BP8_Links to RILS Comments

I really enjoyed seeing everyone's videos for the RILS assignment. Find links to two of my favorites below!!


Follow this LINK to my comment on Hunter's blogtastic blog!!!!

Follow this LINK to my comments on Doreen's blog

Final Project

Introducing my student's to Prezi was the most wonderful thing I could have done to start the year off! They are so used to doing all computer based presentations on power point. When they saw the features of Prezi on the examples I showed them, their little eyes opened as wide as they could go.
I introduced the lesson, and that got them hyped already. I always start the school year with lots of ice breakers and getting to know you activities. This year I focused the first week on culturally relevant material. We talked a lot about where each of the kids families originated from, their heritage, traditions etc. This was a great start to build on and tap into their prior knowledge for my create your own holiday Prezi project.
I showed them how they could create a Power Point and just simply import their slides into the Prezi and play with it from there. I also showed them the basics of how to simply create in the Prezi itself and let them watch the tutorial on the basic functions of the tool. I offered extra credit to anyone who wanted to create directly in Prezi, and full credit to all those who simply imported their slides from Power Point. I had several that wanted to dive right in and get their extra credit, and they found features and easy ways to do things that I hadn't discovered yet. This presentation style opened up so many good technology conversations and new ideas in the minds of my students, more than I had ever hoped for. By doing a project and introducing a new piece of technology into it for them, I think really made it more exciting for them. I had NO students not complete their project, and so many that begged for extended time to get everything just right. I can't wait until next week when we have presentation day and my students get to share their masterpieces, I have yet to see my 8th graders so proud and smell such a sense of accomplishment in the air. Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenarios are the way to go!!!

Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario

Kimberly Duran

1.     Target Audience- 8^th grade inner city AVID Students

2.     Materials –

·      Construction paper

·      Markers

·      Scissors

·      Paper

·      Pen/pencil

·      Computer with internet

3.     Objectives –

·      Reflect and celebrate students’ individual and family traditions, methods, and religions. (Bloom’s-understanding, analyzing, evaluating)

·      Assist students in tapping into their own creativity as they research how to plan, create, and present their traditions to the class. (Bloom’s analyzing, evaluating, creating)

              At the end of this scenario the learner will be able to:

·      Analyze the origin of holidays and traditions based on family, traditions and/or religions.

·      Research and plan a new holiday based on the criteria provided.

·      Create a Prezi slideshow following guidelines provided.

1.     Procedure –

·      Instructor will share some of the common holidays that we have in America and the reason for these holidays, methods of celebration, traditional dress and food.

·      Students will review the list of holidays and answer the following prompts:

o   What is your favorite holiday?

o   What makes that your favorite holiday?

o   Describe some of your best memories that happened on or around that holiday.

·      Have the students share their answers to the questions at their tables/groups.

·      Post the following prompt on the board:

o   If you had the power to incorporate a new holiday into the calendar, based on some of your individual/family traditions, what would the holiday be?

o   After deciding on the holiday, have students answer the following questions about their holiday:

Ø  Name of the holiday

Ø  Date in the year

Ø  Colors

Ø  Symbols

Ø  Foods

Ø  Tradition

Ø  How this holiday started/what inspired this holiday?

Ø  Why does this holiday still exist today?

·      Students are to complete a Prezi presentation to ask Congress about adopting this new holiday. Be sure to include all the facts about this holiday and why it would be so important to have it added to the calendar.

·      Debrief

o   Following the completion of the presentations, students will reflect on the following:

Ø  How did it feel to share your family traditions with your classmates?

Ø  Were there other holidays in the class that you particularly enjoyed? Which holidays were they and why?

2.     Web 2.0 Tool – Prezi - Prezi is a presentation software that can open up a new world for your students between whiteboards and slides. It offers a never ending canvas that can be zoomed in and out on making it a fun way to explore ideas and relationships between them resulting in creative and entertaining presentations.

