You may now call me Spielberg...=)

Today I made a movie!!!!!!  It's a masterpiece...in my mind. ha!  I thought it was so fun!  I have never used iMovie before, and it is so simple and fun.  To think that "I" could create something that resembles a film is remarkable. But it was an interesting project.  I kind of went back to my South African roots for this assignment.  I did a biography on Miriam Makeba, she was an international singer from South Africa who was exiled for her outspoken involvement in the anti-Apartheid movement.  She made Xhosa songs such as "Pata Pata" and "The Click Song" (because no-one knows how to spell how it sounds in English) famous around the world.  I organized a "South African Tea" at the Baptist Collegiate Ministries earlier in the Fall Semester, and had downloaded all of Makeba's songs to play as background music as the ladies and I drank tea and played South African trivia games.  So since I already had the "Pata Pata" song, it added a nice touch to my movie slideshow. 
I definitely will utilize this in my future classroom.  What a great way to get the students to feel like a community than to make a movie out of a field trip or class project.  There are also endless possibilities with regards to how you can apply this system to curriculum content.


I hope you enjoy looking and listening to "Mama Africa!"

Making things personal

First of all, I have to tell you something funny about class on Wednesday.  UT has just turned on the AC for all the buildings on campus, and of course, they can't set it at a normal temperature that would make us feel a slight breeze and be comfortable.  WE ALL FELT LIKE WE WERE IN ANTARCTICA!!!!!!!!!!!   We didn't stay the whole class period, we would've all turned into icicles by that time.
Our assignment in class was to catch up on any missed work, and then make our PLP profile a little more personal and professional...all at the same time.  We had to write a small paragraph about ourselves and our future educational goals, post a professional picture, and links to our Blog (this baby right here), and our classroom website.  Funny story.  When making my classroom website, I wrote in my name "Beth-Ann Duncan" to create the homepage, and some other person in Russia was named "Beth-Ann Duncan" and already had a classroom website!!!  What are the odds?!?!?!  So now when I sign into Google, I see the website that I created, and hers, because I haven't deleted it from my Google Docs profile yet.  I might keep it there a while. ha!
This assignment was pretty basic and straightforward.  It was nice to have a break from a big long assignment with lots of requirements from the rubric.  But hopefully everything is falling into place as the semester closes.  I feel like I have such a firmer grasp on technological content due to this class.  I mean, I now use Delicious DAILY!! 

Spreadsheets...are tricky.

Our assignment last week was to follow the specific instructions on a rubric to make a spreadsheet.  I have used Excel for years, but not at this level of advancement.  So silly me, I thought I could go ahead and finish the assignment myself....EVEN when Bill had said, "Now, let's all go through this one step at a time together, or, if you think you've got this, go ahead."  
Ok, there must have been something in the water that day, because in this class, I automatically STAY WITH THE GROUP!!!!  But I decided to be adventurous...and it led to a whole lot of confusion, and by the end giggles between me and my friend next to me cause she just zoomed through the entire thing.  But you know, I think my spreadsheet looks pretty good.  I feel comfortable going back and making another one, which is the purpose of these types of classes.  Getting used to using technology to benefit you in your future classroom.

Screenshot of my Spreadsheet:

Inspiration!!

 The Inspiration assignment was broken into two weeks, as our class is just a little slow at completing activities...always. =)  But I really liked the Inspiration program.  It is an extremely simple, and effective way to make visually pleasing graphic organizers in a small amount of time.  We had to make a graphic organizer of at least one topic, have three categories, three sub-categories, two notes, visuals, and the content standards for what we were creating.  I have a lot of interest in social studies, so I did a third grade standard on governments around the world.  My category was "Types of Government" and my three that I focused on were a "Dictatorship, Monarchy, and Democracy."  My organizer was pretty simple, but it could lead to a lot of discussion in the classroom, as I hit on issues such as Hitler's regime in WWII, the monarchy system in Brunei, and how the US has an extremely liberal stance on democracy compared to the rest of the world.  I believe this is a great tool for the classroom, and I hope my school buys the program so it can be used effectively for students.


Screenshot of my Graphic Organizer