Digital Newsletters to a Classroom Near You

Newsletters are a common feature in many schools. Many of the teachers at my campus send one home each week with the students. Having the opportunity to create an original newsletter for just my class and publish it electronically was a new experience for me. For the past year or so, I have been hearing more and more about companies "going green" and not sending out paper copies of anything from monthly billing statements to company newsletters. I think it is only appropriate for educators to keep up with this trend, if for no other reason than to show other professionals that what their kids are learning in school can and will translate into their future role in society.
In creating my own newsletter, I explored the variety of templates already available on my version of Microsoft Office, as well as a couple of templates sent to me from friends. I found a template in Word that met my needs and began typing away. The template was very easy to manipulate and actually a lot of fun to play around with. I had to keep in mind the audience and purpose of my newsletter. (Lamb, 2005). I knew that I wanted to involve my students in the production of such a work as a means of spotlighting the work they do and allowing them to practice their writing skills in evaluating the work of our class and themselves. I had previously created newsletters in Word, but not with nearly as much appeal because I was totally oblivious to the CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity) that goes into published work.
I put a lot of thought into the creation of my class newsletter, wanting it to be more than just a class assignment. In planning, I set aside a portion for my students to write about our "Student of the Week", a place for nice things to be said about others to build their self-image. I also wanted to include a student reveiw of the week - a summary of what was learned in class from the perspective of the students. The items I had direct control over were fairly easy to get into the newsletter. I did have to spend some time thinking about the different topics to write about and what the parents would deem relevant to them. Even more time went into the evaluation of the newsletter before publishing it. Criteria such as "format, content, and layout" were gone over to make sure that the end product was "clear and easy to use". (Lamb, 2005).
I definitely see this being incorporated more into my classroom. One of my goals for after the Christmas break is to have students create their own newsletter that they can take home and show their parents what they are learning in their own words. This is a great way to use the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy at the digital level - creating and publishing a personal newsletter would fall under the "creating" level on the taxonomy. (Churches, 2008).

Churches, Andrew. (2008). Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally. Retreived from http://www.techlearning.com/article/8670

Lamb, Annette. (2005). Planning Newsletters. Retreived from http://eduscapes.com/sessions/publishing/planning.htm

Lamb, Annette. (2005). Evaluating Newsletters. Retreived from http://eduscapes.com/sessions/publishing/evaluating.htm

Animation Fun

This week I got to learn another great tool - Stykz. This free download is a great start into basic animation. I can imagine many uses for this in my classroom, such as adding animation to my digital newsletter I send out. I can also show this to my students so they can create their own to demonstrate the different things we are learning in class. For my first attempt, I just stuck with the stick man, but in the future I would like to explore making different objects to animate. Enjoy!

Design Elements from the Past

This week I explored the British Library website's "Online Gallery". Using the tool, "Turn the Page", I had the opportunity to look through the pages of a Bible from Ethiopia. This book is hundreds of years old and the language itself is not at all understnadable to those who have not studied this ancient language for years, but it is remarkable that even then, design elements were used to keep a visual interest in the text being recorded.
The first design element, contrast, is noted on almost every page with the use of different colored words to distinguish the importance of different lines of text. The second element, repetition, is noticed in the layout of typically having a picture on the left page and the text on the right. The third element, alignment, is seen in the pictures being center aligned with the biblical character being larger than other objects in the picture. The fourth and final element, proximity, is seen in the way the pages portraying the life of Jesus are presented together, before going into the gospels of each disciple.
It is very interesting to me to see how we are going back to our "roots" in the way we design our communication. All of the design elements that we incorporate into modern communication were actually used hundreds of years ago to make the message understandable and enduring to all who see it.

