Creating a Website

This semster has been crazy. I never thought I would be able to blog let alone create a whole website. I found the whole experience a lot of fun. I can't wait to continue to add and add to the website for each class I teach. There were a few hiccups throughout the whole website creation process but in the end they were very minor and quickly remedied. I think I will create individual pages for each different subject I teach instead of creating a whole new website for each class. I think this would make my life a lot easier and this way I only have to remember one web address instead of multiple. I can't believe how great this semester has been and I am so proud of the blog and website I have created.

Donovan Harrington

I made a movie with iMovie!

This week we learned about creating movies. I decided to make my movie about our solar system and its relationship to the universe. I really enjoyed the whole movie making process. I have made films in other classes before but not like this using iMovie, this was way easier. I would love to use this in my classroom. I think I can even do entire lectures in movie form. I might do this to try and get the students to pay more attention to the more "boring" subjects. Next time I will make a movie with a lot more material and I would make it longer. I felt that everything went well and there were no major hiccups in making the film and you can see it below or you can see it in a higher resolution in a link on my website.

iMovie

This week we've been working with iMovie I can't wait for you to see it. I will post it here when it is finished and I will also post it on my website.

Animoto Movie

Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Interactive Spreadsheets

This week we learned about interactive spreadsheets and how they can be applied to education. I really enjoyed working on my spreadsheet. I decided to continue on with the plate boundaries theme and I just had fun with it. I enjoyed trying to think like an educator in trying to find a nice balance in questioning. I didn't want it to be too easy or too difficult and at times it proved hard to make questions with one word answers. Everything turned out great, as you can see in the screenshot I provided. There were no major hiccups along the way and I really want to integrate this into my classroom. provided they have the ability to use the internet and every student has a computer, but still I can't wait. Next time I will probably make it longer. I decided to stick with ten questions but in reality there was a lot of information I could have tested them on and a lot of it I felt was necessary for their knowledge. This project was fun and I can't wait to use these again.

This week we learned about interactive spreadsheets and were given a practice spreadsheet to get us accustomed to the general operations excel. You can see a screenshot I took of the practice spreadsheet. There were a few slight hiccups along the way, but mostly that just involved figuring out excel. I have had some experience with excel before but not as much as this required. I really like the interactive spreadsheet idea. I could really use it in my classroom as a quick quiz.

Digital Diagrams

This week we worked on creating digital diagrams using Inspiration 9 software. I thought it was a lot of fun especially getting to create something I would like to see as a student. Everything went fine with no major hiccups, but I do have to say that creating the arrows that link the main ideas together was annoying. I usually had to try and create the arrows four or five times because the diamonds we were clicking on didn't always know we were trying to create arrows. Other than that it was pretty easy. I enjoy doing these creative things to try and make the material a little easier to digest for students. I wish some of my teachers in high school had done some of these things. I know I will definitely be using Inspiration 9 in my classroom when I can. It just seems to make things so much easier to understand for me and I hope it would make this would have the same effect for my students. Or if this is too small you can always check out my website and see the inspiration file there, under tech projects, or look at another screenshot I took of the diagram I created.

Inspiration Digital Diagram

PodBean

Using Wikis to Build Collections

We've been working on our collection of resources for our classes and have been using teams in similar areas to build our collections. Using a wiki we have been adding to these collections for about a month now. I am the only Secondary Science person in all the TPTE classes this semester, but I have been paired with a few secondary math students. I thought this would be of little use to me, but I know that many sciences require math to some extent or other. I could use these resources as well. For many of my students might need a quick refresher for some algebra or calculus tutorials and these resources might help. I didn't struggle finding resources to put on the wiki because I already found a lot prior to this assignment. Eventually I will put all of these resources on my website so my students will be able to use them at thier leisure.

