Time line activity

1. Describe your assignment.
The time line activity we did was pretty cool. Joey and I created a time line activity about World War II. From there, we created a lesson, a quiz, and a rubric involving this graphic organizer.

2. What did you like about the time line/Rubistar/Quiz-star?
They were all easy to use. The Rubistar, to be exact, made things very simple for us. The Quiz-Star on the other hand, was pretty complicated at first; however, once we got a hand of it, it was like a walk in the park.

3. How would you use these sites for a classroom assignment?
I could have the students use these sties to create their own time line activity to share and quiz their peers, based on their topic of research.

4. How would you rate each software on a scale of 1-10.
free-timeline.com >> 6 out of 10
Rubistar >> 10 out of 10
Quiz-Star >> 5 out of 10.

Slide.com slideshow!

Today, we explored slide.com. This site could be used to create slides through the use of photos. You are able to modify several different things to make your presentation "fancy." Also, you are able to embed a song coherent to your slides and theme.

1. Was the software user friendly?

No.

2. Did the software have extra useful features to enhance your presentation?

Yes, there was.

3. Is the software specifically useful for teachers?

50/50 because of its user-friendliness.

4. Would you recommend the software for other educators?

I'm not too sure. Further tinker should be done.

5. If you had a choice to use this software again for presentation, would you use it?

It really depends. I would use this if I'm desperate.

6. What overall consensus rating would you give this software 1-10 (10 being the highest)?

Even though I have used this before, I would still rate this a 4 because of it's upload speed and its user UN-friendliness. It said that its MAX upload at one time is 50; but, that wasn't true at all. After the first 8 pictures, it hung! Henceforth the solid 4.

P.S. I created the slide below to test out a couple kinks.

OMG! It's Joey! O_O

Zunal!

1. Describe your assignment.
Our assignment involved using an online software called Web quest in zunal. There we were to either select an already made presentation to present upon OR to create our own presentation. It was like a mini-lesson plan that had the whole "shabang" in it. Our web quest site could be found here.

2. What did you like/dislike about the web quest project? Why?
I liked it because we were able to explore a different educational technology tool that we could use in our future classrooms. Also, I really enjoyed this project because of the sharing of ideas that we were able to do.

3. What were some of the challenges you faced?
Some of the challenges I faced when doing the webquest assignment was trying to find a topic that met our expectations. Instead, we settled for one that didn't. Instead, I used this as an opportunity for a room to grow in. This gave me the experience of using another person's work as for our own. And no, I do not take any credit of the work that the original author did. I found out that there was very little space to work with since we couldn't adjust the author's presentation to our own expectations -- the author did not provide enough activities when we wanted to, there was no quiz when we wanted to design a quiz that revolved around the general food groups, and there was too little information to keep the class (K-2) to stay ON TASK!

4. If you had to do it over, what would you do differently?
If I had to do things over again, I would have created my own webquest assignment. Using a webquest that was previously done was pretty frustrating since it wasn't designed to our (me Joey's) specs. The reason why we chose that one though (The New Food Pyramid) was because we were in a health class together. I really liked it because it talked about health and nutrition -- something which I really enjoyed. So, going back to the question of having the opportunity of doing it over again, I would have surely done things in the same area but incorporate a lot more fun and interactive activities.

5. How do you think your students will like using a webquest?
It's simple. They will like it because it's fun, interactive, they get to use the computer when they research, and best yet, they won't be using paper!

Fotoflexer!

Hopefully you guys can see this clearly. Here's where I went:

And here is the finished product:



Today, we had the opportunity to explore some photo editing sites. Kathy and I explored fotoflexer.com. It was just like MS Photo Editor, but with extra buttons! xD

The pros and cons of this software are as follows:

Pros:
-A user friendly photo editing site
-Can access pictures on MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa

Cons:
-Need internet to access this site
-URL Link is unusable
-Long load time

But overall, on a scale of 1-10, I would rate this site as a solid 7.

Flickr Badge

1. Today, we went through flickr.com and a picture editing site -- picknik.com. Both were very cool. In addition, we created a flickr badge. I really enjoyed today because I got to work with things that I was unfamiliar with.

2. I would use a site like flickr for my class to post their pictures up. I could have them use it for a project or when and wherever we go as a class. This is a very cool thing, since it would allow us to share our photos with the rest of the class. Besides this, we could also have the local newspaper go in and pick some pictures out to post up in the news. That way, the public would be able to acknowledge what we are doing.

Don't Mess With the Zoho!

Today, I worked with Zoho (Zoho Show to be precise), a new software that seems like another Microsoft Office application that is online. Pretty strange. It may seem a bit confusing if the person who is using it is new, but if you tinker around with it a bit, it actually is pretty helpful. There are a couple of pros and cons, but overall, this was a well worth software to explore.

1. Explain the assignment.
Our assignment was to basically explore a new software, entitled Zoho. With many application accompanying it, we explored Zoho Show - what appeared to be a "Microsoft Power Point" version.

2. How easy/difficult was the project you worked on?
Working with this software was relatively easy because of my familiarity with Power Point. The only downside I ran by was the lack of animations (vs. a .ppt).

3. How do you think your students would benefit from your project?
I guess they would benefit from my project by introducing other programs that they can use when Microsoft Office isn't readily available on a computer.

4. Rate the software Zoho on a scale of 1-10 and why?
My rating for this software would be a sold 7.5 because of its basic simplicity and "Power Point" like features. The only downsides I saw was the lack of an animation command and that a student would need internet access to access this site. However, a great plus to this is that this can be viewed through an HTML code - an open software app.