Day Twelve (Sep 25)

Some housekeeping

• Please click here to find your group members.
• Don't forget to submit your one-page assignment as explanied in the blog (Day 11).

Digital Storytelling

Introduction
The use of video in education has been around for a long time, but it is just in recent years that it has become simple for classroom teachers and children to create and edit their own educational videos. The Apple Learning Interchange gives multiple examples of using educational video for teaching content standards.

Today we will begin our digital storytelling project using iMovie. You will be working in small groups to create an original story and storyboard about your subject area. Here is an example of a movie for middle grades science created during a Maymester session of EDIT 2000.

You'll want to review the project guidelines for this project -- We will use iMovie for editing. iMovie HD is the software available in the iLife suite on Macintosh computers. PCs have a similar software called Movie Maker -- but it is not as easy to use in its existing version. Today you'll learn the ins and outs of the software.

Ron Braxley, a digital media professional here in the UGA College of Education, has kindly agreed to give us comprehensive instructions on how to use iMovie. This will take about an hour and will be the only/last instruction of the iMovie offered for this class, thus be on time and give him your full attention.

Group Work
Working with your group members, create a story board for your digital story. Remember that your final movie will not be longer than 2 minutes -- so you don't need to capture more than 8 minutes of footage. You can say alot in 2 minutes - as evidenced by these public service announcements.

While it is important to have humor and creativity as a part of your story - it is very important that your group creates a story that could be used in an actual classroom. What will your story be teaching? How will using your video be better than what is traditionally done for this particular topic?

The Apple Education site gives some tips on making movies -- storyboarding, setting up scenes, etc. It is highly recommended that all group members look over this information before filming begins.

This is how you may perform the task:

• Decide which content area/grade level you will focus, as a group
• Draw a story board, as a group
• Capture/Edit the footage, as a group
• Upload the movie to your Googlepage
• Write your reflections on your Googlepage

Schedules for iMovie

Tuesday, September 25th

• Ron Braxley will give us comprehensive instructions on how to use i-movie.
• You should have your group by now (4 people per group).
• Immediately after today's class, reserve a mini-DV camera in rm 232 for the day/time your group will be capturing footage.
• Arrange a time to meet with your group outside of class to capture video footage and still images.

Thursday, September 27th

• You are given this day to work on your video as a group.
• We will not have a formal class meeting on this day.
• It is recommended you use this day to capture your footage.

Tuesday, October 2nd

• You must have your footage captured by Thursday, October 2 at the beginning of class.
• Each group will be given one editing suite to edit your video.
• Make sure to review the project description to ensure that your group is including all of the required components.

Thursday, October 4th

• Finalize your video.
• It is the last day of using editing suite.

Important Notes:

1. Due date for the iMovie project is October 9.
2. By due date, your movie (group work) and reflection (individual work) should be up on your googlepages.
3. Include your group members' names on the googlepages so that I would know which group you belonged to.

Day Eleven (Sep 20)

Teacher Performance Standard

How do educators know what to teach? How do they know what students should learn? Every state has standards and every content area conforms to national standards. Georiga has recently adopted new standards: the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) (URL does not work at times)

We can come up with a brilliant use of technologies to support our teaching and students' learning. However, whatever design you may want to implement, your curriculum should meet the GPS. Thus it is critical for all of us to be well aware of this standard before we engage in any classroom activities.

Sandy Blount, NEGA PRISM Program Coordinator and GPS expert has kindly agreed to give us an overview of the GPS today. Please check this presentation material before coming to class. There will be a short Q&A session and you may ask any questions you might have about the GPS.

Now that you learned about the GPS, you are required to turn in your responses to the questions listed below. Submit a printed copy at the beginning of class, next Tuesday. This is one of your Mini-Project assignments. This should be less than 1 page. Please do not make a cover page for this assignment.

Questions:

• What is your content area/grade level you’d like to focus this semester?
• Why did you chose this content area/grade level?
• What surprised you about your standards?
• If you were actually teaching this content area/grade level what would you want your students to know and be able to do? What would be your priorities? What would you want them to remember from your class?

For Next Tuesday

• Submit your assignment as explained above
• We will start an exciting project called “Digital Storytelling” using iMovie.
• Please watch out for updates on the blog over the weekend to get ready for the new project.

Day Ten (Sep 18)

Some housekeeping

• Today is the due date for the Inspiration project
• You all have done a great job on your productivity projects. Your work will be returned today, graded.

Today is the presentation day!

• You are expected to make 2-3 minute presentation on your report
• Since there are 20 of us, we will directly start from 2:00pm. So be on time!
• We will vote for the best presenter. Who found the coolest and most useful online resouce website for teachers?

Day Nine (Sep 13)

We will keep working on the inspiration today!

• Please check previous blog (Day Eight) for specifics

For Tuesday

• Tuesday is the due date for the inspiration asssignment
• You are expected to make 2-3 minute presentation on your report
• As always, ask for a meeting if you have any concern or inquiry

Day Eight (Sep 10)

Some housekeeping

• The due date for all productivity tools is September 13
• You do not need to bring the hard copies of your Googlepages at all
• As always, ask for a meeting, if you ever have any inquiry or concern about the class

Quest for online resources and communities for teachers

There are myriad of online resources out there to support teachers: from simple resource databases to online learning communities. You can find not only lesson plans and activity sheets for your classes, but also your mentor teachers there.

