Flat Stanley Project Slideshow

I decided to try out Picture Trail, as Laurence mentioned in class. I found it very easy to use; I just looked around the page and tried out the features. Sometimes, that's all it takes for some softwares to work well. Having all the information laid out neatly and organized. I sometimes enjoy the step by step instruction; but, at times I want to have the freedom to surf around in different order.

In my future classroom, I'd like to use Picture Trail on our class blog--perhaps with student pictures, during activities, school functions and while students are doing school work. It is a very versatile software for project on pictures; it can be flamboyant or simple for appropriate presentation of pictures. It is made for both leisure or professional activities--which makes it a very useful tool.

Flat Stanley Project Video

I enjoyed using Jumpcut, very similar to the i-movie. I was getting stuck in between putting my movie together... gee, two clips--and I felt it was complicated until I searched around and tried out some options... Even if I was exposed to i-movie its been awhile since I last made one, I can't really compare the difference. But I liked how the features we're user friendly--I easily found the features to cut, duplicate, undo; which I really enjoyed (since, I couldn't make up my mind with how I wanted my movie to look like)

Jumpcut, can easily be used by students even at elementary level. Teacher's just need to give clear directions or walk them through the process of using the software. In the future, I'd like to see move effects, actions, and title styles. However, the audio feature is a cool idea. This time I didn't make use of the feature because of the video; one of the clips had low volume--which made me cut out the audio feature.

Electronic Web-Based Professional Portfolio

Here the url to my resume on Weebly.com
http://damallari.weebly.com

While constructing my resume on weebly, I did not encounter any problems or difficulties. It was easy to understand, since many of the features are visually represented which I found as a plus factor. Moreover, students at a young age will find it easy to navigate around the site and create a resume.

However, the next time I visited weebly to edit and publish my resume. Fonts were changing in size and not alignment were shifting. It brought be frustration to readjust my whole resume. Maybe I was pressing on some buttons that caused the changes;but, eventually I got my resume together. Moreover, I'd like to go back to weebly and try it out again and see what works with me. There are other activities that can be done on weebly and I will try to look over them during the summer.

Using Weblogs in K-12 Curriculum

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My power point presentation was on "Using Weblogs in the K-12 Curriculum." I chose this topic because it can be a very versatile tool in the classroom regardless of age and grade. It just needs to be structured age appropriately, take precautions, and a sparkle of creativity!

I learned that Weblogs can be used to for all subjects. It is at the teacher's discretion of information that will be posted; they have the authority to facilitate the activities that can and will be done on the weblog. Students need to be briefed on the limitations of posting and language usage. Weblogs, enable students to be expressive and creative about their work and feelings.

A great idea that I would like to try out in my future classroom is to have a class weblog. Each of my student will have a chance to have their blogs and I will choose projects to be posted on to the their blogs. I will have them take appropriate pictures of school and class activities which they are to post and reflect on. Moreover, on the main class page will be information about school and class activities, upcoming events, electronic copies of homeworks and classworks--students and parents will be able to view in the case of absents, grades, pictures and blogs of each student.

Flat Stanley Friendly Letter Rubric

The most important skill that I want students to take away from the Flat Stanley Project is to write letters. It is a life-long learning skill, not only do that have to learn how to do it for school; but also, it is something that students will benefit from in their life.

What I like about using a rubric for scoring is that students right away know how they are graded. Using a rubric will state exactly what requirements need to be fulfilled in order to get the grade they one, this also avoids complains why they didn’t receive the full grade for instance.

Since, I was introduced rubistar by Mr. Jenkins, when I was taking his drama class—I’ve always came back to rubistar and used the rubrics. I like how you can choose the criteria’s that applies to your assignment or project and how you can also can add criteria’s and change the descriptors to fill your requirements. Plus, you can sign up for an account and save all your created rubrics for future use. Also, you can publish the rubrics you make for others to view and publish.

Flat Stanley Newsletter

Here is a link to my Flat Stanley Newsletter using www.letterpop.com
http://www.letterpop.com/builder.php?newsletter_id=83906

Why is communication important between teachers and parents?

