"Life on Earth" interactive book

WOW! Checking out only a sample of this book made me want to take a science class! The visuals (pics/videos) were amazing and I particularly liked the interactive diagram of the insect. It just makes for more interesting learning. Just like a regular textbook, the teacher still needs to guide students in the learning process by assigning sections to read...asking them questions to check for understanding and allowing time for students to gather info from their teacher that may not have been answered or understood by reading the material.

Flipboard (learning task 2, week 5)

An app that finds articles for me...based on my interests? Although I do feel apps like Zite and Flipboard will appeal to "non-readers", I do believe their is something to be said for reading from an actual book, magazine or newspaper. Albeit, this may be a hang up for someone who was not born into a technologically advanced culture. I did find myself being easily distracted at times and just aimlessly flipping through the pages and only reading the introduction to an article...would some students do the same? Could this be a challenge? On a positive, I could see kids thinking this is a fun way to do research or just read info on topics that you choose to read about.

Scoop It

http://www.scoop.it/t/internet-safety-for-middle-schoolers

My first idea when checking out this site was "wouldn't this be a cool newsletter for parents". What a neat tool for connecting students, parents or colleagues to info on the web! I did have trouble with getting this to show up on my browser so I instead, copied and then would paste the site I wanted. This worked rather easily. I found some topics to follow including school counselor, bullying, middle school and apps for middle schoolers. This "feature" to me is similar to the boards on Pinterest.

Challenge 4 reflection

This challenge was going "smooth like butter" until it came to emailing the document to the blog. The workflow process came to a standstill as the email was not going through. I have received error messages in my inbox related to my blog email address...so something is amiss. I watched the video tutorial again (on how to email to blog) and am not seeing what is wrong. What worked a couple of weeks ago is not working now. My next step in trying to fix this challenge is to get direction from a colleague. If I were in a class with students, I would not hesitate to ask the class as students have more technology experience than myself. Apps tend to come with pretty good help buttons/info as well. So, the biggest workflow challenge I have faced is emailing to the blog. The apps used for this challenge were very cool. I continue to be amazed at what an iPad can do...minus the many steps it seems to take to get there. As I was saying to Aidan today (while learning to tie his shoes) "it's hard right now, but you can't give up...the more you practice, the easier it will be." I grew up without computers and taught myself so I figure I can learn this WITH help...right? 👍With a little more practice I can see how I can work on school stuff without having to lug my laptop around. It would also allow me to reflect on student work without bringing home a stack of papers...how cool is that.
http://db.tt/5JaY8lsg

Melissa Fisher has shared 'Creating A Screenshot.pdf' with you using Dropbox

Hi,

Here's a link to "Creating A Screenshot.pdf" in my Dropbox:

http://db.tt/gtsvQOuF

Sent from my iPad

Reflection: Digital Storytelling: "Memories of my Father"

Because of the length of my video, I am unable to create a link for my video. I was, however, successful in posting my video on Facebook. Some of you are on my friends list and are welcome to see the video on my wall. I welcome some feedback!
In checking all 3 apps this week, I felt that I movie was the best app for the kind of story I wanted to tell and what I wanted to include. I was inspired bus story i viewed called " my mother's socks.". A teacher did a video in memory of her mother. I then decided I wanted to do a story about my father who died almost 2 years ago. I wanted the story to include pictures, music and a personal recording and I movie seemed the best fit. I Movie seemed to have more options and abilities for easy editing. The drawback is that I could not just email the video. I did upload it to Dropbox but when you view it it was choppy. Not sure if this is because of the length of the video? Professionally I was thinking that maybe some of my students would find it helpful to write/create a story related to a loss or create stories when discussing bullying or conflict resolution. I found this to be a fun process. I know students enjoy doing role plays in guidance class and this could create another way to practice and show what they have learned without it feeling like its a writing assignment per se.

Module 2, Challenge 2

Using the online whiteboards of Educreation and Explain Everything was fun and interesting (to say the least)! I don't know about other people, but I found myself being very critical with my recordings. Now I know how an actor feels when they take several shots of one scene! The final video is attempt 6...and that's my own doing! I wonder if I would do better if I wrote out a "script"? At one point I thought...good lord, do I sound like this in class??? I can see the benefits of this tool as a different way of getting info to students. I like that they can go back and hear what you had to say again if they didn't quite understand the first time around. A tool for them to use as well to present information.