My Digital Story

I decided to use Windows Movie Maker instead of imovie for the digital story project.  I had some experience with Movie Maker before and felt more comfortable with this program.  Through this project I learned  how to find copyright free music, how to edit a digital storyboard, and how to post a video to YouTube.  Using short videos like this one in my future classroom could really accent my lesson.  This video was not very difficult to make and something like this could really engage the class in a particular topic.

Dazzling Digital Diagram

The digital diagram project was by far the simplest project so far this semester.  I choose to start my project by working in the outline mode.  Then, after I finished the outline of my diagram, I switched to the web diagram mode.  I would use Inspiration to create a digital diagram in my own classroom.  This is because Inspiration includes so many personalization options including changing the background color, changing the shape of text boxes, and adding images to enhance your diagram.  It is a very simple project that can really visually enhance any lesson.

Blogging in the Classroom

Blogging in the classroom is like electronic journals for students.  Students may even view blogging as more fun compared to writing out their feedback.  If I were to incorporate blogging into my classroom, I would use it in place of an exit ticket.  In other words, I would have my students write a blog post about the class at the end of the period.  Students would write about what they learned, what they are still confused about, and other comments on the lesson.  This could also function as an informal assessment.

Interactive White Board Activity

I created an interactive white board lesson on vectors via the Activinspire software.  This flipchart included a video introducing the concept of vectors, three different types of interactivity, and an extended inquiry based activity for the class.  The lesson covers finding a vector given two points, adding vectors, and finding the magnitude of vectors.  I really enjoyed this activity because I learned interactive activity techniques that I may be able to use in my own classroom someday.  These interactive techniques include "erase to reveal," "change color to reveal," and "order of objects."  All of these techniques are very simple to use.  With the increasing number of schools with interactive whiteboards now, I know that working with this technology now will benefit me in the classroom later.

Collaborative Resource Wiki

Our math and science resource page was created as a collaborative wiki.  While creating this wiki, several classmates took turns editing our wiki page and adding their own contributions.  This was especially challenging because only one person could edit a page at a time.  The benefits to a collaborative wiki include gathering the input and knowledge of several people and having several people look over and edit your contributions.  Overall, I enjoyed working on the collaborative wiki.  We now have a complete wiki filled with great math resources.
I could use a collaborative wiki in my own classroom someday as a group projects.  I may divide the class into small groups and have each group create a collaborative wiki page on an assigned topic to present to the class.

Picasa and Google Presentation

Both the Picasa presentation (below) and the Google presentation (above) involved putting a group of related pictures together into a slide show presentation.  In my opinion, the Google presentation was much easier to put together than the Picasa presentation.  So if I were to choose one of these to use in my classroom, I would choose to use the Google presentation.  This could be a great project for the kids to do.  I could have them work in groups to do a Scavenger Hunt (similar to the Geometry Scavenger Hunt done in class), and then put this presentation together to share with the class.  I also think that the Google presentation looks more professional than the Picasa presentation.

Geometry Scavenger Hunt

The scavenger hunt activity was interesting because it involved finding geometric figures in the real world.  I would definitely consider using this activity in my own classroom someday.  This would not only engage my students in learning geometry, but it would also help the students see how geometry exists in the world around them.  I could also use this scavenger hunt activity to assess my students on whether or not they can recognize these geometric figures in the real world.  After my students complete their scavenger hunts, I would have them present what they found to the class.  By doing this, the whole class could benefit from each scavenger hunt.