Today, I didn't make it to class, but I've been working with Camtasia from home, and it's really neat. It takes a little getting used to, but I love the editing possibilities. I don't think my school would purchase it for me. That sucks, because I would think you would need a copy to view it. I'm about to investigate that right now....

Technology Portfolio and Group Project

I spent major time this weekend working on my technology portfolio, and knocked out all but five. I'll finish tomorrow.

Today in class, I tried to film a tutorial on how to use the Video Download Helper add-on in Firefox to download imbedded content from internet pages. I got about half-way from the end, and I couldn't access any sites that contained imbedded internet due to the censor filter on Latta's internet.

Went home and tried again. Not bad, but I'll probably shoot it one more time. Camtasia is pretty straight forward. It contains a timeline similar to Movie Maker for editing. You can add watermarks, or blur out sensitive information while filming. You can speed up segments. It's got some need features.

Smart Notebook and Technology Grants

Our last class featured some PowerPoints about software, hardware, and personalized homepages.  We then did a Smart Notebook presentation that had to be very interactive with the students. I've had training in ActivInspire, but this was really different and frustrating.
It took me forever to get it done.

We then had a crash course in grant writing that included only a rough outline, and questions to think about, but it didn't tell you what questions went with which section of the outline. I felt like we were not given enough direction. Doing my best, on mine, I have a grant source picked, am about 1/3 done. It's taken most of my time researching explanations for parts of the outline. While I've always wanted to learn how to write grants, I don't think my first one is going to be well written.

Kiosk Mode PPT and Web Quest

Today, we worked on a PowerPoint quiz that contained three multiple choice questions. It had to be saved in the kiosk mode, which means you have to hyperlink the slides to the one you want next. If the student picked a wrong answer, it would be hyper-linked to a slide that says try again, and that slide would be hyper-linked back to the missed question.If they got the question correct, it was hyper-linked to a slide that said,"Awesome Job." I also included an animated gif of fireworks when they correctly completed the quiz. 


I thought it was a pain because the hyper-links keep malfunctioning. First, I discovered it was due to an animation. I fixed that, but keep getting some slides that weren't working properly. It turns out that the kiosk mode is funny about punctuation. It was some exclamation points and commas messing it up. Fixed it, finally.


We then started a Web Quest project. I chose to do my for fourth grade students on the Fauves, the art movement. I found it fairly easy because I did quite a bit of research. I also tried to keep it as simple as possible. The hardest part was developing my rubric. I used www.rubistar.4teachers.org , but had to copy and paste into my word template. I still have a few extras I need to add.


Let me get busy on that!

Excel and Spreadsheets

In our last class, we covered Excel and spreadsheets. I had not covered Excel or spreadsheets since 1998. This was a good refresher for basics. I had forgotten how to create functions.

I was disappointed that we didn't get to use MS Access, because the lab computers didn't have it. 

We then started on our APA papers on teaching children of poverty using technology.  I really feel that all these papers on children of poverty are an overkill. That is one thing I wish they would illuminate from these classes.

First Day of Class

This class is very long. I am sure I'll be learning some new things later on, however, right now it is five slow hours. I also find it very distracting when Dr. Kaur gives program instructions while you're working. I've completed both the newsletter project and the brochure project. I don't like that both projects required a table. I had difficulty coming up with art related information for the tables.