Communication is essential because parents should be the biggest advocate for their child’s education. Through communication, both parties will be able to share their ideas, feelings, concerns, suggestions, opinions and concerns about the child’s education. Parents and teachers need to share the same view or compromise to fulfill all expectations from parent to teacher, teacher to parent, and teacher & parent to child. Parents are able to contribute important information about how their child, how they learn best, and extending the learning at home.

In what way will you communicate with your students’ parents?

The most effective and efficient way to communicate with parents would be to send out letters or newsletters and phoning them. Since, not all students will have access to a computer or internet—this may not be an ideal way as of the moment. However, in the future I’d like to put up a blog for my class; it will consist of information about daily activities in class and school, class rules, consequences, rewards, homework’s for students who missed class or simply for parents to be aware of homework assigned, online grade book for students and parents to access, and pictures to show students working in action.

Selected students will be given an opportunity to write to the weekly newsletter; teacher will provide the topics. Students will have the week to work on their article about class and school activities, what happened in class during the week and what they accomplished for the week. Publication or newsletters will be every Friday; however, may be tentative depending on the flow of class activities and time.

What new communication software applications would be fun to try to communicate with parents?

I like the uses of Blogger, PB Wiki, Google Docs and Web 2.0 software as a means of new communication software applications that would be fun to try to communicate with parents. Blogger, would be a good software since they can comment on the post to share their insights, opinions, suggestions and comments. PBWiki, gives the parents a chance to edit the page—if directions permit, to share their insights, opinions, suggestions and comments. Google Docs, is an interactive software which can also be used to share information and communicate with parents. Both parties can leave messages, edit information, communicate live if both are online and etc.

What software did you use, why did you choose to use it?

I chose to use www.letterpop.com to create my newsletter for my Flat Stanley Project. When I came across the website, it caught my attention instantly. Not only does it make newsletters, but invitations, fliers, cards and so much more… I found it easy to use. I learned more about using letterpop by practicing creating some activities with different styles and themes.

What would you differently if you did a class newsletter again?

If I would work on a class newsletter again, I would like to look for more software’s to design and develop a newsletter. Next time, I would have my students contribute to my newsletter to help practice writing skills, learning the importance of sharing credible and correct information or statements, this will also help stimulate students learning environment to put themselves in shoes of newspaper reports and they will be able to use their technological skills when creating a newsletter using software from online sources.

Solar System Webquest

Here is a link to view our web quest: http://zunal.com/webquest.php?user=8079

Our concept of our web quest is that students are astronauts invited by NASA to join the new age of space discovery. Together as a group, Laurence, Clarissa and I agreed to work on the Solar System for our web quest. It is a very board topic, which is excellent to modify into any activity that will tailor to the needs of targeted students. As Laurence mentioned that there are ongoing research and studies on the solar system; moreover, just recently Pluto which was originally the ninth planet is not longer considered a planet. Our objectives for our webquest are for students to collaborate and work with each other toward a common goal; students will create camaraderie between each other, and the opportunity to research using technology.

The web quest will help students use resources from the internet to finish their task. This will give students the opportunity to learn from one another. Each student will definitely have their ideas of how they want to come about working on the task; therefore, they must all come to an agreement of how to finish their task. There will be student experts on the use of the internet and others will learn or share their knowledge alike. This will help student apply their knowledge on the use of computers skills to look for credible and correct information.

I learned that technology can definitely be integrated into the classroom activities. As a future teacher, it is essential to always be on the look for free software that can be used to for students learning and enhance their skills.
Zunal .com could not be easier than I imagined it would be. We loved the step by step instructions to fill out each area and the space available to place a picture was very convenient. Some obstacles we came across were in order to make font and size adjustments we had to type them on a word document and then transferred them into the zunal site, we could not preview the page until it was published, and although the picture box was a convenience, hopefully we can move the picture box around.

If I were to do this web quest project in the future, I would like to research more on my topic to develop unique activities which can benefit my students. I would like to try to make a web quest that would assist my students to search for science projects themes and ideas—since it is a yearly activity students must take part in.