CEDO 535 - Facilitating Collaboration using Web Tools - Wk 1

     First week of a new class...Facilitating Collaboration using Web Tools.  This class looks to get more in depth about using Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts in an educational setting.  This first week we specifically explored Blogging.  We were asked to read the first 3 chapters of our book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" by Will  Richardson.  The first chapter was an eye opener for several reasons...mostly from the perspective of how much blogs are used in society already and how powerful their impact has been.  It  provided lots of evidence of how blogs have infiltrated politics, journalism, and business.  I took notes to use when I talk to my staff about incorporating blogging into their classrooms.  The second chapter full of examples of the role that blogs can play in education.  Again, a good way for me to justify my teachers using them as part of their classroom assignments.  The third chapter brought to my attention the strategy of "starting small".  I have always perceived setting up blogging with the students as a daunting task because of trying to create individual accounts, giving students email addresses, and then trying to administer and censor the blogs.  The book suggested starting by explaining blogging and its advantages and then modeling appropriate responses.  When students seem to grasp that the book suggests starting with a classroom blog.  I thought that was a great idea because it is an excellent warm-up for students and it doesn't require very much micro-management on the teacher's part.
     The other assignment we had was to review several blogging creation sites and provide a write-up of our thoughts.  I reviewed Edmodo, WordPress, and Blogger.  Edmodo wasn't really a blogging site but I still enjoyed looking at it closer.  It is essentially a student management system but I liked that you could open some communication lines with their built in message board a la Facebook.  I already use a comment section on my Google Site that I use for my classroom website so I can accomplish that communication without making students log in to a SMS.  I liked how Edmodo allowed you to connect to other teachers and there were a few cool features like creating badges for assignments.  WordPress and Blogger are both great blogging creation sites that are easy to use for beginners and feature some advanced options to satisfy expert bloggers.  I think I'll probably try WordPress when we introduce blogging to our middle school students since I don't have to deal with students having Google accounts.  My middle school students have email addresses through Gaggle.net but not Google accounts...yet.

CEDO 530 - Digital Storytelling Week 5

Well this last week of class included creating a rubric, finishing our Pecha Kuchas, and a group assignment evaluating some gadgets.

I like rubrics a lot and have started using them more lately.  It just takes a bit of time to create the good ones.  That is part of the advantage, though.  Creating a good rubric for a project or assignment means sitting down and spending time internalizing what the project is meant to be doing.  You are essentially analyzing the worth of your assignment.  When creating rubrics I find myself either adding or subtracting components of a project after the deeper analysis.  Rubrics are great for eliminating any obscurity as far as what is required of students and it helps guide you in the grading process as well.

Pecha Kucha was still a painful assignment for me.  I thought it would get better once I was done with the storyboard but it was still a struggle.  Timing was still an issue.  My fluency and smooth talking was just not there.  You know how people say "you have a face for radio"?  Well, I "have a voice for blogging", haha.  I did like my picture selections and think they really added to the presentation but the rest of the Pecha Kucha was very hard to piece together.  I wouldn't choose this method for a presentation - it just doesn't cater to my strengths.  I'm glad I was exposed to it, though.

Overall, I liked the texts for this class and I have a strong feeling I will reference them again.  Especially the sections of Presentation Zen where they provide and display examples of good presentation techniques.  I'm happy that I got a chance to experiment with Animoto and I absolutely loved using VoiceThread.  I am currently planning a collaborative lesson with another teacher using VoiceThread - can't wait to use it with the students.  Posterous was neat but I'm taking a break from it right now...I have a few ideas for future use but the picture a day looming over my head forced me into some pretty lame pictures just so I could have something posted.  With the freedom to take pictures in the moment I think it will be much more effective.  I just looked back to see if I missed anything and I wanted mention the quotes research we did.  I actually used a quote in my Pecha Kucha and look forward to adding more to presentations.  Fun class.