3.     Social participation/social learning: Several types of activities will go on through out the process of this assignment. Students will build upon prior knowledge through instructor explanation of different holidays.  They will also create several pieces of writing when answering the prompts given.  Collaboration will occur through discussion of their answers to the writing prompts. For more collaborative opportunities, assign groups and have each group come up with their own holiday instead of making it an individual project.

4.     Making connections –

a)    Students will connect with prior knowledge when the instructor gives a thorough explanation of each American holiday. Many of them probably know the holidays but may not know the origin, traditional dress etc.

b)   Students will be connected with relevance through discussion of the project objectives. Explaining to them that the purpose of the project is to celebrate and share each individuals family traditions etc. will make it relevant because it is relevant to their lives & families. Also allowing them to create something of their own gives them choices and ownership in the creation of knowledge, which will further engage them and add to the relevancy of the assignment.

c)    Learners will connect with a local or global audience through sharing out there presentations.

1.     Create/produce – The finished product will be a Prezi presentation asking Congress to adopt their newly created holiday.

2.     Assessment –

Criteria	90-100  A	80-89   B	70-79     C	60-69    D	0-59    F
All 8 facts included	All 8 questions answered to the best of the student’s ability	Only 6 criteria questions answered	Only 4 criteria questions answered	Only 2 criteria questions answered	Required Criteria is not included
Images/ visuals	At least one visual present on every slide	Visuals present on only half the slides	¾ of the slides contain visuals	¼ of the slides contain visuals	No visuals included on the slides
Cohesion/ flow	The order of the movement of the Prezi has definite flow	Half of the Prezi has definite order and flow	¾ of the Prezi has definite order and flow	¼ of the Prezi has definite order and flow	There is no order to the entire Prezi
Visibility	All text and visuals in each movement are fully visible	Half of the text and visuals in each movement are fully visible	¾ of the text and visuals in each movement are fully visible	¼ of the text and visuals in each movement are fully visible	No visuals or text are fully visible in the movement of the Prezi.
Title & Closing Slide	Prezi includes a title & closing slide	Prezi includes only a title or closing slide			Prezi does not include a title or closing slide

3.     Reflection

a.     Learner’s will reflect on the experience through answering the debrief questions:

How did it feel to share your family traditions with your classmates?

Were there other holidays in the class that you particularly enjoyed? Which holidays were they and why?

b.     The instructor will reflect through:

1.     Evaluating the number of completed projects

2.     Evaluating the grades on the projects

3.     Open discussion or survey from the students asking for feedback on the assignment.

PE5-Prezi

Once I got Prezi up and running I started exploring the features. There was another new one that allowed me to pick new theme templates for the presentation.

Once I chose a theme and created a path for my slides I ran through a show of the presentation and it actually looked pretty nice with the slides in there, I was surprised. I am looking forward to having my students create a Prezi using this method!!!!

Check out the Prezi I created by clicking here!!!

PE4-Prezi

So I decided to use Prezi to practice creating the assignment I gave for my RILS. First I went through the steps of the lesson plan and gathered my information. Then I went into Prezi and went through a few of the tutorials to see if I could learn to use any new features.

During this process I discovered that I could import slides from a power point or keynote speech and use them in the Prezi. I wanted to try this because a lot of my students know how to use power point and this may be a great way to segway into their comfort level of Prezi. So I created a power point.

I then went to Prezi to try and import my slides. It worked just as it should, so I thought.....I clicked import slides but noticed that it seemed to be running a little slow....but finally they popped up.

After that, nothing in Prezi would work. I would click and nothing would work. It kept talking several seconds to load and would not allow me to use any features. I tried not to panic and called my computer tech friend, he suggested that I reinstall Safari and update my Flashplayer.

Phew!!! It worked, and I was back in business!!!!!

