Applications

This week the assignment was to check out some free online applications and review them. I wanted to check them all out so I could see what exactly was available. When I tried to do the Picnikhttp://www.picnik.com/ one it said that it was going to be moving and I didn't know what that meant for availability later so I didn't bother with that one. As for the FotoFlexer http://fotoflexer.com/ it wouldn't let me type any text in the photo frame. I'm not sure if anyone else had that issue. I really liked the other two Image Editing sites though. In Phixr http://www.phixr.com/, I was able to edit my photo, add text, change the color, rotate it, use their photos if I wanted to, and I could place the text any where on the photo I wanted to. It was very easy to use and could be used with any age. As for the Sumo Paint http://www.sumopaint.com , this site was my favorite and I spent the most time on this site. It has many options from drawing, to painting, to using shapes and even erasing them. If a mistake is made it is easy to erase the mistake and start over. Pages can be layered to create a new effect, you can also add pictures and paint on those or do effects to your pictures like the other applications. It is really cool to look at what has been created by others too. Being an artist I would love to play with this tool more but I don't know how comfortable I am drawing on the computer I prefer having the tools at hand. I find it a challenge to actually use the computer to develop a project like that. But I want to explore it more because I found it to be very fun. I did find it a little challenging because there were a lot of options so I think this would have to be for a more advanced class or an older class to accomplish something of higher quality. If you don't mind your students accomplishing something of low grade than I think it would be for 4th grade and up. If you were to use it often they could master the skills too, though.

The office Suites applications my absolute favorite is Google Documents https://docs.google.com/ because I think it is easy to use and I love it. I have used it for many projects already. I was able to link a Google document to my Google site without a problem. I have had a few group projects on campus that I used Google projects for, I just learned how to use Google documents this semester but I loved it so much I showed my groups how to use it. It was easy to do a group paper using the document feature, as long as the others participated. One person starts the document and invites the others in the group to be editors and as long as they have Google accounts they can edit the document. The teacher can view the document or comment if you add her to do so too. Then the document tracks everyone who has participated in contributing to the project. It automatically saves itself as you go, this is great for elementary age, but also great for those who are forgetful at saving. Google document also has other features like charts and a drawing area. Plus Google documents can be accessed from anywhere not just a personal computer.

I also checked out Zoho http://www.zoho.com/, it has things that seem like they could come in handy for office and class. It has a calendar that I thought would be great for using in class. If students and the teacher had an account the teacher could e-mail students reminders on assignments that came up. It also has a chart creator that could come in handy for math projects, and an application for making quizzes. It also has a application for detecting bug's that come up in your site. This site can also link you to others giving you resources and keeping you connected to other educators which can really be a great thing.

Google Sites

I am using my google site as an inspiration for teaching. So any kind of inspirations I have for teaching I will put on there, quotes, my own mission statement and lesson plans I develop. I may even find photo's or things like that I may be inspired by. What ever it may be I figured I could easily post it there. Then if I get discouraged by a failure in technology :0) I can go look at an inspiration to pick me back up!I created a link for site but it won't actually link to it, so I put the web-address below just in case so you can go to it anyway.


https://sites.google.com/site/inspirationsforteaching/

Google Documents

Here are some picture's I was able to upload since I couldn't get Jing to work right. It show's the Google chrome search engine,the area where you choose to start a new document, a document I've already started with a couple of people and then there's the area where you can share the document and the different setting's you can actually set the sharing to.

Concept Map

Creative Writing Class

I did my concept map on a lesson plan for a creative writing class or a Language arts class. I would be able to use this as an inspiration for learners because they can see the basic concepts of the projects they are going to be doing. Although I would have liked to included pictures but wasn't able to and I also would have liked to included reading examples of the poetry and the short stories so students can see actual examples of what it is I want them to do I can always do that later in class. I would also like to have an example of a book for them to look at as an example of what I want them to create. Sometimes it is easier for students to have visuals to learn from, I know it is me, so that is what a concept map is good for. But when you can't really add pictures it's hard to have those visuals. Although you can always use main ideas of the projects so they know what they are to do next. Mine is a little more detailed then the main ideal concept. But it doesn't have all the instructions. Students could also use a concept map in a project to set up their own thinking of how they plan to do a research project or do group projects and determine who is going to work on what.

Google Document Jing Video

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I can't get it to work no matter what I do. I was finally able to get Jing to accept my images through a different computer but I wasn't able to post a video. I tried many times it keep saying there wasn't a page for it. And I couldn't get the images to stay in the right order, very frustrating. This is why I think it would be difficult for me to incorporate technology in the classroom with out someone who knows how to actually do this kind of stuff. My instructions were on how to use google documents in the classroom. I went step by step showing how to enter through either internet explorer then search for google or to use google as your main web browser. Then the students would need to create a google account to use google documents. One student would have to be the owner of the account and set up the document. They would click on document which is one of the top search engines with images or news etc. Once they've done that they will come to an area where they will have to click on create so they can create a document, but there will be other options in there too that they can use later on too. Then a blank page will come up and the student can type their paper in the document and it saves automatically in the document and it can be accessed from any where there is internet. There is an option called share at the top right corner that the student can click on and add the other students. But the student most choose to what degree he wants to share this document. Students can be editors, may comment, or just view the document. If they are working on a project together they want to be able to edit it. But a student may want to add their teacher as someone who can comment. Students can also remove anyone any time they want to. Although a student may have many documents saved in google not all can be viewed by thease people. Everything is saved automatically too, which is very handy. My jing video was suppose to show this but I couldn't get it working I will keep trying but I figured I would write about it at least.

Jing

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