Work Week!

This week, instead of learning new concepts, we had a work week where we were supposed to focus on working on our final website. I focused on working on lesson 2 of my website which is about muscles. It was hard to find a good video that I could add to my webpage that explained muscles in an elementary level, but I finally found one on Youtube. I was also able to use some good resources online to find a plethora of information about muscles. In this lesson on muscles, I provided instructions for students to feel their own calf muscle. I think this will help them better grasp the concept and actually feel a muscle at work. At the end of each lesson, I am going to have students create blogs to reflect on what they learned in the lesson. Additionally, I am going to have students comment on each other's blogs so they can share insight, feedback, and other ideas. I think students will enjoy blogging and looking at their peers' blogs, and also it will be a great way for students to reflect and review.

Video Sharing and Screencasting!

This week our task was to think about the implications of mobile learning and to create a screen cast on a Web 2.0 tool. I watched some very interesting videos about mobile learning. One discussed the future of education, and how it will be the "iSchool." Students would use their iPhone or iTouch to communicate with their teachers. There are so many applications out there for learning that I had no clue about. They have applications for learning about the different US Presidents, viewing globes, exploring space, checking out the periodic table, or even word processing applications. Students would utilize these applications to learn useful information and communicate and collaborate with their peers through other apps. It seems like a whole other innovative way of learning, but it is probably where are future is headed. As far as video sharing, there are many things that teachers need to take into consideration when using videos in the classroom. They need to ultimately obtain permission from the original creator and make sure that they are using the video for educational purposes. Teachers should also make sure that the videos that they provide to students are accessible to all individuals. Videos must be able to work on various browsers, and should even include captions when necessary.

I decided to create my screencast on Voki which is a free service that allows you to create avatars with different backgrounds and physical features. There are many interactive ideas for using Voki in the classroom. Voki can be used for students to introduce themselves to the class, read poems, explain math concepts, create characters from a book, or even practice saying English words to become fluent. There are endless opportunities of ways to use Voki in the classroom. I could definitely see how screencasting could also be a helpful tool to use in the classroom, especially in distance education. The teacher can model a process and students can then follow exact steps presented.

Photo Sharing!!

This weeks focus was to learn more about photo sharing sites, their features, and to think about how you could incorporate them in your final website. I learned a lot from browsing through each of the websites for the photo sharing applications. I looked at the information for Flickr, Photobucket, Google Images, and Picasa. I chose to create an account for Flickr. I really like the option that it provides for embedding a slide show of pictures into a website. I ended up integrating this into my website that I am creating. I am creating a website that teaches third graders about the human body, and for lesson 1, they will learn about the three main types of joints in the body. So, I embedded a Flickr slide show of pictures into my joints lesson. I found three pictures of the three different types of joints, and then described each one and created a slide show of pictures. I think that students will benefit from being able to visually see each joint. I may even try to find some videos to incorporate in the slide show so students can see how the joints actually work in the human body, and so students can see how each joint moves differently at different body parts.

Concept Map & First draft of Website

I found this week's activities somewhat difficult because I had never created a concept map for designing a website before. I found this process difficult at first, because I had to decide on a topic. I chose to create a website that might have useful information for me and my future students. I decided to create a website about the human body and the different parts of it. I designed it for third graders. I organized it into different lessons that the students would be going through on their own as well as a review and quiz after the lessons.

The tool I chose to use to aid me in developing a website was Weebly. I have been very impressed with Weebly so far. It has been easy to use because all you have to do is drag and drop different items such as text, images, or videos, on to the site and they appear on the page. Also, Weebly provided several tutorials that were useful when first learning to create a website.

I think this new experience of developing a website will be challenging and exciting at the same time. I am excited to begin planning my lessons and deciding what multimedia I should incorporate in the lessons. I am glad I am getting the chance to develop my own website, and I hope to be able to use what I learn while doing this in the future.