Creating a PSA

For the past three weeks, I have been working with a great team from across the state to create my first public service announcement. Our pre-production process involved lots of brainstorming. I created a new Google doc for us to use and generate ideas. We were very fortunate, I thought, to have a team member with experience in creating PSA's with his students. He proved to be a plethora of ideas and knowledge throughout the course of this activity. Once we created our game plan, each of us took different elements of the piece that played to our strengths. We each collected shots that we felt would be useful to the PSA theme - encouraging voters to vote. During the actual production of the PSA, our team decided to each try putting together a sample of what came to mind, and sent it via e-mail to each other for critique. Post production followed the critiques and the final video was published to www.schooltube.com to share with the world.
I think if our group had more time to invest in working on this project, a more detailed final product may be possible. However, considering we all just started a new school year, I feel that we did a good job with the time and abilities we had.
For the still shots we used in our PSA, we relied on free stock photos from www.istockphoto.com. We also incorporated music from www.soundzabound.com.
Working through the Google doc allowed communication to be more fluid than e-mails. Each of us chose a different color to type in and then we were able to keep on running record of the production process we used throughout this collaborative process.

The Value of Web Conferencing

Sadly, I have missed the web conferences that were available for Week 2 of my Multimedia class. However, this did not stop me from pouring over the ten page long transcript sent to us by our Academic Coach.
I do feel that web conferencing is a very valuable tool to have, especially when those you are meeting are spread out over distances. Since beginning my Master's work, I have participated in about three or four web conferences and all of helped me learn more about my understanding of technology and its value in education.
After reading the transcripts of the last web conference, I was able to have many of my personal questions about using video editing software answered. I would have liked to have asked someone about posting a podcast and which sites are the most user friendly for uploading them. This part of our assignment this week was a struggle for me, and I wonder if the assignment would have been easier if I had someone to ask.
All in all, web conferencing is a very valuable resource. Many questions get answered, many more good questions are asked, and the value of being a part of the class is something that can not be replaced. Even though transcripts were provided, I feel like a student getting notes after being sick from school - it's just not the same.

My first podcast

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Crossing Over from PC to Mac

I have spent practically all of my computer experience as a PC user and I must admit that is where my comfort lies. When I returned for teacher inservice week last month, I was asked about piloting a Mac-book at our campus. I immediately jumped at the chance to learn something new and have been trying to stay on top of the differences between PC and Mac. When I started my multimedia class the following week and saw that Apple iMovie was a program for us to test out, I again was up for a challenge. While I am still waiting for my Mac-book to arrive, I did get to play on a friend's Mac this week and try out iMovie for myself.

I was a bit apprehensive getting started in iMovie, not knowing what to expect, but I was surprised at how similar to PhotoStory3 and Microsoft Movie Maker this program actually is. Bringing in pictures, video, and audio works the same as the PC programs. My favorite part of using iMovie was being able to set a theme to a video.

Currently, there are only two elementary schools in our district using Macs consistently, and my campus will soon bring us to three if all goes well this year. As with any of the video editing software programs available, there are plenty of applications to the classroom where video editing will be a great asset. One way that I have started brainstorming with the teachers at my school involves creating video storybooks of student writing to share with family. Other was to use this tool that I have read about this week include:
-storyboards (which our 4th grade teachers have used for years with writing)
-creating a video alphabet (maybe using math or science vocabulary to wrap up a unit of study)
-make a new ending to a take the place of or "follow the last scene of a story or event"
-adapt a scene or story (similar to the new ending, but it's the students own version of a story)

Once you have finished crating your masterpiece in iMovie, you will want to save your work as a mpeg file if you are planning to share over the computer. PC computer users will need to have QuickTime or Windows MediaPlayer on their computer to view the finished product.

While it may still be a while for my district to completely cross-over from PC to Mac, there are plenty of districts around the world that use Mac daily and would greatly benefit from using iMovie.

