Reflection for 10/20/2009

Videos are a very great teaching tool. I remember when I was in school I loved watching videos. Before this class, I only knew of youtube.com, so learning about teachertube.com was amazing. I also loved learning about zamzar .com. There are so many videos on the internet, I think it would really be weird for a teacher not to use them.
I can use zamzar to help put videos into presentations with classmates in future classes. I can also use it to keep videos that I find now to download and keep for when I become a teacher.
As a teacher I can use videos to use as examples. If we are learning about weather, I can find a video of a hurricane, or hail. In areas where kids cant learn about things, videos can help with that. For example, in Utah, there isnt a beach with an ocean. On youtube, I could find a video of the beach and some animals in the ocean. I like that I could use zamzar to download a video as a mp3 and have the students use their hearing sense to figure out what it is when I teach the 5 senses. Then I can show them the mp4 format to see if it is correct.

Reflection for October 13, 2009

Picasa is such an amazing tool! I have always wanted to edit pictures, but I never wanted to buy the expensive software. I love that this is free and it seems very easy to use. We just uploaded the pictures and started editing them. It's just super easy.
I can imagine myself using it a lot now. I can edit pictures to put into presentations to make the pictures really stand out. I can use it to brighten up certain areas of the pictures to show the point I am trying to teach. For example, I could show a picture of a street, then ask the students to find something red. On the next slide, I could have everything black and white except for the red stop sign. There are so many other ways to use this, i just can't wait to mess around with it more.

Reflection for October 11, 2009

My digital camera never leaves my purse. I take it everywhere because I want to capture every moment of my life. I was really excited when I looked at the website and saw that we were learning about them in class. I love the assignment. There were a lot of fun things I could take pictures of, and going outside was a great way to spend class time. The assignment was so easy and was fast.
I like that I can import my pictures and use them so easily in the presentation. This will help me as a student to improve my presentations. Once again, GoogleDocs is amazing. I did have a few problems with uploading my pictures, but I just uploaded them into paint and saved them from there. I like that I worked with my partner with taking the picture. It really was fun.
My mind keeps coming up with with new great ideas for using digital cameras in my future classroom. I love the ideas that are on the list of 100 ways to use digital cameras in the classroom. I want to make my classroom visually appealing. Using the pictures on a poster for rules, learning visuals and to make presentations are just a few things that I want to do in my classroom.
The Thruyou video is awesome! It is amazing to me that you can do that with technology. I wonder how long it took for the person that made this to make it. I think this could be inspirational for students to look at this and see what they can come up with.