I'm loving it! This week I dived into learning how to use and utilize the software program Inspiration. Inspiration is a way to make visual concept maps electronically. I've also heard them called thinking maps, mind maps, or graphic organizers, and you may hear me refer to them using these terms interchangeably. Inspiration is really great, because you don't have to rely on a standard concept map, you can create your own! It's also a whole lot neater than handwritten models, and you can change it quickly and easily. I also liked the way that Inspiration could go from a visual diagram view, to a traditional outline view. With this feature, I think students with different learning styles might can utilize whichever style they prefer and learn best with.
Inspiration is without a doubt a valuable tool for educators. Research has shown that when students learn by using a visual representation (like thinking maps), they will understand the concepts better and retain more. Here is a short, and fascinating might I add, clip that shows more evidence for the effectiveness of using mind maps.
Although several help/tip websites were given in our module, the tutorial that I liked best is found here. It's actually five separate little tutorials. I learned so much from these in particular and watched them several times. I learned how to change the effects, background colors, and size of your overall concept map. Also, how to change your text size, color and font, and how to add symbols. Then the tutorial walked me through how to link your icons and create a hyperlink. I found the program to be very userfriendly.
I then began to create a thinking map of my own representing a biography about me. It was actually fun and I think a great assignment to begin practicing with the program. Several hours flew by without me even realizing it!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Journey 1 Come to an End
Well almost anyway! This weekend I spend several hours editing my photos from my New York trip. I was nervous about the Microsoft Digital Image software at first, but after the practice tutorials provided, and much hands on experience, now I feel like a pro! I've learned the basics and even a few of the more intricate editing techniques. I really like the program! It is very user friendly. During my editing process I have learned how to crop photos, adjust the brightness, sharpness, and coloring, resize an image (as well as the appropriate size for webpage photos), add text to photos, add or change a border, eliminate red eye in photos, layer photos, and create a panoramic photos. My favorite technique is the panoramic technique. I will definately do more of these type photos. I found it amazing that you simply open the photos and the program recognizes the objects and automatically merges them together.
I have just about finished up my digital photo story. I decided to go with snapfish to create a "snapstory". Again, my slight nervousness was not necessary! I registered for a snapfish account and also found it very user friendly. I chose a song that I thought fit nicely, a background theme, and snapfish walked me through the rest! I will admit that I don't think snapfish is the best as far as a wide variety of editing options though. There were only about 12 themes to choose from, and I didn't like the fact that I also couldn't change the font on the front and back cover of the photo story. I plan on finishing up the final product and submitting it tomorrow.
Bring on Side Trip #1!
I have just about finished up my digital photo story. I decided to go with snapfish to create a "snapstory". Again, my slight nervousness was not necessary! I registered for a snapfish account and also found it very user friendly. I chose a song that I thought fit nicely, a background theme, and snapfish walked me through the rest! I will admit that I don't think snapfish is the best as far as a wide variety of editing options though. There were only about 12 themes to choose from, and I didn't like the fact that I also couldn't change the font on the front and back cover of the photo story. I plan on finishing up the final product and submitting it tomorrow.
Bring on Side Trip #1!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
My "Journey" to the Big Apple
This weekend was a three day weekend, and Valentine’s Day too. I had planned on using the weekend to take my ten different digital photos for my first Journey project. I thought maybe we’d go to the park and I’d take some pictures of my kids and make it a family themed photo story. Well, you won’t believe this! My husband came home from work on Friday and said, “Pack your bags! We’re headed to New York City for the weekend!” It was a great and very romantic surprise! With all that said, my digital photos project became a New York theme! We spent the first day visiting central park and walking the busy streets taking tons of digital photos to meet the ten different shot composition technique requirements. The city streets and backdrops were perfect for landscape shots, lead room shots (action shots with open space infront), shots with unique angles, and depth of field shots (showing fore ground, middle ground, and back ground).