Digital Scavenger Hunt

This week we were broken up into groups and assigned a digital scavenger hunt. I really like the idea of using this in my classroom. Of course I would need to wait and see what things around the school my students could take pictures of. If there is a serious lack of objects that resemble concepts we are learning about then I would have to reconsider using it. I really enjoyed the process though it was a lot of fun running around trying to think of things that would fit the goals we were given. Overall there were no problems with our scavenger hunt. We would take pictures of things and then we would stumble upon something else that was a better representation of that goal so we would take a picture of that. I felt that the scavenger hunt process itself was a lot of fun and that it went well. The part that didn't go as well was when I tried to upload them to picasa.com and then to make the presentation. I stumbled a bit but I eventually figured it out. I did all this not knowing there were step by step instructions on our webpage. I know I would need to make a handout to give the students these instructions before hand so I didn't have to go around and help them all, but when working with computers and students this is to be expected.Once I uploaded the pictures to picasa I created a Google presentation for the scavenger hunt. I felt that was a lot easier than using picasa, I guess it has to do with the fact that Google docs just is so smooth compared to a lot of other resources on the web. I had no difficulties embedding both the picasa album and the Google presentation to my blog which you can see for yourself below this post. I hope you enjoy it I know I had a blast.

Digital Scavenger Hunt Slideshow

Digital Scavenger Hunt Presentation

Smile Box Collage

This free picture collage created with Smilebox

Picnik

The web 2.0 tool Picnik was really cool. Honestly I am not the most proficient photo editor, but it didn't matter with Picnik. I could really use this in a class where I am trying to emphasize a particular point or area, and with Picnik I don't have to mess with photo shop, which to be honest has never been very kind to me. I really like editing photos now and I can't wait to see what I can come up with.

Picnik Collage

My Website

This week we worked on our classroom websites. I really am excited to work on my website and I really like the idea of using a website in my classrooms. I don't know if I would have multiple websites, one for each class, or if I would just have one website and have seperate pages for each class I teach. I could very well just continue to use the same website when I get classes to teach and continue to create pages for each class. Its difficult at the moment to design the website the way I would like it to be because I don't have any idea what the schedules will be or what lessons I would have for that week, but I know all that will come in time. Other than that I felt like the website went up fine without a problem.

Inquiry Based Activities

We learned about inquiry based activities and how they can be used in the classroom. I really like the idea of using these in my classroom. I could give them the worksheet with all their instructions and tell them to do this is homework for the night or I could make them 15-20 questions long and allow them a week to do it on their own time. I really like the possibilities inquiry based activities can provide. The only thing I am weary about is using them in my classroom and not everyone has a computer at home. I could always have them do it as a class activity if I bring them to the computer lab or check out laptops, whatever the school has available. I really like these activities although this was our first attempt and while everything went fine with no major hicups I might have been a little easier on the questioning than I would in my actual classroom. I found it easy to know which direction I wanted to go in terms of answering some of the curriculum standards, I knew immediately as soon as I saw the standard on natural hazards I was going to write on that. I found it hard to ask questions trying to pair them with specific curriculum standards, I guess this might have been because it was my first attempt and I have not had a lot of experience creating worksheets with questions with the intent of having my class actually answer them before. Next time, I will probably make the questions a little harder so that they require a little more thought and time to complete.

First Glog! I kinda went with a hippie theme for fun.

Timeline

This timetoast is a little more interesting than mine. Ladies and Gentlemen the Beatles!

TimeToast!

Webquests

This week we learned about webquests and more importantly how to evaluate them so we do not waste our time as well as the student's time. Much like how important it was to evaluate websites webquests are the exact same but webquests need a little more

attention to the detail than websites require. I struggled to find a good webquest to use for my class but eventually I did find one.The webquest I found was about global warming. It has enough structure already in it so the students know exactly what they're responsibilities are for this assignment. There are plenty of additional sites given to supply more than enough information but I have a problem in this because most of the article links are dead. I thought about it and this is to be expected because this webquest was created in 2003, and since then there has been a lot more research on global warming so the older articles would have so out of date that the students should not have used them anyway. I really like the thought of using webquests in my classroom because it gives the students even more information on some of the topics we would be covering or it could give them knowledge on topics we wouldn't have the opportunity to cover. Instead of finding webquests already out on the internet, next time I might want to consider creating my own in case I can't find a pre-existing webquest that I really like and suits my classes needs.