Your job is to find such websites and report them. The following is a web address that lists the online resources or communities for teachers:

Sites for Teachers (http://www.sitesforteachers.com/index.html)

You are welcome to use any of websites on the list, but you are encouraged to explore further and discover new online resources for teachers. Please see the project description for the specifics.

This is how you may perform the task:

1. Decide which online resource or community site you would like to report.
   
2. Study your targeted website. Why is this site valuable? What is the main functions? Who designed it? How is it organized? What are the fun aspects?
   
3. Organize your findings.
   
4. Save it in both jpeg and inf files.
   
5. Report your findings on your pages with jpeg and isf files by September 18

For Thursday:

• Keep working on inspiration

Day Seven (Sep 6)

Productivity Tools: Newsletters and Gradebooks

PART ONE: Effective Communication

The most important rule of communication is very easy to remember. It is simply, "communicate." How can teachers communicate with students, parents, and the community? What were your experiences? How can students communicate with teachers, peers, and the community? How can technology make the communication more effective?

Why is communication important in a classroom? What types of things are communicated? What needs to be included in a parent newsletter? Don't forget - your newsletter should be 2 pages. Here's a template if you're having trouble downloading from the Microsoft template site.

PART TWO: FINDING ADDITIONAL TEMPLATES AND ACTIVITIES

To find a template to customize, there are two useful websites: Discovery School Teaching Tools and Education World. Another interesting place to find a template is at Vicki Blackwell's website. Just make sure that you select a template that can be used for your subject area/grade level. Don't just print out a template that you find - make sure to customize it.You can also choose to learn about a tool and provide an example of your practice work. A good link to use for tutorials is Education World's techtorials.

PART THREE: WRITING YOUR REFLECTION

The final portion of your assignment (worth 15% of your grade) is the reflection. Here's how you go about doing it:Go to your portfolio: http://pages.google.com/ and login. Open the page you created for productivity tools. On this page, below your classroom layout reflection, respond to the questions listed in the reflection portion of the assignment description.

You'll want to include links to all of your productivity tools work samples (except for your classroom layout, which is already on your page) within your responses to the questions. DO NOT make a list of links to your work samples at the end of your reflection.There are two good places to go to find sample lessons to answer the question about student activities with productivity tools: 1. Georgia Learning Connections (select your grade level, select "technology integration" for the subject. Click the "Search QCC button". Then click the "Productivity" link) 2.Microsoft Lesson Plans Remember that lower grade levels may use tools like Graph Club (for spreadsheets/graphing) and KidPix (for multimedia presentations) instead of Excel and PowerPoint - but you can use these as examples for your reflection.

For Tuesday:

Review the assignment description to ensure you are completing all portions of the assignment.

Day Six (Sep 4)

Productivity Tools: Overview

You've gotten your first teaching job! You're in your dream school teaching the grade and subject you'd hoped for. You spent all summer planning exciting lessons that incorporate all of the great technology you learned about in your EDIT class.

You just finished organizing your classroom layout and you decide to walk down to the teachers' lounge and grab something from the vending machine, after all, you're ready for the first day of school and you still have a week of preplanning left!You enter the lounge and you notice a line of teachers waiting for the copy machine. Since you plan to NEVER use a worksheet -- or the textbook, you've had no need for the copier all week.

You see your mentor teacher near the end of the line and you ask him what he's copying. Once you're revived after hearing his reply, you decide you need to get to work.You realize that it's not just lessons that you've got to get ready for the first week of school. There are all kinds of materials and handouts that need to be prepared for Open House and the first week of school. According to your mentor teacher, you'll need newsletters, certificates, seating charts, and more to be prepared for classes to begin.

Thank goodness for your EDIT 2000 class -- you know about productivity tools and how they can help you get things done. You'd planned to use them to work with students, but had forgotten all about how helpful they could be to you.You've got a big task ahead of you though, you need to create a packet of materials for Open House and the first day of school. Your mentor teacher sits down with you and the other new teachers to help you generate a list of materials and handouts you will need for your students. You'll use this list as a checklist to make sure you get everything done - Open House is one week from today! See a partial list here.

Your mentor teacher also provides you with some links to use to create your materials:

• Microsoft Template Gallery for PCs
• Microsoft Template Gallery for Macs
• GLC Resources for First-Year Teachers
• GLC Templates
• Education World Templates
• Puzzle Maker
• Spreadsheet ideas
• Inner Geek Tutorials (Element K)

While your mentor teacher knows that you will find most everything that you need at the links listed above, you'll be able to go to a workshop on Thursday to learn more about creating newsletters and gradebooks - so you won't need a template for those two items.

Today's challenge:

Creating a Pictograph and a gradebook/attendance record in ExcelExcel is a spreadsheet application that is used by accountants, office managers, and small businesses. It allows you to create tabular data, work with numbers and charts in a variety of manners. As educators, there are number of ways we can use Excel: as a record keeping tool (attendance), grades, gather and display data (graphs and charts), etc. Classroom Excel Resources, MS Excel Modules

Today I will walk you through how to create a pictograph in Excel for one of your assignments in the productivity tools project.

With Excel, You will create today:

• Pictograph
• Attendance record
• Grade record
• And your reflection

Previous students' works: http://edit2000resources.googlepages.com/spring07portfolios

For Thursday

• Continue working on your Productivity Tools project. Make sure to check the project description to ensure that you are completing all of the required components.
• Read the chapter on Productivity Tools provided in class.
• Review the assignment description if you have questions.
• Remember that all components of this assignment are due on Tuesday, September 13 at the beginning of class.