GoAnimate.com: The Endocrine System by iAddict
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Check out my 4th emerging technology!
I decided to explore GoAnimate for my 4th emerging technology. It is a very interesting website with lots of information about animation. I found an animation about the endocrine system that I decided to place in my blog since I have insulin dependent diabetes. I have been a diabetic for nearly 29 years and wear an insulin pump that gives me insulin 24/7. There are all sorts of animations about "causes" on the website. I watched a neat one on OCD and saw all sorts of others about various medical condidtions, treatments, etc. The website was easy to use. I would like to create my own characters when I have more time and put them into my own animated segments. That would be fun!
Emerging Technology 4 GoAnimate
GoAnimate.com: The Endocrine System by iAddict
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Emerging Technology 3: Widget!!
I decided to try a Widget for my 3rd Emerging Technology. I went to http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ to check out what was available. I decided to look at Widgets because I just liked the sound of the name! A widget sounded like something that would be fun to use. There were tons of different widgets to choose from, but I really liked the one entitled "Quote of the Day." It had all these neat quotes from famous people (I knew who the person was!) and from not so famous people (I had no clue who the person was!). I thought that would be a fun and interesting thing to add to my blog. It was super easy to choose a color, a size, and to add it to my blog. So, now people, including me, can go to my blog and find some really neat quotes to read and use for other things, too! Enjoy!!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Module 4-2 Digital Literacy/Jan Meyer
This is a link to the blog that I read: http://www.edutopia.org/tech-savvy-summer. The title of the blog was How to Become More Tech Savvy This Summer by Jim Moulton. The title caught my eye because I really would like to spend some time this summer becoming more tech savvy. The author suggested that a good way to bring digital tools into your classroom is to first explore them and use them at home in your personal life. Once you discover how useful, fun, and easy they are, you will be more likely to find a way to use them within your education setting, whatever that may be.
Mr. Moulton shared his top ten suggestions for using technology. He suggested creating your own video vault by using Miro a website that allows you to download videos from sites like YouTube and TeacherTube and save them on your local hard drive. You load them on your flash drive and then it's "have videos, will travel" when you go to visit your friends and family!
Another thing that you can do is have fun with photos. Use BigHugeLabs.com to make posters, badges, trading cards and lots of other cool stuff. You can pass your creations on to family and friends and then use this tool as a way for your students to make content projects back at school in the fall.
Mr. Moulton shared many more great ideas, such as creating comics, whipping up a Wiki, forming a questionnaire, sharing snapshots, surveying situations, and even creating an audiobook to listen to while you are traveling in the car to your vacation destination! He shared ideas for personal use with each digital possibility, as well as how to transfer it to classroom use at the start of the school year. I can't wait to try out and explore these digital suggestions when summer gets here. They all sound like something that I would be able to use and also like something that would be alot of fun, too!
Mr. Moulton shared his top ten suggestions for using technology. He suggested creating your own video vault by using Miro a website that allows you to download videos from sites like YouTube and TeacherTube and save them on your local hard drive. You load them on your flash drive and then it's "have videos, will travel" when you go to visit your friends and family!
Another thing that you can do is have fun with photos. Use BigHugeLabs.com to make posters, badges, trading cards and lots of other cool stuff. You can pass your creations on to family and friends and then use this tool as a way for your students to make content projects back at school in the fall.
Mr. Moulton shared many more great ideas, such as creating comics, whipping up a Wiki, forming a questionnaire, sharing snapshots, surveying situations, and even creating an audiobook to listen to while you are traveling in the car to your vacation destination! He shared ideas for personal use with each digital possibility, as well as how to transfer it to classroom use at the start of the school year. I can't wait to try out and explore these digital suggestions when summer gets here. They all sound like something that I would be able to use and also like something that would be alot of fun, too!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Changes!!
I watched the YouTube video about the Medieval Help Desk and found it to be hilarious, but I could really relate to that poor guy that felt like he didn't know what he was doing! I cannot express the times that I have been terrified that what I had just written would disappear! Why did I feel that way? Well, because things had "disappeared" before, never to be seen again! I do feel a little more comfortable in my computer abilities than I used to, but I feel that I have a long, long way to go.
