My attempt at IMovie!

iMovie

This was my first attempt at Imovie! It was actually a lot easier than I expected. Sometime Mac programs intimidate me because I am afraid that I won't be able to figure it out. Imovie was a pleasant surprise. Out assignment was to make a movie with several pictures, captions and sound behind it. I decided to do a movie about my trip to Africa. It was a lot of fun finding the song to put with the pictures. I got the pictures from my camera and the music from Itunes. To get the pictures into the imovie you just hit the import pictures button and you can find pictures from the web or from somewhere else on your computer. The same applies to music. I just found it on Itunes and drug the song over my movie to where it was highlighted and that was all I had to do. All around a great project and it was a lot of fun to make!

EXCEL-LENT!

Well, this was the first excuse that I've had to use Excel. When I found out that we were using it was a bit intimidated because I always think of thousands of numbers and let's be honest, I am not great with numbers. 

When we started it turned out to be easier than I thought. We had step by step directions oh how to set up out spreadsheet. This spread sheet is interactive which means that the students type in the answers and it tells you if you got the answer right or wrong immediately. This is a new concept for testing. I think it's great because students get so use to the normal paper and pencil format for testing. I think this could be a great way to mix things up and motivate students a little more. 

One thing that I really like about this testing strategy is that you know right away if you got the answers right or wrong. This way, there are no surprises when the students get their grades back. It is more instant gratification. 

All around, I think this is a great way to involve the students in a new and exciting way!

Inspiration Project

Lesson Planning

Whew... Lesson planning was a whole different thing for me to try to figure out! Since I am not an Education major, I've never made a lesson plan before. This assignment was a little different for the Interpreters. We were asked to plan a lesson as if we were teaching a workshop to teachers about how to use interpreters correctly. There are several different parts to lesson planning such as the materials that you will need prior to the workshop and the resources that you will be using. This assignment was very difficult for me because I couldn't really get a good understanding on what the point of the workshop was. In my lesson plan I taught the teachers a lot of basic signs that they could use with their students and also basic conversational phrases. I feel that this really helps them connect with their deaf students and that they have abilities to communicate without the interpreter!

Google Docs

This was the first time that I've used Google Docs! I used it for my scavenger hunt presentation and it was very user friendly and fun to play around with! I found that the presentation part of Google Docs is very similar to powerpoint presentations which was helpful! After I signed into my Google account I typed in Google Docs and in the left corner I went to presentation. The format was already really familiar because the similarities of powerpoint. After I was finished with my presentation I hit the share button in the top right hand corner and hit the embed option. This provided me the HTML code that enabled me to put the slideshow on my blog!

I think Google Docs is a great resource to have because you can create many different presentation and documents and they are all saved under the same account! Teachers could use this to organize their worksheets and presentations! It's a great way to stay organized!

Scavenger Hunt

SCAVENGER HUNT DAY!! It's everyone's favorite? Why? You get to meet new people, get out of the classroom and be loud if you want! I think that a picture scavenger hunt is a great idea for younger students. They normally have a ton of pent up energy and would love to get up and move around. I think that other aspects about the activity are really important. I think that it encompasses problem solving skills because you have to talk through different questions that each person has. It also helps with social skills and learning to engage with other people! With a deaf child this would present very little issues. The interpreter would obviously have to go in the group with the child but this might also facilitate more conversation between the hearing and the deaf students.

Scavenger Hunt Presentation

Using images in the classroom

Although I will not have my own classroom, I found that this assignment was fun and helpful. Our assignment was revolved around taking or finding different photos and uploading them into Picasa. I had never heard of Picasa before this assignment. Picasa has a feature where you can upload pictures to different collections and it groups them for you. Within each digital collection there is an option to create a slideshow and embed it into different areas on the web. This is what I've done on my previous post. This assignment really showed me that I am not as good with technology as I thought. It was difficult for me upload and resize different images from different places and also trying to figure out how to save them in a JPEG... which what does that even mean? Anyway, it got a bit confusing for me. But! When all was said and done, I survived the uploading mania and my slideshow was posted to the correct place. I'm not sure if the resizing that I tried was successful. 

