This is the first week of CEDO 540 and I'm pretty excited. CEDO 540 is all about Statistics and I have not had a math class in years so it feels good to be back talking about new STEM stuff. We've been right in the beginning of the talk about statistics and how to use them so it has been fun to watch a couple of early 90's videos outlining the various ways that stats can be used. If you feel like a fun blast from the past and learning about statistics at the same time check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YsiVJFSwGo
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Week #5 in CEdO530
This week we looked at how to grade multimedia projects. This has been something that I have always had trouble with. On one hand I have a checklist of what the students need to accomplish and if they complete those tasks they get full credit. On the other hand I have always felt like some students who do the bare minimum are getting the same grade as students who really go above and beyond. It has been very helpful to examine rubrics so that I can better create my grading criteria so that my grades can reflect this stratification of effort in my students.
Tomorrow I will be finishing my Pecha Kucha as over the past few days I have been doing "principle photography" with the help of a few coworkers. I will be interested to see how it turns out and to see if my 1950's PSA feel comes through.
Tomorrow I will be finishing my Pecha Kucha as over the past few days I have been doing "principle photography" with the help of a few coworkers. I will be interested to see how it turns out and to see if my 1950's PSA feel comes through.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Week #4 in CEDO 530 - Prezi & Pecha Kucha
This week (two actually) in CEDO 530 we looked at a multitude of new tools and wrapped up our books Presentation Zen and Digitales
In the books they dealt with tying everything together to actually give the talk or tell the story. I thought it was neat that after the previous 3 weeks of prep work we were in the "get out there and do it" stage. Both books have excellent tips for content creation and I look forward to applying it all to my classes.
One of the new tools that we used for content creation was Prezi (http://prezi.com/). This slick power point alternative has an easy to use interface and a very short learning curve. I can see it as a great alternative to text heavy power points as it makes the words dance and move on the screen in a very interesting way. You can check out my Prezi below:
We are also investigating Pecha Kucha on a topic of our choice. I am killing two birds with one stone and putting together a beginning of the year presentation for the technology committee at my school. It might turn out campy and fun or it might turn out to be a mess. We'll see how it turns out, but I really like the constraints as it gives me a great framework to create my presentation.
In the books they dealt with tying everything together to actually give the talk or tell the story. I thought it was neat that after the previous 3 weeks of prep work we were in the "get out there and do it" stage. Both books have excellent tips for content creation and I look forward to applying it all to my classes.
One of the new tools that we used for content creation was Prezi (http://prezi.com/). This slick power point alternative has an easy to use interface and a very short learning curve. I can see it as a great alternative to text heavy power points as it makes the words dance and move on the screen in a very interesting way. You can check out my Prezi below:
We are also investigating Pecha Kucha on a topic of our choice. I am killing two birds with one stone and putting together a beginning of the year presentation for the technology committee at my school. It might turn out campy and fun or it might turn out to be a mess. We'll see how it turns out, but I really like the constraints as it gives me a great framework to create my presentation.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Week #3 in CEDO 530
Since the power went out last night I was not able to post. Luckily I wrote this in Word and now I can just copy, paste!
With a pretty awesome thunderstorm raging on in the background I’ll need to be brief incase the power goes out, but this week in CEDO 530 we took a look at multiple ways of planning for and executing presentations. Were as the book Presentation Zen started off being a little philosophical in the beginning, now we are totally into the nuts and bolts section of the text. There is an absolute ton of great tips in chapter 6 that give you a very quick introduction to the many different facets of design. This turning from philosophy to practice has made the book endlessly more enjoyable and practical.
In DigiTales we are looking at the different steps needed to make a proper digital story. The checklist seems very good and I look forward to using it with my students when they create digital stories or projects. To help facilitate quick creation of digital stories we also investigated the website animoto. Animoto is a great website that instantaneously creates very professional slide shows using only the music you upload and the pictures that you provide. This seems to be a great system for displaying a series of pictures if you do not have an artistic vision that you want complete control over.