It’s Tuesday now, and the fairy tale was fun for the long weekend, but I’m back to reality now. I plan on completing activity 2 and 3 of the project throughout this week. I look forward to selecting and editing the photos I choose for this project. I am pretty familiar with Microsoft Digital Image 2006 after completing the practice assignment using the software last week, so I feel confident in that area. I think it was pretty user friendly and I found it fairly simple to crop, adjust brightness, resize, and add text to images. I never knew about the general rule of thumb regarding picture sizes though. That’s a great rule to hide away in my memory! As I complete my final project this week I would like to download the song New York, New York and use it with final digital storybook, but we’ll see if I’m able to find and use it or not. I can't wait to share my final product with you all!
It’s Tuesday now, and the fairy tale was fun for the long weekend, but I’m back to reality now. I plan on completing activity 2 and 3 of the project throughout this week. I look forward to selecting and editing the photos I choose for this project. I am pretty familiar with Microsoft Digital Image 2006 after completing the practice assignment using the software last week, so I feel confident in that area. I think it was pretty user friendly and I found it fairly simple to crop, adjust brightness, resize, and add text to images. I never knew about the general rule of thumb regarding picture sizes though. That’s a great rule to hide away in my memory! As I complete my final project this week I would like to download the song New York, New York and use it with final digital storybook, but we’ll see if I’m able to find and use it or not. I can't wait to share my final product with you all!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Week Four- Let the Journey Begin
The collaborative emerging technologies project is submitted and graded. Overall, I'm happy with my grade, but one of our topics was marked off for not having proper APA formatting on the citations, but the other page was cited the same way and received full credit. I'm not complaining though, and I'm pleased with the grade. I thought it was also exceptionally nice of Dr. B to offer us an opportunity to improve for a better grade and resubmit before spring break. I may choose to do that, I'm not sure yet.
This week I began Journey #1, which for me is digital images. It seems like it will be fun, but I know I'm still in the beginning foundational stages. I plan on searching this evening online for a download of the user's manual for my digital camera. It seems that might be essential to this project, and I don't have a clue where my original user's manual might be. I read through most of the module and learned about acquisition of digital images, editing digital images, and strategies for using digital images. I also downloaded a 60 day trial version of Microsoft Digital Image. I downloaded and saved a copy of the manual for Microsoft Digital Image, and decided not to print it out since it's 288 pages! I will just refer to the electronic copy when I need to. I read through each of the activities and realize just how much work this project entails! I will need to stay the course for the next two and a half weeks to get it all done, but like I said it does look like fun, and I know I will learn something about digital photography!
This week I began Journey #1, which for me is digital images. It seems like it will be fun, but I know I'm still in the beginning foundational stages. I plan on searching this evening online for a download of the user's manual for my digital camera. It seems that might be essential to this project, and I don't have a clue where my original user's manual might be. I read through most of the module and learned about acquisition of digital images, editing digital images, and strategies for using digital images. I also downloaded a 60 day trial version of Microsoft Digital Image. I downloaded and saved a copy of the manual for Microsoft Digital Image, and decided not to print it out since it's 288 pages! I will just refer to the electronic copy when I need to. I read through each of the activities and realize just how much work this project entails! I will need to stay the course for the next two and a half weeks to get it all done, but like I said it does look like fun, and I know I will learn something about digital photography!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Week 3 - Collaboration Continues
I spent most of this past week collaborating with Karen on our emerging technologies project. What a blessing to have a great partner! We both worked on each of the topics (Google Goggles and Tablet PCs) and I know I've learned a whole lot about those two subjects! Google Goggles is simply mind boggling! So cool to think that you can search Google for anything with nothing but a picture! No words or typing! They call this "visual search technology". Tablet PCs are pretty cool and could definately streamline a teacher's life, I think they're just way to pricey to be reality for school systems right now. You'll have to check out our wiki to learn more!
I found wikispaces editing buttons to be slightly frustrating at times, especially when it comes to changing font size, or the font style. Maybe it's because I was cutting and pasting from Word. I like to get all my thoughts out, and editing, spelled checked, etc. in Microsoft Word, before putting them on the wiki. I do the same thing with discussion questions. Anyways, sometimes I would highlight text and it would change the font of something else, that I hadn't highlighted at all! Other times, it would not want to change the font size at all, or after I clicked apply style (over and over, mind you) it wouldn't change the font style. Did anyone else have the same problems?
