Reaction to Stop Motion Animation

It didn’t take long to do the Stop Motion Animation at all. We went outside to film and I was the camera man. Both the girls (Morgan and Danielle S.) were in sun-ware and I directed them on when to stop and when to go. It just got to the point where I would flash the camera and say go. I had tried clicking the camera continuously and allowing it to just flow that way with the flashes catching up to the actual amount of pictures the camera would take. Later on I found out that that wasn’t the best idea because the pictures were distorted, flipped, colored, angled, etc. and we had to film the scene all over again. We didn’t mind filming over again because it didn’t take long at all. I believe we had about two or three hundred frames and it took no time at all to do it. Honestly I feel that it was more of a pain in the neck to do the editing than to do the actual filming itself. It wasn’t hard to actually edit, it just took us a bit of a minute to learn how to navigate the program we were using which I think was iMovie. Over all it was a good experience that I would have never tried on my own essentially meaning I would have never found out that I could do it. Im glad we were forced/given this opportunity! =)
*B.C.*

Chapter 10: Assessing Meaningful Learning with Technology

Chapter ten is about assessing meaningful learning with technology. In reading this chapter I revisited a lot about assessment like authentic assessment along with performance and alternative assessment. Prior to this class I had explored these types of assessment so there wasn’t much that I learned in this chapter. Assessing growth through portfolios is something that we learned in the paper form so this chapter just explained how to transfer them into electronic portfolios. That was one of the forms of technology-based assessments that the book explores. A benefit to doing the E-portfolio is that they are easy to update and show the progression made from the beginning to the end. There are also technology based rubrics and even Clicker assessment tools which we were able to use in class. These are very beneficial, especially since students have the option to submit their answers anonymously. There wasn’t much to learn in this chapter since our previous classes had covered so much on assessment, it was just more on how to convert them into electronic documents.
*B.C.*

Chapter 9: Visualizing W/ Technologies

Chapter nine is about visualizing technologies. One of the major focuses on this chapter is how to use technology as a visual benefit. A lot of the ideas offered in this chapter are beneficial to students that need to visualize problems or work in order to fully understand the message being conveyed. One of the programs discussed is “Visualizing Geography With Geographic Information Systems”, students can use manipulative in order to express a number, compound, or possibly an entire equation. Students can solve just like they would with a pen and paper and writing out numbers and calculate them but with the manipulatives students can get a better understanding and can learn what it is the numbers are representing. Visualizing with technologies can be used in so many more ways than this, however; computers and computer programs can be used for maps, Google Earth, and for more mathematical ideas like on a graphing calculator. On a more contemporary level, this chapter explores visualizing with digital cameras and mobile phones. Cell phones, cameras, and cell phones with cameras are steadily becoming a commonly used item across the board and that includes our elementary school students. Finding ways to use these in a classroom will help to grab the students attention and become interested in more ways they can use their cell phones. Recording students presentations and allowing them to watch them back can be extremely beneficial because students get to see their own work and can help give constructive criticism to themselves. Also, it gives students new areas to learn and possibly specialize in like filming, editing, production, etc. This is beneficial because this is not a commonly explored area in classrooms so some students may actually have a knack for this but they are never really given the opportunity to explore it. This chapter was very informative and helpful, I even saw things that would help me as a teacher like video modeling and feedback.
*B.C.*

Exit Slip 4/6/10

Todays class was information packed and I was able to catch all of it as I conducted the “what we did in class wiki”. There was a lot of interesting information used in each chapter and I learn quite a few things from chapter that may be useful in my classroom. We worked on out Stop Motion Animation that is almost complete and actually was rather simple.
*B.C.*