Reflection on Digital Story

Creating my digital story about my skydiving experience was fun. However, it was not free from difficulties along the way. I gathered all my pictures and organized them easily. Voice Treads made it easy to put my images in the exact order I needed. Adding audio to my pictures in the layout I wanted became more difficult. I saved my pictures and came back later to add audio, thinking I would be able to move the pictures as a slide-show every 4 seconds while I talked non-stop through the entire production.
However, I soon discovered that I could only add audio for one picture at a time. After ten minutes of confusion, I figured out how to do it by having the slide-show running, but pausing each picture to add my story narration. Another minor problem I encountered when adding audio was that the fan of my computer constantly runs, which made it sound as if I were vacuuming in the background. I couldn't drown out background noise as an option, so I just spoke as loudly and clearly as I could without sounding as if I were yelling. The end result still has a faint sound of the fan, but sounds much better than my first attempt.
After adding audio was completed, I realized that about half of the pictures needed the audio redone because it wouldn't play for them. There was no plausible explanation for this because I'd recorded them all the same way. However, after re-recording, the audio worked fine. I also encountered difficulty when trying to post the link here on the blog. The original link I posted was inside my personal account, so I deleted that, and, after some experimenting, finally got the correct link posted. I discovered that I needed to let the audio automatically playback after I had recorded instead of just skipping to the next slide. Maybe there is an easier way to do it, but it worked for me.
I can see how difficult a project this could be for an elementary classroom. I would probably do this as a class group instead of assigning individual students each to do it. Carefully explaining the tools of Voice Thread (or whatever media is used) is a definite must for students to be able to create a final project and encounter minimal difficulty along the way. This could be a fun and exciting project for students. As long as expectations are clearly stated and help is available for each student, I look forward to doing this project in my classroom some day.
I'm happy I was able to complete this project. Voice Threads is a fun way to begin making video/audio recordings. While my computer doesn't have the capacity to create much more with higher levels of technology right now, I look forward to making more digital stories in the future.

Digital Story Link

Here is the link to my Digital Story I created about skydiving this summer.
http://voicethread.com/#u415828.b571873.i3056255

Cyber Bullying

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/lessons/secondary/cyberbullying/cyberbullying_behaviour.cfm

This is a link to a site with lesson plans to help educate children about the dangers of cyber bullying. This lesson incorporates 3 different components; the overview of the lesson states, "In this three-part lesson, students learn about online privacy and ethical behavior by exploring their digital footprints to better understand that our online interactions may not be as anonymous as we think they are."
Students make a map of their web-surfing, specifically accounts and social networks, and explore whether the person they are online is the same person they are in real life. The website also has a blog, helpful articles, lesson plans, and news for educators and parents as well as online games teaching children surfing safety rules.

Incorporating Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Posting pictures on Flickr could be a way to share about pollution in the Everglades. Looking up pictures of unpolluted Everglades and comparing them to polluted Everglades pictures would be beneficial to showing the children the extent of the damage taking place. I might have my students start a blog about ways to keep pollution down, specifically in certain parts of the country since habits vary so widely concerning types of pollution.
If my class were studying pollution for two weeks, say, I would take a different part of the U.S. every day (Or even the world, given a longer period of time for study)and have my students blog about different solutions to pollution problems. They could also connect via social networking sites with students in areas we study to discuss what the students in the different areas were seeing take place because of pollution.

Unit 6: Inquiry Based Learning lesson plan

The lesson plan I found has students studying Christopher Columbus. Students will research via the internet and a variety of different books to prove whether or not Columbus Day should be celebrated. I would use this lesson plan in my classroom to teach my students the importance of finding things out for themselves instead of going along with the general public in an opinion. (For example, not celebrating Columbus Day anymore because of the argument that Columbus was a thieving murderer; versus celebrating the day and viewing Columbus as the man who discovered America 500 years ago)

Some essential questions from this lesson plan include: What kind of questions are students asking? Are they able to defend their position they have taken? How are they able to apply this to the real world?
Lesson Plan Link:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tsl/archives/01-1/lesson0028.shtml

Chicago Public Schools Used SAFARI Montage System to Deliver Live Presidential Inauguration

http://www.eschoolnews.com/media/eschoolnews/BestPractices0409.pdf

I thought this was cool that students in Chicago were able, through technology, to share in the historic event of the inauguration with their entire school district. Without SAFARI Montage technology, students would have missed out on the first district-wide student assembly, as well.
Being able to use technology and have it at our fingertips provides us with many more opportunities to learn and participate in activities with others. The article states,
"In addition to viewing the live broadcast via SVS, CPS students also conducted interviews, viewed an inauguration video created by students for the students, observed reactions surrounding the events of the inauguration, presented art,choir and band performances that not only showcased their artistic abilities, but also provided historical context for the event."
Students integrated several learning methods through this activity. I would view it as a best practices method because of the diversity in learning style it gives for different students.

Thoughts on a "Crash Course in Learning Theory"

The bullet I found the most intriguing was the one that suggested using conversational language. The sub-title stated, "Conversational writing kicks formal writing's ass." This is so true because readers are absorbed in the material as their brain interacts with what they are reading. As the article said, it is almost like a conversation between the readers' minds and what they are reading. The brain must "hold up it's end of the conversation."
I have experienced this several times as I sat in class during a lecture. My mind would hear something that I perhaps didn't agree with, and I would begin setting up an argument for why I thought differently. Even if I never had a chance to argue my own case in the classroom, I was thinking deeper and processing the information in a way I could remember. Or, perhaps I failed to fully understand a concept that was being taught, so I began thinking through it in order to ask the best question possible so I could understand it to the best of my ability.

Technology Standards

The lesson plan I found correlates with the NETS "Communication and Collaboration" standard. This lesson plan will help students communicate with each other in the classroom about how they feel about their town. They are observing, discussing, and analyzing different aspects of their town, writing about them, and then sharing them with other students via the internet.

http://www.mcn.org/ed/cur/liv/Units/Creative.htm