plans for field more technological and interesting to engage the students. It will be easy to use as a partnership and not be confused on what we are doing and different things. This program will be really easy for my future students to be able to make their own videos. I can come up with different types of assignments for my students to use this program and others like it. We will be able to make different types of vidcasts as colleagues as well. I am way excited to be able to work with my colleagues and have fun with programs of this sort. I am excited to be able to use these programs in the future and new technologies of the same type that they will come up with in the future. I love this type of technology and creativity. It doesn't help that i am a perfectionist tho :) but i love it anyway and cant wait to make the best of it in the future!!

Reflection #4: Podcasts

For the assignment this week we had to come up with a PSA, Public Service Announcement. I had a lot of fun doing this assignment. We did an announcement on a Book Drive and it was fun to use the different tools to record an audio message. We ended up using Garage Band on the Mac and it turned out really good. I am really impressed with the technology that we have today. It makes life so much easier sometimes!! I could use this technology and information in some of my classes today. I think the reason we do/learn things like this is to make our lives easier in the future. Without this class I wouldn't know half the stuff about computers and technology that i do now. I feel as though without this class i would be lost and not know about google docs and google sites and about all the things we are learning in this class. I would be like my great grandma and not know how to even turn the computer on (okay maybe not that far, but close). I am excited to use this information and technology in my classroom. It will be a great addition to my websites and even my lesson plans. I can even have my own students make a podcast and see what they will come up with. I cant wait to be able to make all sorts of podcasts and things. It makes me even more excited for my future as a teacher! I love learning about technology and how it will help my classroom grow and adapt and be engaging. It will help me become an even better teacher!

Reflection #3: Google Sites

I learned a lot about google sites this week. For our assignment we had to create and include items on our own google site. I really enjoyed this assignment. Putting the google site together was a lot of fun. I will use it in my classes today and use a lot of the information that i put onto my site. I think we are doing this assignment because technology is becoming bigger and bigger in our classrooms. With the google site you can upload items and assignments and have announcements and things so the parents can be involved if they want to be. A lot of times parents don't want to take the time to contact the teacher or the school to find out what their student missed or whats going on at the school, with the google site option the parents can look up all of that information if they want from anywhere that has an Internet connection. i have learned a great deal by doing this assignment. If i as a teacher do all of this to help out my parents and students then i can become a better teacher and have more input from my students parents. We as colleagues can use google sites as well to collaborate on different things as needs be. I really love that option! I can use this technology and make a different google site if i wanted to because i now have that option. I can give my students assignments on my site that they have to do at home. It can be games, interactives, virtual field trips, or all sorts of different things..the options are endless. I am excited for my options as a future teacher! With this type of technology and the technology that is yet to be created, we as teachers will have so many options that we wont know what to do with ourselves! I LOVE IT!!!