Digital Storytelling CEDO 530 - Week 4

     I again enjoyed reading the next set of chapters from both of our texts.  Presentation Zen had some really good caveats.  I particularly enjoyed the idea of "making them want more" which naturally tied into the idea of finishing a little early (don't go over your allotted time).  It is probably easier said than done but I'd love to have the audience looking at the clock noticing that it's a little early and thinking "wait, that's it?  I want to know more about...".  The hard part would be conveying the important aspects of your message while building up to an exciting conclusion where the audience feels like there should be more.
     I also enjoyed looking through the examples of slide shows and images.  When I revamped my original PPT presentation I was reluctant to stray from my style of plain white background because I thought there should be a  repeated theme to the presentation concerning style.  After viewing some examples I saw that alternating dark backgrounds with lighter backgrounds did not adversely effect the presentation and even added a little variety.
     The Digitales chapters that we read this week made me realize that there is a lot of technical skill that goes into creating a powerful presentation.  You almost need to have graphic design skills, web design skills, or something similar to really be able to cover the whole gamut of creating an earth-shattering presentation.
     Now to the brutally honest part of this blog.  I am having a heck of a time with the story-boarding for the Pecha Kucha.  Perhaps it just doesn't fit with how I'm used to organizing a presentation but it just seems extremely redundant.  If I was doing this the old fashioned way by taking physical boards or post-its and planning this out by hand in an effort to "step away from the technology" I could maybe give it a little validity.  Sitting down at the computer and creating a storyboard electronically, only to repeat the process in another electronic format once we get done with it just doesn't make sense to me.  It is not allowing me to enjoy the Pecha Kucha itself.  Can't wait until I'm done with that...ugh.
     The Prezi assignment will be fun...once I get to it.

Digital Storytelling CEDO 530 - Week 3

     I have to admit that the first thing I had to skip through to try was Animoto.  I had seen a few other people's finished products and they were really sharp looking so I was eager to try it.  The assignment actually allowed me to justify setting aside the time for me to try it.  As I expected, it was very easy to do and the results were very rewarding.  I was impressed by the ability to flip pictures around and the option to upload your own music files.  I ended up using one of their music selection but having the option to upload your own music was nice.  It was easy to adjust the layout, order, and timing of the pictures.  The only knock on it was that I thought there would be more video styles available for free.  I'd say about 50% of the styles needed the paid subscription in order to be used.  That is a very minor issue considering all of the other excellent features.
     I enjoyed doing some more reading in our 2 books for this class, Presentation Zen and DigiTales.  I'm getting a better grasp of the whole process of both giving more effective presentations and delivering good stories.  What I'm also learning is that there is quite a bit of planning, organizing, and time-consuming work that goes on behind the scenes for both.
     In DigiTales we were introduced to the 7 step process of planning out a good digital story.  I mentioned that I was a little intimidated by the scripting the written narrative step and then the subsequent recording of the voice for the story.  You're writing things down verbatim and trying to make it seem natural yet you are later reading from a script.  I think I mentioned in a forum that I would likely use the script as a guide and just practice it enough times where no two deliveries were the same yet it felt somewhat spontaneous.
     My last insight is regarding the old slideshow that we had to revamp.  I had a pretty good time transforming it using the Presentation Zen principles but man did it take a LONG TIME.  I think looking for pictures/photos took the longest time for me.  I would get a vision for a slide and then I was very picky when searching for a picture to complete the vision.  Some pictures were too low quality and got pixelated when trying to re-size them.  Some pictures didn't have the transparent background I was looking for.  Some pictures needed to be cropped or edited in a graphics program before I was satisfied to put them into my presentation.  I think I went back and changed my slide design like 3 or 4 times after not being satisfied that it had a steady flow.  All of it was very gratifying when you find that "perfect picture" or achieve the "perfect spacing" but all of it was very time-consuming.  I'm guessing with practice that the process would move along quicker but there are often time constraints involved that would make these dreamy presentations hard to accomplish.  I can't even begin to imagine how long it took to create that "Thirst" presentation that we saw as an example.

