Voila!

Photo copyright A. Syn and permission provided under rights of Attribution from Creative Commons

No reflection this week, folks. All my effort and enthusiasm this week has gone into making a comprehensive culminating project for one and all. I took all these ideas that have been bouncing around and pulled it all together into one big, beautiful online resource. In fact, instead of just plugging in outside elements into my curriculum page (entitled EBooks & Education), I decided to make a brand new wiki just for the project idea and fit all the little puzzle pieces into it. So now, I'll step back and let it speak for itself.

Integrating eBooks into Education with a Book Pitch

I know an "A" when I see one...or do I?

Copyright Sage Ross (some rights reserved)

Assessment is easily one of the hardest parts of teaching. Sure, getting your lesson plans together can be pretty difficult, as is determining and collecting all your necessary resources. But, when it comes right down to it, truly understanding how well a student is or is not learning is pretty darn tough. Obviously, if your assessment method of choice is a quiz or multiple choice test, the numbers do the determining for you, but then you have to figure out what questions to include. However, in the world of language arts which I have taught, tests are rarely your main assessment tool. Usually, assignments like papers and projects are the norm, with very defined goals that help the teacher figure out a final score. These could include criteria like how many paragraphs/pages are there, is there a clear thesis statement, and was an argument persuasive enough. Overall, though, assessment is such a tricky word. Not only does it mean the manner in which a teacher grades a student, but also method and product that student creates. In other words, when a teacher gives a student a paper to write, it is the paper itself and the grading criteria that the teacher uses which that creates an assessment. So not only do teachers have to choose wisely on what kinds of assessments to give, but how to deal with them when they are turned in.

Putting My Prezi Where My Mouth Is...

My kind of sales pitch (Photo copyright of Romana Klee)

So far, I’ve explored the concept of digital storytelling, as well as how I could use it in a hypothetical classroom of advanced high school students. Now, the time is nigh to walk that talk of mine. In other words, I set out to make an example of the project I designed.  Before I do so, I feel it is a good idea to provide a refresher (both for myself and for my classmates) of what exactly I am doing.

Ready...Set...Wiki!

Photo Copyright Lindsey T.

I would like to start this reflection with something witty, clever and possibly even profound. However, I feel like for that to happen I would need to get a set of jumper cables from the garage and clip up my ears and turn the key. Frankly, I am spent mentally and it is all thanks to the wonderfully exhausting experience of creating my own curriculum page. 

Lights, Camera, Integration!

So far, I have explored the development of technology within the realm of education and what tools are available to me as an educator to make use of said technology. Digital storytelling is a wonderful element that can be used in just about every classroom environment, as well as beyond the classroom for professional development and in the world of corporate training. However, ideas are all well and good, but without a good strategy of integration they are mere playthings instead of useful tools. As noted in our textbook, “The key to successful technology integration is identifying what you are trying to accomplish within your curriculum” (Shelley & Gunter, 2010). In other words, having the fancy software programs is all well and good, but what on earth do you mean to do with them? Now, even though I am not currently in a classroom, this is still a very important question and this week’s assignment was a wonderful way for me to explore this concept. Once more, I get to work through what I have learned in my readings and apply it to a hypothetical classroom. However, unlike the last time, I think I will go a different track a little more suited to my aspirations. 

Beyond Paper: Exploring Digital Storytelling

Creativity is the force that gets me up in the morning and keeps blood pumping through my veins. It is the horsepower in my engine that keeps me going to new and exciting places. However, I long ago understood that in terms of school, creativity must often take a backseat to the demands of knowledge and understanding.  Now, I have always been able to study like a fiend, and discuss theories and ideas at length, but nothing makes me happier than actually creating something of value and worth beyond a term paper. This could be something practical (sewing together a new change purse), something silly (spray-painting plastic dinosaurs to act as Christmas ornaments), or even something nourishing (a hearty dinner of braised short ribs in red wine). All of these things make me happy because I am actually applying knowledge gained and skills developed. In the end of each of these things I have a product to look upon and be proud of.  To that end, I have to admit this is the most excited I’ve been to do schoolwork in a very long time. This week, my job was to take all of the ridiculously informative and helpful information from the textbook, websites linked without our given module and wonderful examples, and somehow create my very own piece of digital storytelling.

Learning that Gigahertz is Not a Car Rental Company...

When I bought my laptop last summer, I spent months researching what I would need to replace the aging, decrepit lap-sized paperweight I was currently using. I was not, however, very well versed in the technical specifics of computers, nor did I really know off hand what I needed. Thankfully, however, my boyfriend is an expert in his own right, and was in the process of buying the components to build his own desktop computer at the same time. With his guidance, I was able to pin down that I needed a lot of storage, a high-quality video card, as fast of a processor as I could afford and a nearly excessive amount of removable media options. So, with the information he provided (and repeated many times at my prompting to make sure I understood everything), I did endless hours of research, online browsing and in-store playing and finally plunked down some serious change to get the machine I work with today (and hopefully for many years to come). The experience was a bit frustrating, since I was not used to the onslaught of numbers and abbreviations he threw at me (such as Ghz which is the speed of my processor and the heartbeat of my computer), but was ultimately very rewarding. In fact, the whole computer-buying adventure was far more to my benefit than I had previously expected, because when it came to this week's reading, I was rarely, if ever, stopped in confusion at the terms and definitions presented to me. CPUs, you say? Got it! That's my oh-so-speedy processor that manages my computer's operations. The difference between Solid State Drives and Optical Discs? No problem! SSD's are the way in which  my computers stores all of its precious information using 500 GB of flash memory, while optical discs require a physical disc to keep it's information. Data representation in the form of ASCII? I may not be fluent, but it is more than gibberish to me now!