Blog Link - Garage Band Photos

This is really interesting!

Enjoy!

Click This Garage Band Lesson

http://www.educatorstudio.com/lessons/teaching-teamwork-garageband-photo-podcasting

Blog Link - Wordle

Hello Everybody,

This a link to a lesson plan about using Wordle in distance learning.  Enjoy!

Learn Wordle

 http://www.educatorstudio.com/lessons/adult-distance-learning-new-web-20-tool-wordle

RILS Publication

PE5 - Google Docs

Okay… I have finished that the essentials learning video for Google docs on Lynda.com that was very informative and long.  I think that video is most useful as a reference tool.  I was able to view every readily available feature in Google docs, but unfortunately I didn’t get a certificate. I sent out my first email with the first survey, with a few hurdles relative to sending out mass electronic emails.  Apparently school emails do not like mass emails due to possible virus complication.

The staff at my school is happy to participate in the survey with Google docs because they are good people that like me.  The application is all about form with very little fun, but the ease of collecting a variety of forms is impressive and easy.  The operation helps with collaboration, but the operating system lacks creativity.  The user interface is very clinical. There are thousands of ways to organize the files and to search for the files collaboratively.  I think that working with children, for children, because of children and like a child is far more motivating for me than just talking about what we should do.  This assignment is the first assignment that feels like work instead of an intriguing challenge.

I think that this is how people feel when they are not using a Mac successfully.  People have offered to engage in my relevant innovative learning scenario (RILS) but they are not enthusiastic about participating. I made a valiant effort to create something relevant learning scenario, but I missed the innovative portion. Perhaps this is why Steve Jobs was the way he was, just to keep life fun and intriguing.  I am lost, like most educators on how to motivate people to engage in my idea, where as a therapist I able to incorporate other ideas.  Perhaps I can enlist the technology staff to assist me in my RILS so that this idea can gain steam. **pictures from Google stock photos.

PE 4- Google Docs

I am choosing to work with Google Docs as a mini action research project.  I am watching Lynda.com Google Docs Essential Training to learn more about the process of using this web 2.0. There are collaboration tools for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawing, and forms.   The forms have surveys that can import directly into a spreadsheet, which is the application I plan to use the most.

Google Docs can organize into folders, creation times, and variable search options with preview that help finding what you are looking for once your docs get busy.  If you want to search for a phrase put the phrase in “quotation marks.” You can also create collections for various projects. 

You can convert documents to and from Microsoft office, but I am going to put together a survey.  I found out that once you are finished writing your survey, it automatically converts the questions into a worksheet for you.  I recommend putting a theme on your survey to make the process visually interesting.

The challenge with distributing the survey is that my school email will not allow the multiple addresses.  The technical advisor in my school offered to post it on the intranet for me, but this limits how I will be able to address different schools within New Hampshire. 

I have completed the video and spent most of the day paving the way for my surveys with my administrators.  There was a great discussion with the technology person in my school about the complications there are with syncing items. Wish me luck!

PE3 - iMovie

C’est fini!  Yes, my iMovie is complete thanks to the razzle-dazzle of Angelina and Nathan Olarsch.  I want to give a special thank you to Lynda.com and all the creators of iMovie ’11 Essential Training.  I agree that the training is essential as there is so much that you can accomplish using this application that comes with your Mac.  Knowing how to use this video editor well creates a desire in me to film high quality images.  Now that I have control over a lot of the film, I have a better sense of what to look for when you are filming.  Perhaps a green screen studio in the next house?  

Honestly, even though I learned a lot about iMovie, I still found my footage overwhelming.  There was a lot of sorting required before I could begin to enjoy the product that I was creating.  I also would have voiced over or created music if I didn’t have better timelier options that are readily available.  The fine tune editing would have been useful several months before and that would have saved me a lot of time staring at film selections.  

Now I have a great knowledge base of iMovie and an electronic yellow certificate too! Isn’t interesting how acknowledgement of the success is important even though I am the only person who knows that I took the course?  This is aside from you, of course.   I can’t wait to tell the children.  They will be so excited for my success.  They love the sticker certificate combination.  See you next time. I hope you enjoyed the show!