Digital Storytelling CEDO 530 - Week 2

Holy Cow - tons of work this week!!  I'm not sure how my neighbor took 12 graduate credits last semester - wow.  Anyways, moving on...
     We continued reading our two books, DigiTales and Presentation Zen.  I find Presentation Zen to be an easier read even if some of the ideas are hard for me to buy into.  I am staying open-minded though.  I think a person's presentation style should ultimately be a mixture of good presenting techniques and the strengths of the individual.  I will most likely never be the type of presenter that gives a ton of handouts, for example.  I think their distribution at a presentation is clumsy and they often end up being a distraction as people tend to look at them instead of listening to your message.  However, I will be more conscious of the strategy of using handouts to supplement the presentation instead of cluttering a slide and perhaps there will be a situation in which it makes sense for me to incorporate them into a presentation of mine.  It's all about keeping an open mind as you read these two books.  I've enjoyed the research-based findings and have been able to analyze my current presentation style.  I am more aware of the things that I do that are deemed effective and now I also have some ideas on how to change some of my bad presentation habits.
     VoiceThread was the web tool that we were able to try out this week and it made me think of several excellent classroom uses for it.  We almost have the email address thing figured out here at my school (K-8) so that shouldn't be a problem for us anymore.  Of course VoiceThread has the obvious application of having students use it for presentations.  It allows for voice files for narration, text comments on each slide, or even video narration form a web cam.  All great features that would add to the appeal of a presentation.  We haven't even touched on the best feature yet, however.  Collaboration.  I am guessing that our Civil Rights VoiceThreads will be used to collaborate with each other in much the same way that peers can make comments on a blog.  To get feedback and deeper questioning from peers is going to be the most powerful aspect of it's use, IMO.
     I'm still plugging away with the Posterous pictures.  I've found that the easiest way for me to do these is by taking the pictures with my phone and then just immediately emailing them to my Stritch email account.  I've played around with it enough now where I'm following 6 other classmates and I have it setup where the Posterous site sends me a daily email with everyone's picture updates.  Pretty slick.  There is a chance that I might use it once class is over but it most likely wouldn't be everyday.  It's one of things that just takes time and has to be in the back of your mind in order to update it enough for it to be useful to anyone.  It's less time consuming than doing a Facebook status update every 20min like some of these junkies which is why it's possible that I may still use it.  It'd be fun to get my brother to start doing it or cousins that I never talk to anymore or, even better, my family overseas.  I was able to hook up with some of them through Facebook but seeing pictures of them and seeing what they are up to would be really cool.

Digital Storytelling CEDO 530 - Week 1

The first week of this new class has at least clarified what exactly was meant by "Digital Storytelling".  I kind of had an idea because I had to do some research about 2 months ago on a program called Storytelling Alice but I wasn't sure if this would be along the same lines or not.  The one connection that I hadn't thought of was the presentation aspect.  Digital Storytelling certainly ties into presentations and their techniques but for some reason I had the two separated in my mind.  I was under the mindset that "Presentations were factual and serious" and "Storytelling was emotional and animated".  I quickly realized that my way of thinking was part of the problem.  Factual and serious usually equates to "boring".  The expectation, especially in the business world, is that when a PPT slideshow or similar presentation flashes up during the meeting that it's time for the head-nodding to begin.  I really  hope to learn of some resources, techniques, and methods to use in making these normally "boring" presentations more exciting and impactful.

CEDO 525 - Enhancing Learning Materials - Final Reflection

     Well this class has for some reason has been the most painful for me to get through.  I think the beginning of the school year had something to do with it but I think that analyzing "Teaching Strategies" was the bigger culprit.  I had been spoiled with the prior classes that talked about cool websites, web tools and even a class about hardware and operating systems where I was able to embrace my inner geek.  This class, on the contrary, made me take a deeper look at my teaching methods and techniques and really assess my integration of technology into my curriculum (and other teacher's curriculum).  I am doing fine for the most part but I certainly have room for improvement.  It was good to re-visit these 10-12 effective teaching strategies and get ideas from class, classmates, and other resources for new implementations into my lessons.  I also was able to take a look at the technology that I'm using and make connections between the lesson and the technology used.  The connections were always there but I never really internalized them by saying to myself "I'm using Inspiration so that students can have experience with advanced organizers, which are proven to have a 22% gain".
     Lastly, I had actually gone through several interviews prior to this school year looking for something more in the capacity of a technology integrator or coordinator (unsuccessfully) and I couldn't help but think to myself that I would have done better had I gone through this class first.  I would've been able to make stronger connections to these vaunted teaching strategies and perhaps would've increased my chances of impressing the interviewers.  I'll get em next time  :-)