Embedding Video

As I am not particularly fond of filming myself and putting it on the internet, I've decided to embed a clip from youtube instead. Lady Gaga (although at times a bit R rated) shows that you can be yourself and be proud, whatever that may be.

Wordle

I've always wondered how people get those cool covers on their binders and now I know! Wordle is a simple and easy site to use and could be intergrated into a brainstorming activity.

Making a Glogster Blog 4

Boy, am I happy Lyn opened the wonderful world of online filing to me as I sign up for more blogging sites in this course then ever before! Glogster is a very interesting and engaging way of blogging. I can see this site being very popular with students, though one of the fall downs may be that there is a lot to play around with and they could be side tracked with the appearance of their blog rather than the content. I tried to embedd my glogster on my blog but the page is too large soI print screened instead.

Plus

• visually attractive
• array of tools can be used
• visual learners will be totally engaged in this tool
• easily manipulated with instructive pop ups

Minus

• students can be side-tracked with "making it pretty" instead of inputting information
• some students may be overwhelmed with the amount of tools to use

Interesting

• very similar to a Blog, but more visually engaging 

Photobucket

This website is similar to Flickr in the fact that it holds photos in an online album. I think the difference is that these photos can be 'grabbed' from the website and used in other places. I like this website because it's simple to use and it's a place where i can store photos online incase my computer crashes.
www.photobucket.com
here's a print screen of the website, the photos are quite interesting.

I like finding life quotes from photobucket that I can print out and put around a classroom or to encourage students. 

Edward the Emu

In class today we are playing around with voice recordings, music files and photos. following this post hopfully my partner and I will post a photo of the book and possibly a recording of a page. This technology could be highly useful within a classroom environment. With children progressing beyond adult knowledge, it is important to engage your students in every way possible. Many students might not even be interested unless there is some sort of multimedia input. Although this can be tiring for a teacher, it is where our preffesion is progressing too and we must keep up to be able to properly teach our future generations.

Flickr

So many people around the world find the most incredible photos! It just makes you realize how lucky we are to be here. The major downfall of this site is that I can't simply download a photo I like. I understand the purpose for this, but it is very frustrating.

Here is a pohto from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2959326615/

Blizzard, the pup in Antarctica / photograph by Frank Hurley

My head hurts now after all that frustration of finding a photo and I can see this website becoming a problem to use with young students as they too would find it frustrating when they can't simply 'grab' a photo like they do on google. Although this wesite teaches the value of copyright, it's not the website I would be using within a classroom.

Playing with Mobaphoto

Today in class we're re-sizing photos with Mobaphoto. It seems simple enough and here's a picture I've just resized! :)

This technology could come in very handy when trying to down-size class photos to upload to a class blog or if you needed to carry a portfolio of photos around on a usb. 

Fun Website

If you're into editing photos but don't want to pay a fortune for the photoshop program go to http://www.picnik.com/ I use it all the time to lighten photos or change the effects.

here's a few printscreeen shots to show you how simple it is to use.

Making a Weebly

ANOTHER website to keep up with. I never realized how many sites there are out there to post your ideas on. As a Facebook addict, I can safely say that I know know what my mother means when she says I spend too much time on it. I don't understand how some people can have a wiki, weebly, blog, facebook, myspace etc etc etc AND manage to post something in it every day!

I'm off to play with my weebly, here's the link http://www.nicolawaters.weebly.com/

Blog One - Week One and Two

DeBono's Six Thinking Hats

I am familiar with this high order learning/thinking tool as I've used it in one of my early childhood specialty subjects in term 3 last year. I find the idea of it very interesting and engaging as I am the kind of person who needs a specific structure to complete an activity and DeBono gets me thinking about every aspect of a task. I can understand the aprehension of some people to use theis tool in a young class if it hasn't been introduced beforehand as it would take young students a while to understand exactly what is required of them.





Moblie Phone Usage
The wiki used to discuss the issue of mobile phone usage in a classroom environment had both positive and negative points. Through my own experience, I found this activity to be quite interesting. It engaged the learner (myself and classmates) and provided detailed scaffolding and questioning as a guide. We broke off into smaller groups within the classroom which made the task more simple. Each group was able to "hone in" on important information instead of each individual having to do more work than neccessary. Having information on a website that is readily avialable for access by studetns at any time is certainly a plus, though this is where we began to encounter problems.



As we went along, we found that when we saved our work, if we hadn't refreshed the page it would write over other groups' work. I also went back into the activity at a later date and found someone had deleted our class responses and put their own in the place of ours. This is a well-known problem with wikis; the information Can be deleted by whomever has access to the site. Usually, this means the world over can access and delete/add things to your wiki page. This also adds the problem of personal information (names etc) being used on a site that can be accessed by others.



The learning theory underpinning this activity was in my opinion connectivism, as it is obviously technology orientated. This learning theory is also applicable because we accessed information online to complete the activities.


Wikispace
http://managingelearningnicola.wikispaces.com/

this wiki has been made to use in collaboration with this blog for the purpose of Managing E-learning

T-pack Round Table

Content: Creative Writing

Technology: iMovie or MovieMaker



As I am very much involved in Drama, creative writing to me does not just mean writing a story but it means being creative in the way you present it. When children are involved in something physical, they are more open to writing a 'script' or short story before performing their idea. This could be beneficial when trying to get students to produce a piece of writing that needs to be assessed without putting pressure on them. It could also be used with students that have trouble writing an entire story but are more than able to act it out. using moviemaker will engage visual, kinesthetic and auditory learners.



By Nicola and Margaux

Problems! Week 2

We had a very confusing class today, we were editing a wiki page and had a few problems with everyone working on the same page. When we saved, we found that it deleted everyone elses work! In the end we found that we had to refresh the page before we edited. It may be the case that we should use seperate pages when doing group activites. We also looked at privacy issues when blogging. This is especially important in my chosen profession as a teacher. We also went over our assessment task two which has clarified for me what exactly is needed of my assignment.