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!