Week 10- Social Tools and Cloud Computing

This week I learned how to upload documents on Google docs so that I can share the documents that I make to other people using the web. I also responded to a discussion post on my opinion on whether or not social tools were beneficial to our society or not. This week I also began working on my social bookmarking project where I can share interesting websites that I find with other people.

Using Google docs would be very beneficial for when I am an elementary school teacher because I could save my lesson plans onto Google docs and then be able to share them with other teachers so that they could get ideas from them. I would also be able to look at other teachers' lesson plans and other documents as well and use them in my own class. Social bookmarking would also be an important tool to use when I become a teacher because I would be able to post websites that I use with my class for other teachers to see and use and vice versa.




This is a video that I found on you tube which is explains why Google docs is a good idea for when you want to share a document with other people, and when you want feedback on the document. The video also goes into the details of all that you can do when using Google docs, such as commenting on other people's documents and creating spreadsheets. The video has information supporting the use of Google docs for many different reasons as well.  

Week 9- Sound Podcasting

http://www.filefront.com/17449392/Heather's Podcast.m4a


This week I recorded one of my favorite songs on Garage Band. Then I learned how to save the podcast to iTunes and upload in onto filefront.com. The link to my podcast is above. Recording sounds would be very useful for when I am an elementary schools teacher because I could record myself teaching a lesson to my students and use it for when I may be absent from school for any reason. The substitute could play the podcast to my students so that that they would still be able to learn the lesson on the day it was supposed to be taught. I could also record other sounds and use them in my lessons so that the students who are auditory learners could benefit well from the material taught in the lesson.

Week 8- Digital Storytelling

This week I learned how to make a video on animoto.com. I was able to use my pictures from my Study Abroad trip in England this summer and put them in slides to music. I also learned about the history of audio formats dating back to the 1800s to the present. I also read an article about popular audio formats in technology today.

I can use what I learned this week about digital storytelling and making movies on the computer in my own classroom when I become a teacher. I could find some pictures that represent what the students may be studying and put them together with music to make a movie. Presenting the pictures digitally to music would probably engage the students more, and it would help them to pay attention to the lesson better.

Here is a link to the video that I made on animoto.com this week:
Study Abroad Trip to England



The video above I found on youtube and it is a very good example of digital storytelling. It retells the story of Animal Farm written by George Orwell. The story is told through text and pictures that represent what the text is saying. The story is also played to music which sort of sets the mood of the story. I could make a movie like this when I become a teacher, and retell other stories that the children may be reading in class so that they could better understand the stories. The digital storytelling would also act as a visual aide for the students who learn better visually.

Week 7- Visual Literacy

This week I learned how to use Photoshop. I did the photoshop tutorial project in class and learned how to customized backgrounds in pictures and also learned how to import my own pictures on Photoshop. I also learned about layering and found out that if you do not label your layers it makes it difficult to create your project. This week I also learned more about visual literacy and digital storytelling.

It is important that I learn how to use Photoshop as an elementary education major because I could use Photoshop in my future classroom in order to customize pictures for particular projects that we may be doing. Visual literacy and digital storytelling are also important because they can be used as alternative ways of teaching the children, instead of just standing in front of the class and lecturing all day. The visual literacy and the digital storytelling can help the children who are visual learners learn the same concepts in a more efficient way.



This video that I found on youtube presents a way that you can cut out the background of a picture and change it to a different background. The video tells the viewer how to do this through written directions on slides and by showing them how to do it. The video uses visual literacy to explain the directions of using Photoshop. This video relates to what I learned in class this week because it explains how to use a part of Photoshop and it uses visual literacy, which is also something that I have been learning about in class.

Week 6- Media and Information Literacy

This week I learned about reading through the use of media and images which is called visual literacy. I watched a few videos on youtube that explained why visual literacy was important and how it can be incorporated into the classroom. I was also able to view some examples of visual literacy through videos and images. I learned about how to use photoshop and how it can be used to alter images. I was also able to view examples of other visual literacy projects so that I could be thinking of some ideas of my own.

I can use visual literacy in my own classroom one day because I can create videos with images and text to teach the class some of the concepts that I want to teach them as an alternative of verbally teaching them. These videos can be used as visual aides for the students who learn better through seeing in stead of hearing. I could even incorporate audio into the videos so that it could be beneficial for the students who learn visually and/or through audio.



This video that I found on youtube uses visual literacy in it to teach the viewer about how a teacher can incorporate visual literacy in the subject area that he or she teaches. Images of historical events can be used in a history class to help the students better understand the event that they are studying. Graphs and charts such as the periodic table can be used in math and science classes so that the students can learn these subjects through using visual aides as well. This video goes along with what I learned this week of why visual literacy is important and how it is used in society today.