The last tool we explored this week was Pecha Kucha, a method of presenting 20 power point slides in 20 seconds each. It is structured in a way to maximize the presenter’s effectiveness and minimize the death by power point that happens quite frequently in meetings. It will be fun to try this out in coming weeks.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
CEDO 530 Week #2
This week in CEDO 530 we are looking at presentations and how they are planned and how they can go awry. We looked at Voice Thread a lot this week and you can see two small examples of my trying it out below:
Voice Threads seem to have a lot of use when commenting on presentations or pictures. Our group had a fun time with playing with the software.
Also this week we needed to tie projects that we were doing or wanted to do to state and national standards. You can see my project list below and also take a look at what standards I'm trying to hit. You can even see a description of the House Project that I ran last night and the Cardboard Boat Regatta I'm running tomorrow.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eRFdd-YRaNtkA2__J1kvcF3d943-YZC55zOAqcouWNo/edit?hl=en&authkey=CPPDm-kL
It was interesting how many different sets of standards my group members and I came up with to use in this project. It makes me realize that while a large majority of the content of the standards is the same, we have a long way to go before we have one set of standards that everyone in the country uses exclusively.
Well, that is about it. I'm off to 6 Flags for the annual "Physics Day" field trip. I love being a teacher.
Voice Threads seem to have a lot of use when commenting on presentations or pictures. Our group had a fun time with playing with the software.
Also this week we needed to tie projects that we were doing or wanted to do to state and national standards. You can see my project list below and also take a look at what standards I'm trying to hit. You can even see a description of the House Project that I ran last night and the Cardboard Boat Regatta I'm running tomorrow.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eRFdd-YRaNtkA2__J1kvcF3d943-YZC55zOAqcouWNo/edit?hl=en&authkey=CPPDm-kL
It was interesting how many different sets of standards my group members and I came up with to use in this project. It makes me realize that while a large majority of the content of the standards is the same, we have a long way to go before we have one set of standards that everyone in the country uses exclusively.
Well, that is about it. I'm off to 6 Flags for the annual "Physics Day" field trip. I love being a teacher.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Starting CEDO 530: Digital Story Telling
This week we started up Digital Story Telling. It seems like it will be a very useful class in that we are not just making iMovies and WMA files, but we are examining what makes a great story and how do we best convey that story to others. I am very excited that we are examining "Death by Powerpoint" (the destruction of a presentation by the use of poor visual aides) and "Slideuments" (Over informative Powerpoints / Handouts) as I have been wanting to revamp some of my AP Physics presentations as they are too much information thrown at the students all at once.
To help us on our quest for perfection in presentation we have the books Presentation Zen and Digitales. I have used the Digitales website (http://www.digitales.us/) with great success in the past and I hope that the book will be just as useful as the website. Presentation Zen excites me as I love the idea of simplifying and streamlining activities I do to make them more effective and less time consuming
Overall I hope to learn about the ways we can make our jobs easier and more effective when we are presenting information to students.
To help us on our quest for perfection in presentation we have the books Presentation Zen and Digitales. I have used the Digitales website (http://www.digitales.us/) with great success in the past and I hope that the book will be just as useful as the website. Presentation Zen excites me as I love the idea of simplifying and streamlining activities I do to make them more effective and less time consuming
Overall I hope to learn about the ways we can make our jobs easier and more effective when we are presenting information to students.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Week #6 CEDO 525 - Final Thoughts
This week we finished CEDO 525. Over all I was very happy with how the class turned out. I thought that the focus on the applications in the classroom was just what I needed to learn about. Even though technology initiatives are kind of stalled at the moment at work, I still have a few things like learning management systems, electronic grading and web design that i want to implement in my classroom. CEDO 525 was great to help me toward these goals.
As part of the final project we had to change a lesson that we do into one that utilizes technology more effectively. I changed around a bunch of things that I do in my AP Physics class when we study electricity. I used Blackboard and a host of other technologies to better give the students feedback on their learning. You can view the presentation below:
As part of the final project we had to change a lesson that we do into one that utilizes technology more effectively. I changed around a bunch of things that I do in my AP Physics class when we study electricity. I used Blackboard and a host of other technologies to better give the students feedback on their learning. You can view the presentation below:
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