Thing #23

Finally!! I am here at the 23rd thing. I never thought I would make it. To be honest, I never would have without the help of VB. My favorite bits were all the image stuff and projects dealing with images. I was happy to finally learn how to do narration in Photostory. Learning how to calibrate the internal mic made a huge difference. I think Photostory has some amazing possibilities for students. Powerpoint is dead, Photostory lives to replace it. This will be huge for me. I also like igoogle. It was fun to customize this page for my own needs and likes. I will keep using it all year. This program hasn't really changed my lifelong learning patterns or goals. I am always up for learning something new IF I have adequate time to devote to it, and am not pressured by deadlines, I don't like being pressured. Most of it was unexpected because I did not know much of the information. As far as doing something differently, I think it would have helped me to have more actual face to face time with an instructor that knew what they were doing. We had 2 meetings that were helpful, but I could have used more. That might also have helped my frustration level. Also, MORE TIME! I had alot of other things going on, so it was not easy to squeeze this in. Especially since each thing took hours and hours of online time.
I'm not sure if I would participate in a similiar program. It would depend on the parameters. I need a teacher, and more time to finish. To describe my learning experience in one sentence:
It was an amazing, fun, informative, stressful, angst-producing experience, I'm glad it's over.

Thing #22

I went to Texas School Librarians. This site was rich with diverse resources for teachers and librarians. There were videos and photos, chats and blogs. I think it would be a great tool for someone just starting out. They could get a great deal of support from this site. And many different ideas for projects and things to do with students. I think it would also be a great site for someonw who has been around for a while and needs some new, fresh ideas.

Thing #20

I looked at videos in utube and teachertube. Why is it everyone else can find really amazing videos, but the ones I find are just wretched? Did not see any instructions telling how to download a video. Am struggling with this one.




So, here is my video from teacher tube. VB helped me again, I could not have done it without her. Thanks VB.

Thing #21

I created a photostory with music. In audacity I recorded my narration. But I cannot figure out how to get my narration into the photostory or how to link it all on my blog. Thank goodnes for VB. She helped with setting up the mic on my laptop, and I was able to record my narration in Photostory. Yea!! thank you VB, I could not have done it without you! You ROCK!!

Thing #19

I decided to play with picnik which is a free photo editing software. Seems to be a poor man's Photoshop. You can do many of the same things you can with Photoshop such as: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, colors, sharpen, red eye and more. It is not as powerful as photoshop, but not as expensive also. I liked this and thought it was fun, but it kept asking me if I wanted to upgrade to picnik premium for a new low, low price. Students could use this in conjuction with powerpoint or photostory to edit and manipulate photos they have taken themselves or gotten off the web.

Thing #18

I explored google docs. At first I thought I would like it, but thenI started having difficulties with the program. When I tried to edit and change font size it did not change all the type. I went in several times, highlighted specific type, but still could not get it to change the size. But it changed the size of other parts of the text. Very wierd. Also, my choices of font and other design aspects were totally limited. I hate that. I like to have many choices when it comes to designing a page. That seems to be common thread with all this online stuff, the design choices are very limited.

I prefer the choices I get with Microsoft Office. I did like the fact that I could edit a page anywhere in time and space, convenient. Also that I could share. I could have collaborators that had edit rights. Or just viewers with no edit rights. It's kind of like a wiki. I think I prefer Microsoft Word; more freedom and more choices.

Thing #17

I watched the video of Rollyo. It was good, but I got a little confused toward the end. Too much information. I registered on Rollyo and created a jewelry searchroll. This all went pretty well. But then I had trouble with attaching a link. Then I couldn't get my websites to show up. Guess I need to view the video again.I'll keep trying.