Classroom applications referenced from:
Garrison, A. (1999, Winter). Video Basics and Production Projects for the Classroom. Center for Media Literacy. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article3.html

Working with PhotoStory 3

I just finished my first video story in PhotoStory 3 and loved how simple it was to use! I have previously worked in Windows MovieMaker, which is also pretty easy to navigate, but this was very user friendly. Even my friends who claim to be techno-phobes would really be amazed at how much they could do with this.
The most difficult part of this entire process was actually getting started. Once I found a topic I could enjoy working with, the rest really seemed to fall into place. For my story, I chose pictures of my own family from our snow days we had in February and March of this year. Setting up my storyboard was a lot like what we have our fourth graders do in writing, so I just combined the ideas of a hand-written storyboard and my digital pictures to create a digital story.
I can see multiple applications for this type of project with my students throughout the school year as we work through different units in math, science, and social studies. This first story I plan to share with our writing teachers, so they can share it with their students as a possible way to publish a story the students write this year. It would be a great experience for the students and the teachers.

Instuctional Design in 21st Century Learning

Creating and implementing online learning is a time consuming process, but the benefits for educators who create such learning environments find benefits beyond what can be achieved in the traditional classroom. Educators who take the time to learn how to design and implement online curriculum know what the expectations of learning are and do not have to rely on an outside source to set the guidelines for learning. The courses created by educators can be tailored to meet the needs of current students of specific populations. For example, a teacher might create an online course to re-teach or review a concept not fully grasped in class, where the contents of the online course are more personalized to the learning styles of the students in the course. Another benefit is the increasing use of distance learning. Students in different schools can participate in the same online course and the teacher can use the course to learn about students from many different locations. This can benefit both educators and students in large and small school districts and universities.
The online course I created during this class is one I plan to bring back in the next school year. Math is an area where many young students don't always feel their strength lies, especially when it comes to problem solving. This being said, I do plan to go back and make revisions to the original design of the course. My goal is to get more resources available to help students better understand the process of problem solving and number sense - to "take the mystery out of numbers." I would like to find or create active models showing students the importance of taking what they already know about math and making it work with the problem they are trying to solve. For example, if a fourth grader can read a story problem and know that the problem they have to solve is 25x23, but they aren't strong with their multiplication skills and they don't want to add, I want them to see that they can break 23 down to 20+3,then multiply 25x20 and 20x3, and finally add the two products. This kind of thinking pushes students to really think about what they know about numbers and verbalize it, a concept not always emphasized in math.
I would definitely like to integrate online learning in my role as a teacher. If I am able to provide my students with more opportunity to be engaged in what they are learning in and out of the classroom, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure the opportunity is made available. I can see multiple uses for online learning as a teacher. For example, if I have students who are working further ahead than the rest of the class, creating an online course to allow them the opportunity to be challenged and work at their level would be advantageous in order to prevent this group from "checking out" or becoming discipline problems because they are bored. On the opposite end of that, if I have struggling students able to work in an online environment to re-teach skills, this too helps prevent problems before they can start and offers students an opportunity to catch up to the rest of the class.
After having the opportunity to create and implement my own online course, I still have a few questions about the use of online learning. My most recurring question is in regards to knowing if my students are actually understanding what they are practicing online. As a teacher, you can tell in a variety of ways if your students understand - the look on their faces, if they are wasting time not completing the assignment, etc. In an online course, you don't have these cues to guide your next moves as a teacher. Going along with this same question of the students "getting it," I am curious to know the actual retention of this kind of learning, especially with the elementary grades since this is the population I work with. I want to know if they will remember what they are learning in an online environment better than what they remember in a regular classroom environment.
Throughout this course, I have really enjoyed learning about backward design. I plan to incorporate this design in my planning for the next school year. In creating my online course, I found planning a challenge using backward design, because I wanted to plan the activities first. However, once I got my end goal set up using the district guidelines and TEKS, I was able to plan more meaningful activities for my students to use. I have a new appreciation for planning curriculum that encompasses the objectives necessary and appropriate for each grade. The activities created through backward design planning are more meaningful to the students because they are engaging and they relate to what the students are expected to know. I am going to take this understanding of backward design and use it to create meaningful curriculum for me to use in the classroom and beyond.