April 28, 2015 - Week 5

Tyler Ciscell, a fourth grade teacher for Elkton Grade School came in today to present on Web 2.0. He showed us many websites that he uses in the classroom. Those highlighted in pink are the links we used in class, and the others are on his website for his students to use. Each has a brief description of what the website does.

• Story Bird
• Create a Story or Poem
• Prezi
• Powerpoint type program
• Popplet
• less clean than prezi
• Wordpress
• Website
• Socrative
• Quizzing Website
• Google Docs/Slides/Spreadsheet
• Online Docs w/ Groups
• Hippo Campus
• Math
• Easel.ly
• infographics
• Games for Change
• Contemporary Social Issues
• Vocaroo
• Voice Recorder 
• Timeglider
• Timeline Creator

After Tyler left, we took a look at the ISTE Standards for Teachers. It is important for teachers to know the standards that they are expected to teach at as well as what their students are expected to know.

April 21, 2015 - Week 4

Today's lesson was about using the iPads to create a movie trailer. We were given 30 minutes to plan out and create a movie trailer using iMovie. This is a great way to get your students excited about what they are learning, and allowing them to be creative about it. It also allows the students to be a part of the video, or be the camera-person.

April 14, 2015 - Week 3

Last week we learned how to use photoshop with a scanned photo, a photo from the internet, and a photo that you upload. This photo has a wolf from the internet, a background that was scanned, and a picture of my sister and me from a trip to New York. A wolf is not common on Western's campus, so the two girls are standing on a bar in front of the building. I tried to burn the girls to make them less bright, but it did not work too well.

Today, we learned how/why to use video in the classroom. Video is something that engages students in their learning. Think about being in school again. We all had a teacher who started to sound like Charlie Brown's after 20 minutes, give or take. Would you have been more active in the conversation, or more engaged in the topic had the teacher put on a documentary or video? When you watch a movie, when are you most engaged? Is it when there is a car chase, or when there is a conversation happening between the characters? Students learn in different ways. Some need a visual and an audible lesson, others only need an audible lesson. A video allows the students who learn in different ways the ability to learn the material better.

The students could also use iMovie to make a commercial about/for their project.

April 7, 2015 - Week 2

For class today, we worked with Photoshop. Did you know more often than not photos online are photo shopped? Why must people Photoshop photos, you ask? People use Photoshop to get their point across. We looked at photos with a polar bear in the south pole. Sadly, polar bears are not found in the south pole. The point, though, of this photo is to demonstrate to your students that polar bears live in the cold climate.

One way to tell if a photo has undergone Photoshop is by looking at the light and shadows cast on or by the objects in the photo. In one picture we looked at, the man on the left had a reflection on a flash on his forehead. That same reflection was copied onto the figure to the right's forehead and was given a lighter feel.

You can also tell the photo underwent Photoshop by looking at the grain of the picture, and the contrast of a photo. If, in the same picture as referenced above, the man to the left's suit was zoomed into, you couldn't see very well because it was so blurry, and you zoomed in the same amount to the suit of the man on the right, a sign that the photo went through Photoshop would be that the right man's suit was crisper and not as blurry.

Photoshop is a useful tool because it helps teachers get their point across, but it is also good to know when a photo has undergone Photoshop to help your students understand what is true and what is not true.