PE2 - iMovie

I continue to experience the Lynda.com class called iMovie ’11 Essential Training.  Did you know that iMovie had a really great way to organize movie clips?  I have made several mini movies over the past several months.  Being a subject that is not a big fan of in front of the camera action. I have enough footage to redo the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in video format, albeit there would be a lot of bloopers and a few more hobbits.

We expect iMovie to be able to organize our clips.  That should be a standard operation of a program.  Something has to keep us organized now that Mom lives in another home.  Yet, did you know that one of the many things that iMovie can do is to scan for face shots?  Did you know that with a click of a virtual button you could scan parameters, tag sections, move video to outside hard drives, and organize relabeled events?

The editing options are quite complex, and precise.   I like the picture in picture effect and the altering of the primary colors within the clip. The process of scrolling the clips from top to bottom took me 1 minute and 16 seconds.  I love that I can choose to make the segments from .5 seconds to any size, which makes scrolling a lot less time consuming.

I have started to master my iMovie, which is much easier now that I have watched the training video.  I am going to work on my audio.  Next time I blog you, I will give you a sneak peak.  Stay tuned for more. 

BP6- See Rebecca's Link Below

taken from:  wordle.com October 4, 2011

Hello Bloggers,

I have read about a new "on the go" document access and organizer for collaboration called Think Free.  I like the title of this application.  Have you tried it before?  What did you think of it?

Rebecca's Link about Think Free





Faith

BP5- Link to George's Blog is Below

Hello Everyone,

Please take a moment to see George's video choice on "Where do good ideas come from?"    The video is an enjoyable four minute YouTube show.

taken from:  wordle.com October 4, 2011

George's Link

Thanks,

Faith

Engage Our Children

BP4_QRstuff

This is a QR code for the local Naturopath

http://www.qrstuff.com/qr_codes.html

I have heard about QR codes through blogs, but I did not understand them. A QR code or a quick response code is a two-dimensional bar code that can be read through mobile phones.  The information is decoded in a box with black and white patterns when scanned by QR code decoding software to fire up a browser. The computer decodes large amounts of information at a high speed.  Google API will also generate QR codes, but they are limited in the size of the printout. The website qrstuff.com allows you to generate 1843 symbols onto a square box to be printed, put on t-shirts, temporary skin tattoos, coffee mugs, and much more.

QR codes can be transferred with one click without worrying about spelling issues or a lack of memory. The QR codes can instantly add email addresses, contact information, web page addresses, quotes, and much more to your mobile phone. They are perfect for advertising in an artsy way, while relaying and organizing data. Companies are putting them on campaign posters; students can use them for mock trials, mock elections, and presentations.

QR codes could be used for the supplies in the classroom, especially materials that you would like to send home for homework.  I will start using QR codes to organize where my sensory equipment is going to ensure that I am able to retrieve the equipment again.  I am sure, just like Japan, Europe, and Australia we will begin to see codes on most posters in the United States for one click access. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  Please feel free to share what you think!  

PE1_iMovie

 I am currently studying iMovie ’11 essential training on Lynda.com.  I love how professional, clear, and nicely paced the tutorials in Lynda.com are.  Have you ever heard the saying, “The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know,” by Socrates?  This is how I feel right now. As a geek among geeks, I am really happy to learn that there is a not so new 8-pin fire wire 800.  I feel like I should have known that, but I didn’t.

I remember struggling with loading movies from my still camera.  I was willing to take extensive time to use trial and error to take still camera movies through iPhoto to put in iMovie.  I danced around on my computer for quite some time to get that answer, when all I should have done was to open Lynda.com, typed in iMovie 11 on the search, and scrolled to downloading from a still camera.  I could have completed the task in five minutes, and I would have been confident that I was completing the task correctly.

I ask technologists about computers, not to be provocative, but to see if they really have an answer to their personal computer preference.  My experience has been that Mac people are so dedicated to their computers if they actually utilize their computer.  If people knew about these types of learning tutorials, then I am sure that all computer users would thrive using the multiple tools that this device provides right out of the box.  My father is a retired technology teacher, and he is so pleased to learn about this technology.  I wish that technologists in my district were more open to using Mac computer technology.  I have used both, and this is my preference.