Google Docs, Google Earth, Mind Mapping and Word Clouds

I really liked the word cloud tool. It was a really easy, fun tool that could easily be implemented in a classroom and it's a great way to present information in a creative, concise way. It's a lot more interesting and fun than writing an essay to describe research. I can already see how much I would love to implement this in my future class.

I made a word map for my activity, and I'm not sure how to efficiently implement that in a chemistry classroom. There isn't a lot of writing going on. But maybe we could use it as a way to organize like ideas? Or something. I'll have to brainstorm a lot about that.

I liked how easy it was to create forms in Google docs. For someone as un-tech savvy as myself, an easy way to create quizzes and invitations and such that are also interactive is great!

The Story of a Cat

http://storybird.com/books/the-story-of-a-cat-11/

This is a story I wrote in Storybird. I'll try to embed it later!

Animoto Video

Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Using some photos I happen to like, I created a quick 30 second video on Animoto. It was really easy! I was pretty surprised that someone like me could make something that looked this cool so quickly.

This is just documenting a few of my favorite things. I love everything about it! The photos and the ink template work well together in a very Alison sort of way. Plus the fact that I could use some Chopin music (my favorite composer) as the background music is fantastic. What an awesome tool!

Catching up...

I have been terribly neglecting my blog and I feel terrible about it. Ah. The ridiculousness that is working 30 hours a week and doing school full time. Oh well.

The week before Spring Break, my group presented social media, something highly prevalent in today's society. I really wish I had shown everyone the whole embedding of tweets in their blog like I did in my last post. That was an experiment and I wish I had thought of it ahead of time. It could have been a really cool way to share something with even more of your social media followers.

Additionally, this week we read about planning and using technology in the classroom. I was highly relieved to find out that partnering teachers are not really responsible for learning all the technology and presenting it to their students. It would be terribly overwhelming to try and take on such a task, especially for people who are not tech savvy like myself. It's also giving me new ideas of how to approach partnering, which I'm really learning a lot from as I had never really been in any partnering classrooms. Hopefully I have a lot more that I'll be learning!

"18 Obsolete Words That Never Should Have Gone Out of Style" (fun words, whether or not all are genuine) s.m-w.com/16uViNS

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) March 14, 2013

Prezi Activity

Moving to the Partnering Pedagogy

Last week we discussed podcasts and vodcasts. I think vodcasts are absolutely brilliant. What would be better way to explain a topic covered in class that students can access any time they need it? This would be really good because then you could visually demonstrate examples so that if students need additional help, they can review them whenever. It could be a good homework help and study tool for exams. I had trouble with the computer at school making a vodcast, but I'd like to try and create one and post it on here. Maybe next week!

Additionally, this week we read about moving towards partnering pedagogy. Firstly, I really liked how they gave examples of classroom setups. I was having difficulty envisioning what kinds of desk arrangements would support this, and the images in the book were great. I also really liked that they gave alternatives within partnering, especially how to ease into it. I have always been in honors classes where teachers lectured and told us what they want. One teacher even told me, "You just find out what the teachers need you to do and you do it. It's a game. You have to learn how to play it." Because the idea of assisting in my learning is so foreign to me, I would definitely need to figure out how to think in the way partnering works. It's so ingrained in me to just let teachers lecture, it'll take true effort on my part to get past that. But it's a task I'm willing to take on.