iMovie

This week I learned how to use iMovie, which is a tool for producing multimedia videos.  It can be used to tell stories in a digital format.  While it was very easy to interact with, I am not sure that it will be a very practical tool for my classroom.

The software itself is very self-explanatory, although it does take some time to get adjusted to it's format  I did not like that it was not very easy to move the different stills around.  I found that I also had to be very careful when I placed the subtitles onto the slides, because it would place the title for only part of the clip if I did not have the whole clip selected. I also found that it was very challenging to keep the time length of the slides consistent.  I was very disappointed that I could not save my project to DropBox so that I could work at it on my home computer.  I ended up just redoing my entire project, because I could not make it back to the lab.

Although I had some problems the program is typically very easy to use.  You can figure it out mostly by playing around with the program.  I like how simple it was to post to YouTube when I was done with my project.  If I use this tool in my classroom I will use it to post the stories that we are covering that week in class to my website.  I will use Picassa to share pictures.

Animoto

Make your own slide show at Animoto.

ActivInspire

I really enjoyed learned how to use ActivInspire and Promethean Boards this week.  I had not had previous experience with working with any kind of interactive white board prior to this class.  I found that it is a wonderful tool that I plan on using in the future if my classroom was the technology.
I found the software to be pretty user-friendly although when I decided to do one of the more complicated features I had to google step by step instructions.  The menus are very easy to locate and use.  One of my favorite features that I found was the ability to insert YouTube videos using their HTML code.  When I had wanted to insert a video into a PowerPoint I found that I had to download the video and insert it that way.
I did not like that you had to click on each object individually.  I found that this process was very time consuming, especially when there were a lot of objects on the page.  I also did not like that the clipart seemed very limited.  I know that this problem can be fixed with resource packs, but I would have thought there would have been more to begin with.
I plan to use this tool in my classroom for interactive activities.

Inspiration

I was pleasantly surprised upon working with Inspiration.  The program seemed to be a little outdated and useless when I first became acquainted with it.  While the program is a little complicated at first, it quickly became one of my new favorite resources.  I am very driven my visual organization and this program fits perfectly into just about anything that you would need to organize, whether it be curriculum or comparing apartments.
I found that Inspiration was very slow on my home computer.  It could be because I only have the free trial and not the software, but I found it very frustrating.  The program also crashed, which caused me to lose my original project due to not saving it periodically.  Despite a few annoyances, I found that the program was very useful and applicable to a wide range of projects.
This program would be wonderful for organizing any subject that I would be teaching.  It would be especially useful for Language Arts and Science where thought maps are very useful.

Scavenger Hunt

I really enjoyed this assignment. It was an opportunity to use real world examples for something that I will actually use in my classroom. I had not previously used Picassa Web or Google Presentation before this class. I found that both tools were very easy to use, and were quite helpful. My group was assigned to find take pictures of objects that demonstrated the ABC's. It was relatively easy to locate these items across campus. We took the pictures that we took on campus and placed them in a shared dropbox folder so that all the members in our group had access to the photos. I found that Google Presentation was the most useful tool that I learned through this assignment. I have access to my presentation wherever I have an internet connection. I actually used this tool for another class and it was very helpful. My presentation was very fast to access compared to my classmates who had put their presentations on flash drives or emailed them to themselves. I enjoyed using Picassa, but I don't know how much I will be editing photos for my classroom. It will be very easy to share photos of my classroom with parents and colleges.

Google Presentation

Smilebox

A digital collage by Smilebox