I loved the video about the Piano Stairs and they way it was titled "The Fun Theory." It made perfect sense to me that 66% more people than usual chose the stairs once the piano keys and sounds had been added. The piano keys just made it more interesting to use the stairs. I can't imagine anyone passing up the stairs when they had the opportunity to try them out. I believe that making something fun can change behavior for the better. My grandson and granddaughter go to a daycare when their moms are working. Miss Cathy used to have trouble getting the children to pick up the toys before lunch time. She started a new "game" with them and they sing the "clean up" song while they do it. It's fun, and now all the kids clean up with no problem as soon as she starts singing the song!
The third video "Pay Attention" was very interesting. The statistics alone were mind-boggling! I loved the statement, "If you're not using technology to teach, you should be." I thought to myself, "AMEN!" Our students today know so much about technology and they love to use it. They are great about explaining all the new gadgets that they have and how to use them. Many of them are all too willing to assist their teachers in the classroom when they need some help. Technology does provide richness to learning. It makes learning more fun and more interesting. I think that educators need to get over their fear of technology and do whatever they have to, to become comfortable with using it in the classroom. Schools need to have a more open mind to the opportunities that technology can provide for students to learn more in a way that is meaningful and useful to them.
On Edutopia's Technology Integration website, I watched a video called "Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching. He talked about how schools are failing in two ways because technology is not being used as it should be because so many things are blocked from students being able to view them. For example, students were reading the book "Moby Dick" but couldn't access any web information about it from school because the title contained the word "Dick"! Students often cannot access YouTube, even though it is full of rich materials that can be used in many different ways to promote learning in the classroom. A second way that schools fail is that they don't always provide ample time for students to use technology and many students do not have access to the technology outside of the school environment. Mr. Jenkins believes that what you learn at school needs to carry over and have effect on your life outside of school, as well. Students who learn how to use the technology in meaningful ways will carry that over into their personal lives. He believes that we need to create a paradigm shift in the way that we teach everything in order to be more effective. Students and teachers need to be collaborative and work together using the technology. The support of principals and parents needs to be sought out to get everyone on the same page. Teachers can learn from their students just as the students will learn from their teachers. It is everyone's responsibility to share information with everyone else.
My goal is to eventually work with my e-board to post a "Counselor's Corner" newsletter that students and their parents will be able to access. I want to put information about what is going on in the guidance office on there, but I also want to put some specific information about various topics such as eating disorder, cutting, etc. I would love to have a blogsite that students could access and post to, but my school corporation doesn't allow that type of thing at this time. I need to talk to Mr. Bujarski, our tech guru, to see whether he thinks that type of thing will ever be a possibility or not!
This is my embedded video:
I loved the video about the Piano Stairs and they way it was titled "The Fun Theory." It made perfect sense to me that 66% more people than usual chose the stairs once the piano keys and sounds had been added. The piano keys just made it more interesting to use the stairs. I can't imagine anyone passing up the stairs when they had the opportunity to try them out. I believe that making something fun can change behavior for the better. My grandson and granddaughter go to a daycare when their moms are working. Miss Cathy used to have trouble getting the children to pick up the toys before lunch time. She started a new "game" with them and they sing the "clean up" song while they do it. It's fun, and now all the kids clean up with no problem as soon as she starts singing the song!
The third video "Pay Attention" was very interesting. The statistics alone were mind-boggling! I loved the statement, "If you're not using technology to teach, you should be." I thought to myself, "AMEN!" Our students today know so much about technology and they love to use it. They are great about explaining all the new gadgets that they have and how to use them. Many of them are all too willing to assist their teachers in the classroom when they need some help. Technology does provide richness to learning. It makes learning more fun and more interesting. I think that educators need to get over their fear of technology and do whatever they have to, to become comfortable with using it in the classroom. Schools need to have a more open mind to the opportunities that technology can provide for students to learn more in a way that is meaningful and useful to them.
On Edutopia's Technology Integration website, I watched a video called "Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching. He talked about how schools are failing in two ways because technology is not being used as it should be because so many things are blocked from students being able to view them. For example, students were reading the book "Moby Dick" but couldn't access any web information about it from school because the title contained the word "Dick"! Students often cannot access YouTube, even though it is full of rich materials that can be used in many different ways to promote learning in the classroom. A second way that schools fail is that they don't always provide ample time for students to use technology and many students do not have access to the technology outside of the school environment. Mr. Jenkins believes that what you learn at school needs to carry over and have effect on your life outside of school, as well. Students who learn how to use the technology in meaningful ways will carry that over into their personal lives. He believes that we need to create a paradigm shift in the way that we teach everything in order to be more effective. Students and teachers need to be collaborative and work together using the technology. The support of principals and parents needs to be sought out to get everyone on the same page. Teachers can learn from their students just as the students will learn from their teachers. It is everyone's responsibility to share information with everyone else.
