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The Negative Thing about Mac Software

I wanted to reiterate the difficulty and inconvenience I experienced trying to use iMovie. I wanted to make corrections to my iMovie, yet I could not because I do not own a mac. After publishing my movie, I rushed to my next class. Later I viewed it, and the music is not continuous. I had no way to go and correct it because it was Thanksgiving break, and I had classes until 4:30. I know I will get points taken off, and yet I literally have no way to correct it unless I use the fifteen minutes between class change since there is a class before ours and I have another class following this one.

iMovie

Making this movie was semi-challenging. After inserting the music, iMovie decided not to play the music. I had to take it out and insert the music again. Also, iMovie altered the font style from slide to slide even though I had selected "Chalkboard" for all of the slides. Inserting the pictures was very easy especially since we had already placed all of the pictures in a folder. I plan on using iMovie by creating videos about current areas of study and by creating videos of the children in the classroom involving different activities. Next time, I will just use the music provided in iMovie rather than searching the web for hours looking for music.

Animoto

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Animoto may have been the easiest tool to use for me. It was extremely easy to insert pictures and it already had set templates to use. I was able to decide on my choice of music and then my movie was made! This is an extremely easy and fast way to make a video for class on any given topic. I would not change a thing about the process I used this first time around. Everything went smoothly, and I enjoyed using it.

Matter Interactive Spreadsheet

Making an interactive spreadsheet proved to be quite difficult. At first, I thought it would be easy, yet trying to complete the spreadsheet on my laptop which is not a mac was impossible. It was also difficult to make a new worksheet once I had already created one. Hopefully with much more practice, I will be able to successfully make these spreadsheets. No matter how difficult, these will be extremely helpful in the classroom. They make for a great study tool for students or even as a quiz.

Interactive Spreadsheet

Matter Map

The concept map was tedious for me. Everything went well while I was creating it, yet I was not that happy with the finished product. While teaching in other schools, I have come to realize that most teachers engage the children in making concept maps. They let them draw and write the concept map as a class. That is probably what I would do differently next time. I would shift the focus away from the teacher doing all the work to the children do the work. Through this approach the children are actively learning. This is a great way to teach children new information and how it is all connected. I would definitely consider making one of these maps based on the children's maps as a take home study tool. But in the actual classroom, we would study the children's map.

hunt

Making the slideshow was not difficult, but for some reason putting all the pictures in a folder and renaming them took me a long time. I guess I just need more practice. I kept clicking on the names to rename the pictures, yet it would never select and delete the name. I seriously spent about thirty minutes renaming the pictures. Other than that, I enjoyed going out into the world and getting real world pictures to demonstrate words. This would be great in a classroom of children who were just learning to read. Using pictures is a nice middle step to teaching them to read. The pictures can guide them to the appropriate word. Next time, I will have much less difficulty renaming the files because I have practiced since making the slide.

Smilebox

This free invite card personalized with Smilebox

Smilebox is a fun easy tool to use. I just picked the theme for my e-card and then added the pictures I desired and the words. This is such a cute idea to invite children to a class party or even a special event like pajama friday. This will allow each child to receive an invitation, practice reading, and of course make them smile. Next time I will put more thought into my e-card. I quickly put this one together because I had no set event. In a classroom, I would make it have a nice appearance and make it engaging for the children.

Glogster

Delicious

We learned about Delicious today! Delicious is a web 2.0 tool that allows you to bookmark sites using tags. These tags will help you find a specific site quickly. During my exploration of Delicious, I had difficulty with the initial setup. Creating an account on Firefox did not work. Once my account was created, bookmarking was extremely easy.

I will have computers in my classroom. By having class websites bookmarked on Delicious, the children will be able to access sites quickly and without having strong typing skills.

Next time, I will try to anticipate any technological problems the class may experience during my explanation of Delicious. I will also be comfortable with the site so that I can effectively lead the class through the site.

Picnik

While learning about web 2.0 tools, I specifically worked with picnik which is a tool for editing photos. I was successful in editing photos with the free applications yet there were certain applications that required a paid membership. This was frustrating in that I could not fully edit photos. On the other hand, it was nice that so many applications were free.

I could use this in a classroom to create a picture book to share with parents at open houses, illustrate short stories and essays with creative images, or make postcards to send to relatives, pen pals, etc.

Next time, I will have multiple pictures loaded to my desktop and will have a specific purpose in mind. I will not just be playing with the pictures, but I will have a specific project in mind. This will allow me to test the potential of picnik for future classroom projects.

Wordle

This site is truly amazing! I enjoyed working with it and enjoyed the end result. This is a new and creative way to show the different words in a story, children's names in a class, or even let each child pick a word that is their favorite. It is easy to use in that you just type the words in and it spits out a fabulous model! You even get to pick the format and coloring of the words. The largest words are the words that are used the most often. They gradually get smaller as they are used less frequently. I would not change a thing about the way I used wordle.