UT Alma Mater Wordle

Google Forms!!!

This week we were working on our web 2.0 tool wiki. At first there was a little stumble as I keep forgetting to save my work before I leave the Google Forms page I am working on. Sometimes I remember and other times I seem to forget. I wonder if this just goes away with constant practice. On the upside my partner, Kayla, and I are working really well together. We had a limited time to work together in class, but we made it work. She made the general layout of our Google Forms page while I worked on linking our page to the main page as well as the sidebar. Google Forms is really cool. It allows teachers or future teachers in this case, to quickly create surveys, quizzes, and tests. The really cool part is that Google Forms ability to create is only limited by my or the teacher's imagination. I could quickly create quizzes for my students to see if they are doing the assigned homework or readings. I could create a really intricate "get to know you" survey to hand out on the first day of classes.The more I know them the better I could tailor the material to their individual needs. I don't know what I would do differently next time because its so easy to use. I might play around with it in my very little free time to see what other amazing things Google Forms can do.

Website Evaluation Necessity

This week we learned the importance of evaluating websites in order to insure that they are appropriate for our students. I initially had a hard time finding a website to evaluate but using one of the sites talked about in class I stumbled upon the right one.The website I found was Cells Alive! and can be found at http://cellsalive.com. I really learned a lot about evaluating websites. Many sites I could use in my classroom would not be good primary sources or even secondary sources so evaluating those sites before hand will prevent students from utilizing the bad sites. I really enjoyed the cells alive site. I was pleasantly surprised that the website allowed the students to take quizzes and solve puzzles to further their grasp of the material. The website seems professional enough, but it appears like this is a project of love from the author and not like it was from a serious money backed website. With that being said the material was factual and not mixed with personal messages. While there are some negatives about this site, such as not showing how regularly it is updated or having alt tags attached to the pictures, there are a lot more positives that make this website worthwhile to educators and students alike. I really wish the author had more references in the website so students could go to the other sites and see what they had to offer but it was not a huge issue to me. I would have loved to have seen how often he updated the site, because the site is so good and the information really has not changed in a long time, so we could make certain the information is 100% up to date.The ability to come to this website and take quick quizzes and puzzles makes this an extremely helpful website that will useful in my future classroom.

Wiki is the way to go

This week we learned about Wikis and how beneficial they can be to classes. Everything went well when creating our class' wiki. I had to create my page two times but that was due to my inability to remember to save the changes, but other than that I had no problems in adding my page. I have to admit my mind is already starting to race trying to think of really cool ways to use them in my class. I know some students like group work and some don't but wikis can alleviate some of the problems. If I give them a question and ask the groups to come up with a hypothesis and to create an experiment. With wikis they do not have to email each other every single time something is edited. I think thats amazing if only I knew about this before I could have spared some of my own group members a lot of pain and trouble.

Donovan

First Blog

Well this is my first blog and the first real post. I stumbled a little bit trying to think of what I wanted the blog to look like and contain but once I thought about it a little longer it just seemed to flow naturally. I really enjoy the whole blog process and I really think it could work in my classroom. Having the students email questions or answers could be a little overwhelming on a mailbox, especially with 25-35 students per class and at least 3 classes. That is an overwhelming amount of emails and it could be difficult to answer them all, particularly if its the night before a test. With this blog I could post questions and have them bring in answers or comment on questions I ask on the blog. The options are limitless.

First Post!

Welcome to my blog, I have to admit this is my first blog and I am very excited I get to try it during my TPTE 486 class. I hope you enjoy it.

Donovan