My goal is to eventually work with my e-board to post a "Counselor's Corner" newsletter that students and their parents will be able to access. I want to put information about what is going on in the guidance office on there, but I also want to put some specific information about various topics such as eating disorder, cutting, etc. I would love to have a blogsite that students could access and post to, but my school corporation doesn't allow that type of thing at this time. I need to talk to Mr. Bujarski, our tech guru, to see whether he thinks that type of thing will ever be a possibility or not!
This is my embedded video:
Monday, February 8, 2010
Emerging Technology 2: Digital Videos
I decided to try Digital Videos for my second emerging technology. I used Photobucket to put together a slide show for my blog. Since family is so important to me, I used a bunch of photographs that I had taken. It was easy to take the camera card out of my camera, insert it into the computer and download the pictures into my photo file. I followed the easy directions on Photobucket to place the pictures in the order I wanted them, add captions, and then transfer my creation to my blog-site. I had alot of fun doing this little project, and of course, the slide show is my favorite part of my "Come Blog with Me!" site. I found this to be one of the easier tasks that I have undertaken. I did have to edit a few of the photos because I had too much white space around them. That took a little time and experimenting, but I was able to do it without too much anxiety! I am sure that I could use this technology personally to showcase my family and my beautiful grandchildren. I also thought I could put some pictures of my workplace on my blog to showcase my bulletin boards, set up on my counseling office, group counseling room, etc. Another idea would be to do some brief videos about how to access counseling services, for example. It would be neat to use real students in those, but I would have to think about how to go about that. I am sure it would involve getting permission from parents. Here is my video set to music...enjoy!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Emerging Technology1: Social Bookmarking
I decided to make social bookmarking my first technological exploration. I chose it because we already had to do it as part of Module 2 and because I have had such a horrible time with creating the blog and figuring how to post the social bookmarks to the forum. I am feeling very ignorant these days when it comes to attempting to follow directions and tutorials concerning technology. Although I have used a computer for years, it has been for very basic things like word and e-mail. I look at what my classmates are doing and I realize that they are light-years ahead of where I am. I have spent hours and hours these last two weeks on the computer, but am not very happy with my finished products. They are very crude compared to what others have been able to do. A person can begin to feel very inept when attempting to fullfill the requirements for this class. However, I am not a quitter, so I am going to keep on trying and will give it my best shot!
I found the social bookmarking to be a great way to add web-sites that I would like to be able to access quickly in a place that I can find them. It should be a great time saver when I need specific information such as information on working with children with eating disorders, for example. I will also enjoy being able to access ASCA (American School Counseling Association) and ISCA (Indiana School Counseling Association) websites to see what is current, dates for workshops, current trends in middle school counseling, etc. I belong to both of these associations and like to keep informed. I feel like this is something that I will use frequently.
I hope that I will be able to access my blog from school. Sometimes things like that are blocked and you get an "ACCESS DENIED" pop-up that will not allow you to get to where you want to go. I am pretty sure that I will be able to access the Delicious link and my social bookmarks, though. I have often come across a website that I found useful and interesting, but then, have not been able to find it later when I needed it. It is very time consuming to spend alot of time searching the web for something. I know that using the social bookmarks is going to make my life much easier because I will be able to find what I need more easily and quickly! My Delicious account can be accessed at: http://delicious.com/janreneemeyer
I found the social bookmarking to be a great way to add web-sites that I would like to be able to access quickly in a place that I can find them. It should be a great time saver when I need specific information such as information on working with children with eating disorders, for example. I will also enjoy being able to access ASCA (American School Counseling Association) and ISCA (Indiana School Counseling Association) websites to see what is current, dates for workshops, current trends in middle school counseling, etc. I belong to both of these associations and like to keep informed. I feel like this is something that I will use frequently.
I hope that I will be able to access my blog from school. Sometimes things like that are blocked and you get an "ACCESS DENIED" pop-up that will not allow you to get to where you want to go. I am pretty sure that I will be able to access the Delicious link and my social bookmarks, though. I have often come across a website that I found useful and interesting, but then, have not been able to find it later when I needed it. It is very time consuming to spend alot of time searching the web for something. I know that using the social bookmarks is going to make my life much easier because I will be able to find what I need more easily and quickly! My Delicious account can be accessed at: http://delicious.com/janreneemeyer
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