Karen and I have talked on the phone twice, and emailed multiple times throughout the course of this project. We plan on talking one more time and have a phone conference scheduled for Wednesday evening to put the final touches on our project. Assignment one is almost complete!
I found wikispaces editing buttons to be slightly frustrating at times, especially when it comes to changing font size, or the font style. Maybe it's because I was cutting and pasting from Word. I like to get all my thoughts out, and editing, spelled checked, etc. in Microsoft Word, before putting them on the wiki. I do the same thing with discussion questions. Anyways, sometimes I would highlight text and it would change the font of something else, that I hadn't highlighted at all! Other times, it would not want to change the font size at all, or after I clicked apply style (over and over, mind you) it wouldn't change the font style. Did anyone else have the same problems?
Karen and I have talked on the phone twice, and emailed multiple times throughout the course of this project. We plan on talking one more time and have a phone conference scheduled for Wednesday evening to put the final touches on our project. Assignment one is almost complete!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Week Two - Off and Running
The beginning of this week was filled with registering registering and registering! I checked and double checked to make sure I was registered at every site needed and joined the appropriate groups here and there. It was a tad bit overwhelming at first, but I think I'm good to go now and I'm off and running!
Last Sunday I connected with my partner, Karen, for the Emerging Technologies project. She seems very "with-it" and I think we'll make a good team. We decided to do Google Goggles as our new technology and the Tablet PC as our new device. We each went our own ways and did research throughout the week on the two topics, examples, pros and cons, links to resources, and ways to use it in the world of education, etc. We both had difficulty finding a whole lot of information about Google Goggles, but found just enough I suppose. This may be because it's still such a new, emerging technology. When researching Tablet PCs I was pretty shocked to see how expensive they are! Maybe they will be like all new technology items, and eventually come down in price over time.
Karen and I emailed each other all the data we collected throughout the week on Google Goggles and Tablet PCs. Then this Sunday we called each other again to conference about what we had each found. We agreed on who would be responsible for which portions of the wiki, and that we would continue to look and add as needed any more pertinent information we found throughout the week.
One new thing I learned this past week was how to use Shout and Share, a microblogging website, similar to Twitter (from what I understand). I have a family blog, and follow Facebook, but I haven't yet conquered the world of Twitter, so this is fairly new, but also somewhat familiar. So far, I think I like it :)
Last Sunday I connected with my partner, Karen, for the Emerging Technologies project. She seems very "with-it" and I think we'll make a good team. We decided to do Google Goggles as our new technology and the Tablet PC as our new device. We each went our own ways and did research throughout the week on the two topics, examples, pros and cons, links to resources, and ways to use it in the world of education, etc. We both had difficulty finding a whole lot of information about Google Goggles, but found just enough I suppose. This may be because it's still such a new, emerging technology. When researching Tablet PCs I was pretty shocked to see how expensive they are! Maybe they will be like all new technology items, and eventually come down in price over time.
Karen and I emailed each other all the data we collected throughout the week on Google Goggles and Tablet PCs. Then this Sunday we called each other again to conference about what we had each found. We agreed on who would be responsible for which portions of the wiki, and that we would continue to look and add as needed any more pertinent information we found throughout the week.
One new thing I learned this past week was how to use Shout and Share, a microblogging website, similar to Twitter (from what I understand). I have a family blog, and follow Facebook, but I haven't yet conquered the world of Twitter, so this is fairly new, but also somewhat familiar. So far, I think I like it :)
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Greetings!
Hello everyone! My name is Lisa and I am a third year media specialist. I was a classroom teacher for eight years prior to finding my calling as a media specialist. This is my seventh online class at UCF and I plan on graduating with my master's degree in educational media in December 2010. I first began the Educational Media program in the fall of 2008. I am taking this class to make myself a better, more knowledgeable media specialist. I'm fairly new to the media world, but I've already fallen in love with the job! I feel like a child who desperately longs to soak up new information so I can better myself at something that I truely love to do. One thing I hope to accomplish in this course is to build for myself a strong foundation of tech savy confidence! I would like to be more comfortable with many of the technology items that I see we'll be exploring over the coming weeks. I look forward to working and learning together!
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