Using these types of things in the classroom would be a lot of fun for students. Having them create these slideshows with allow them to learn how to use technology better and also give them a sense of creative control with the projects that they do. All around a good assignment, a bit stressful, but I learned a lot!

Picasa Slideshow

Webquest!

I've never heard of webquest before we started learning about them. I learned that a webquest is a new way for teachers to present projects and information. The learning is left in the hands of the student which I think is a great idea because if they feel like they have worked to learn the knowledge, then they will make a point to remember it. Most of the times the kids are paired up in groups and they are assigned different roles.

 I think this is a great tool because the teachers can customize the information and the activities that the students are required to learn. Also, this is a new way for students to learn. If the kids feel like they are contributing to their own learning then I think that they will feel more capable and more confident with the information.

Wikis?

I think Wikis are a good idea and I think that they could be helpful for sure. Personally, I don't think I would use wikis that much in my classroom if I were to teach. This is mainly due to the face that every person has to request permission to look at the site and they have to set up a user name and password. I think it might be too much hassle to do. Especially if you weren't there to set up the account with them. I think this could be confusing for parents and students.

WEB 2.0

I had never heard of the term Web 2.0 before doing this project but I was familiar with some of the things that we did like Twitter, Picnik, and podcasts. There were several things that I learned about that were completely new to me, like Smilebox, Animoto, Voicethread, and Prezi. I think as a whole Web 2.0 tools are really helpful. I think using these things in the classroom is a really smart idea because not only will using them keep the children up to date with technology but I think that those tools could really cater to individual children's learning needs and also how they work best creating projects.
I'd have to say that Prezi was my favorite tools. I am so tired of using Powerpoint that Prezi offers a fun way to get the information across without being so monotonous with the presentation style. I really enjoy how the presentation spins and zooms in. I also think that with Prezi you would have to be very careful with the speed of motion because it could make people feel a little sick.

Too Legit? Website Evaluation

This activity was really helpful in learning how to know whether certain websites have credible information on them or not. I now know that it is important to look for anything from the author and their information to the design of the website. This website was talking specifically about educational interpreting and how to use it in the classroom. It has different sections that show teachers and parents how to use interpreters and explains how important they are. This website was informational and had very little political or bias influence. I would recommend this website with reserve because I couldn't locate the author's information or the date of publication. I still feel like this website it helpful and offers great resources.

http://www.classroominterpreting.org/About/index.asp

Don't Believe Everything You Read

 Often times the internet is used as a legitimate resource for research. Should we take everything we read on the internet to be true? Probably not. Don't get me wrong...there are plenty of websites that are solid and valid but there are also thousands that are not. The internet is not monitored therefore leaving it open for anyone to post anything. Website evaluation is a key investigation that will help you discover whether a website can be trusted. This link below is an excellent tool to help evaluate websites.

http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html#purpose

Technology?

Technology is most certainly a big part of my life. I would say that i use my smart phone and my computer the most often.
Until recently I've never really thought of technology as something that I needed to learn. It's always been a part of my life and a part of the way that I do things. I feel like I'm just getting to the point where technology is beginning to surpass me. 
For the most part I feel comfortable with most technology and most concepts concerning technology. I think that using technology in the classroom is such a crucial part of education. Technology is going to continue to grow and if teachers are not keeping up with it they are unable to teach their students and that puts the students at a disadvantage. I am excited about this class and about learning new things about technology. My hopes are that I will feel more comfortable using new approaches to technology and continue practicing them.

Yours Truly

Hi! My name is Lacey Jenkins. I am 22 years old and I am from Nashville Tennessee. This is my fifth year at the University of Tennessee. My major is Educational Interpreting. This means that I will be working with the deaf and hard of hearing. As of now, my career path is heading towards working within the church and being involved in deaf ministry.