BP7_OneMinuteVideoTrackClassCommercial

BP4_Quizlet

Today while researching web 2.0 tools I found a simple but extremely helpful tool that would be great for my 7th grade students. In many of their classes my 7th graders have a lot of recall type quizzes and tests that we make Cornell Note Style Reviews and/or flash cards for. Quizlet is an online resource that allows you to enter words and definitions and then allows you to create flashcards, randomly-generated tests, and collaboration tools for classmates to help you study those words. While this may not sound like much I know with all of its features my students would love it and it could become a useful tool for studying. Once your set of cards has been created you can do several things with them. You can simply study from them seeing both the word and definition or both separately. You can also have the words put into tests and quizzes that the program generates randomly using multiple choice, fill in the blanks, and matching. The words can also be put into several different types of words games that help will help the student to learn the word and understand its definition. There is also a feature that allows you to hear the words spoken as well as their definitions.  This could be helpful to the students to know exactly how the words are supposed to be pronounced so that when they hear them being used they are able to easily identify them (good feature for auditory learners).  Finally, besides being able to create flash cards online and do all of these awesome things with them, you can also search out sets of cards that have been previously created by users on several different subjects and genres. I think it is great for users to be able to collaborate on this level. I know my students would feel awesome if they thought they were creating and sharing something that may be used by other students someday!!!! The tool was very user friendly and so I know even my students with striving computer skills could use it. 

Once your card set has been created you can begin to study using word

and definition separately or together.....

Matching games such as this one can be created to help with word review as well

Or the program will even generate random tests for you

Another test question example

When searching for previously saved sets I typed in Algebra and several came up for use. You can do this with just about any topic, there seemed to be a set for everything you can think of!!!

 

PE3_iMovie

When it finally came time for me to make my movie I really didn't even know where to start. I purposely recorded things in spurts of small clips so that I could practice using the things I learned in the organizing clips section of the tutorials. Being able to tag your clips was actually extremely helpful for putting them in a good order for use. It was also nice to learn that you could edit and delete parts of the clips even after it was in the project window, something I never knew. I also never knew that all your unused footage was stored somewhere in case you ever need retrieve it as a filler or just to take a second look!

Once I had all my clips in the order that I wanted them in the project finder I decided to import my photos from iPhoto as the tutorial suggested.

Importing photos from my iPhone into iPhoto so I can use them in iMovie!! Cool!!

Next I began to experiment with the different effects like inserting still pictures, sound effects, captions, and transitions!!!

Playing with the titles!!!

 

 

I was so excited by the time I got done playing with everything and all my ideas that I didn't even realize that I had gone way over the time limit for the assignment! I really was not sure where or what to cut out so I decided to post my post my original and also edit it down and post that version as well. I feel so comfortable with the program now, I think I am ready to go to home depot to get things to make my own green screen!!!!!! (or maybe blue...who knows?!?!?)

PE2_iMovie

So excited to see all the features that can be put to use through enabling the advanced toolbar settings!!!

One of my most favorite tricks that I learned was that you can insert still photos into your creations!! AND you have options beyond that! You can just simply insert it in between frames, or you can split a clip with it, or my personal favorite is you can insert it in the frame with the picture in picture feature!!! (Shown below)

I also really love that you can add little mini soundbites to a frame, and that you have so much control over the length and volume of the sound as well!!! Really had fun going through all the different sound effects available in iMovie and seeing what I could insert where to liven up my movie!!! (shown below)

I even learned that you could insert music from your iTunes and add it to your clips!

Gotta love the finishing touch of a completion certificate too, no matter how old you are those are always nice :)

PE1_iMovie

Holy helpful training!!! From the very beginning I realized I was going to need to pause the video and get out my pen and notebook. I took so many notes right from the start to make sure I would remember all of the shortcuts. Up until now I have just been winging it with my iMovie projects and had no idea of all its capabilities!! When I looked at the listings of all the things I was going to be learning and how specific they were I got EXTREMELY excited!!!

Menu for iMovie '11 Tutorials

Could not wait for the possibilities that will now be available to me!!!! Not to mention the host Garrick Chow walks you through step by step instructions and really breaks down everything!!! Love love lovin it!!!!

BP5_Link to Blogged On Phonics

Follow this link to my comment on Hunter's awesome blog!!!

Twitter me this! My Twitter profile pic....