Fred+Hucke

Type in the content of your page here. Reflection 1 -- To begin with, this is very good for me because it is all out of my comfort zone. At home, if I try to program the DVD or VCR I'm so slow that my family will take it away from me. I need to practice tech. stuff on my own with clear directions. I can follow directions well and I'm not stupid, but when intelligence is measured in terms of speed, I lose. I tend to process things slowly so it is frustrating for others to have to wait for me and doubly frustrating for me to feel stupid. I got the theory of TPACK through the article and I am able to discuss theory with relative ease. It's the hands on stuff that I really need to practice so I'm looking at uses for Animoto, Imovie, wall-wisher, photo-peach, glogster, voice-thread, and prezi. I'm sure there's much more, but these are a start for me.

PLN Twitter. I started the account easily enough. I figured out how to follow Jason. I then thought that I was also following #FCSD, but I found out that //I had not. I// am also just getting used to the Mac. For instance, the italics button doesn't even want to cooperate with me. Anyhow, this is not my style of tool, at least not yet. I don't facebook or even read magazines much, so given the fact that my computer time at school is taken up with planning, grading, recording grades, and tons of email, I'm not that likely to use up my time at home to follow educational tweets. I'm not putting down the tool. I can see now how it works for others. I don't do as well with things that require fast typing. I'm still trying to get used to all this.

PLN Tweet Deck. This is an extension of Twitter. I can see the use of it, but when I tried to sign up it kept rejecting me. When I have it open, the constant tweets are really annoying to me. I get the whole PLN and sharing aspect. I just haven't taylored it to me yet and I'm trying to convince myself that it's worth my effort. I'm hoping to try it some more at home soon.

PLN Diigo Now here is something I can really use. I went right out and started collecting things that I have to use prep time to find every year. The idea that I can just have them all together and keep them when I switch computers is not just useful; it's a timesaver and that's truly helpful. So many "tools" that are supposed to save us time are really just another drain on time. I know as a teacher I'm supposed to be interested in educational theory even in my time off, but honestly, I have a life that I enjoy very much that overlaps with education, but does not include a world of shop talk online. I've got a lot of things I want to do, so a tool that really does help me get organized and saves my time gets an A+ from me. I know that there are other things that it can help with, but I'll have to explore it further.

PLN Google Reader This appears to be an excellent tool, but I'm guessing for me it might be more of a distraction. As long as I don't know all of that stuff is going on, I can get along without it. When I have something telling me that there's all kinds of new information that I know I am interested in is waiting for me, well, I can envision a new time drain. It's not that I don't like the idea of being current; I just don't know if it would be as much help as it would be a fun distraction.

Tools: DFilm -- This sounded cool so I tried it. You have choices from short lists of premade characters and scenes. You choose backgrounds and music and type in dialogue to create short films. I didn't see much use for it in my class. It could be used to teach simple plot construction and dialogue in fiction writing, but the options on this site are really limiting. I'm sure there are sites that are better suited to my students' abilities and interests.

Tools: Prezi -- Touted as the new power point, this site has a lot of possibilities. It allows you to work on all your words and images on one big canvas and then draw a path from frame to frame to show what you'd like to present. It's presented as so much better than power point since it's not linear in its creation. However, as soon as students write too many words and begin to read them to a class, you have the exact problem that you have with power point. Still, creative students will love this program. They can zoom in and out, add text so small that you can't see it until you zoom in, rotate images and set slides at angles. Like power point, it's nothing without content, but the fact that it's web-based makes it much more accessible and its creative possibilities will appeal to creative students, making some old presentations fresh. This is one that I know I will use. I've already tried it out and it will be worked into my curriculum more frequently, at least until the next big thing knocks it out.

Reflection 2 Okay, I've tried a few things and I still find that a lot of this is not for me. I know it's valuable and I am finding things that I can use, but I'll never be on the cutting edge. I'll use prezi and I'm sure I'll learn a few more, but my style is more in knowledge of my subject, creativity with words and music, and the willingness to be out there on the spot. The nice thing is that I don't have to know it all in order to allow my students more creative freedom. Just being aware of a few more sites can allow me the flexibility to offer students more choices in the ways that they present materials. I've already begun to incorporate some of these things into next year's lesson plans.

Tools: Pixton. I heard this from Tena Nelson and I thought I'd try it out. I sat through a few of the tutorials and I started a comic strip. I found such a plethora of choices that I was not able to get what I wanted in the time that I had. Instead of investing a lot of time in it, I've asked my kids to set up accounts and play with it. I don't think I'll use this for whole class instruction, but I can see a few advanced and special inteest students really loving this as an option. Knowing that this is not my style makes it nice that I can see to offer it to those who will thrive with it. This is a case where the web facilitates and encourages differentiation.

Reflection 3 Yesterday I had a session on the laptop where I made no progress whatsoever on web 2.0 stuff. Instead, I was familiarizing myself with the mac version of email. That's part of what I need and part of what holds me back in this area; I'm stuck on general procedures and applications so I'm already frustrated by the time I get to searching for things to use in my class. Things ARE getting better and I don't mean to complain so much, but the self-analysis is part of this and I'm figuring out my own reactions so I can continue to line things up for my classes. I'm hoping to sign up for the Ottumwa version of this class so that I can just continue with what I've started. I know there's no way I'll find time like this during the school year.

Tools: Animoto. I like this one. I already have one use for it in next years plans. It helps that my kids are both good at this one and can help me, but I did this on my own. My freshmen will study nonprofit organizations and one assignment will be to distill the information into a 30 second animoto commercial spot. We could easily run these on FPac if we don't run into any copyright issues. I'm excited about the prospects here. I'm sick of kids copying and pasting websites into their power points. All of these will require images, music, and the text is limited so they will have to be succinct or they won't make sense. It'll be great practice to see who can say the most with the least. :)

Reflection 4 So I've created an animoto example for a nonprofit organization. I need to get the feel for the pacing because it's too long and it stops at 30 seconds. I need to learn how to revise and then let the students know how many frames will work. This is where it gets fun because I'm learning a tool that will work in class and will make them think when they type in the subtitles. WAIT As it turns out, every time I try to make my animoto short enough, it slows down more. It's just trying to sell me more features. I'm going to try photo peach next for comparison. Stay tuned.

Tools: Photo Peach media type="custom" key="6430431" Okay, I was excited about animoto, but it turns out that for my purposes, Photo Peach is much more accommodating. I was able to get my message out. Animoto looks cooler and seems more professional, but it won't let me do what I need to without charging me an upgrade. Photo Peach is just friendlier.

Reflection 5 I find that good long breaks are important to my work on anything computer related. I was learning voice thread and it wouldn't play. Before destroying the laptop, I went home for lunch. I didn't want to come back to the class for help, but I knew it was necessary. So I came back and without any help at all it just worked. I don't know what was different, but when the machine and I had both had rest, poof! like magic, it just worked.

Tools: So I got a few images and learned to comment on them with voice thread. I needed help to find the right command buttons, but it all came together pretty quickly. This is another one for my freshmen unit on non-profit organizations.

Reflection 6 I'm going to sign up for the web 2.0 class in Ottumwa and the journey continues. I have a few tools that I know I will use, but there are other things that I just haven't really begun. It's obviously important stuff, but I've got to be as practical as I can and take little steps toward more useful tools. I've got enough that my classes will be different next year. Diigo, prezi, photo peach, voice thread, and maybe wall wisher or maybe another pad will help. Twitter and tweet deck are not my thing yet. Wickis and blogs are still out there to be explored, but at least I have a start now.