Six Technology Projects
Web PublishingThe first week's project is about web publishing. Options for building a website included my.uen, Blogger, and Weebly. I have been working on building my Weebly site this year, so for this project I chose to update my site with additional information about the classes I am taking and teaching. The objectives from the "Now You Try It" document outlined the following tasks:
Digital VideoClick to view or download the video.
In week 2 we learned about using video to engage learners. We watched instructional videos that shared some great ideas about using digital video in the classroom:
I really enjoyed the Flipped Classroom video and learned about a bunch of great new tools and ideas for teachers interesting in this instructional method. From the list of options on the "Now you Try It" document, I chose to create an iMovie video tutorial for a class I am teaching. In this class students are required to submit weekly blog reflections to our LMS, Canvas. I created a tutorial video outlining how to properly upload the web address for a blog post to Canvas so that is can easily be graded by the instructors. I created the movie by recording a screencast with a new piece of software that I just purchased, Camtasia 2, and I was anxious to try it out. I was able to add the mouse tracking and clicking effects after the recording (I think they may be a little distracting and they will take me a while to get used to using.) I did the rest of the editing with iMovie and added the opening and closing title sequences and audio tracks there. I would like to create a few more videos like this and this assignment was a timely push to get me started. Digital PhotographyView or download finished projects below.
During week three we learned more about digital photography and the types of projects that can be created using cameras, iOS devices, and some basic software. We watched a few tutorials with to get some ideas on various digital photography projects that we could use with students:
We were again given several option in the "Now You Try It" document for this project. I decided to create a video on how to use Feedly as an RSS feed reader. Since Google Reader is going away soon and I am teaching how to use RSS feeds to build your PLN. I really liked the video about photography on your iPad, so I decided to use Animoto to create a photo slideshow project to walk through the steps to setting this up. I also checked out the 9 Ideas for Digital Photography handout that was referenced in the video and it gave me the idea to annotate the photos with Skitch.
I took screenshots of the images I needed from Feedly on my iPad, then added annotations with Skitch. Finally, I imported the annotated photos to Animoto, added a title slide and a closing slide, then saved and downloaded the video project. I liked the look and feel of the video, but as is the case with many Animoto videos, the transitions were too fast. I tried slowing down the exported video in iMovie, but that distorted the sound. So I took the same images and imported them into the Explain Everything app on my iPad. I recorded the video inside of that app and added the voiceover to better explain the process. I saved the finished video back to Dropbox and used iMovie to add the title and closing frames. I found a great website, SoundDogs.com, with a lot of really great sound effects and I used a track with sounds of writing on a chalkboard for the closing screen of my Explain Everything video. This was another great project assignment and I am really having fun creating the projects for this class. |
ResourcesWeb Publishing
Week 1 Assignments Weebly Help myUEN Help Blogger Help Digital Video Week 2 Assignments eMedia Help iMovie Help Windows Movie Maker Help Digital Photography Week 3 Assignments Picasa Help Photoshop Elements Help PhotoStory 3 Help DownloadsPicasa Photoshop Elements PhotoStory 3 |