Week 7 Free Online Applications Review

I played around with Google Documents (Docs), Google Presentations, Zoho Writer, and Picnik Photo Editing.

Google Documents
I really liked how Google Docs was so similar to MS Word… not too much new stuff to have to learn. The option to have others collaborate, read only or read and write, is great for group projects.

The 30-second-auto-save feature is a both a benefit and a drawback. Thirty seconds is way too quick if you are creating something on your own. If you make a mistake it is saved. Sometimes you don’t know what you did, so how do you un-do it? Thirty seconds is great if you are collaborating. That is almost real-time editing possibilities.

The idea of accessing my documents anywhere without having to have a flash drive/disc is quite handy. I ran into the problem (at school) of Google actually running slow though. Too many people using its services at once? That could be a problem if there is a deadline to be met. It does not auto correct misspelled words as it does in Microsoft Word.

I love the colors in text boxes and its borders. Editing text boxes seems easier (done faster), has more options.

"Comments" are a great idea for collaborative ‘are you sure?’ work or notes to self. Having the options to make different colored comment boxes for different people, saying who wrote the comment and when, and adding a comment to the actual text without having to re-write it are great ideas.

Inserting special characters; i.e., letters from another language (è or ç), is much easier to do with Google. The MS Word special character insert box is smaller. You have to scroll down through it, making it harder to find what you are looking for.

Google Presentations
Google Presentations is also very similar to MS PowerPoint. I thought Google’s version was a little easier to use. The 30-second-auto-save feature is also on Presentations.
I liked the text formatting auto delete button.

It is easy to insert images and video. You can even drag pictures from a different site into your presentation.

Formatting of text boxes is also easy, with border color options and background color options available.

Adding YouTube videos was also very easy.

Zoho Writer
The tool bar options are more plentiful (easily accessible?) in Zoho vs. Google.

Zoho Writer is not as similar to MS Word as Google Docs is.

Inserting special characters (é and à) for example, is very easy with a button on the tool bar.

Smileys are a cool option.

Zoho Writer comments are hidden with a symbol vs. Google Docs comments showing what, who, when, and color options.

Picnik Photo Editing
Playing with Picnik’s features was fun and easy. Students could have a great time learning how to make their own class scrap books.

It has simple to follow button options. Edit allows you to choose from: crop, resize, red-eye, colors, sharpen, and exposure. You can even get rid of blemishes! If only real life were so easy!
The create button was my favorite. Under ‘effects’ you can change the picture a number of ways. My picks are: snow, goo-ify, doodle, pencil sketch, focal zoom, focal soften, 1960’s, black & white, and sepia. If you do something you don’t like all you have to do is hit the cancel button and it goes back to the last version you have saved.

Picnik allows you to send your pictures/creations to several different photo sharing/editing sites, e-mail them, print them, or save them to your computer.

Week 7 R/D 13

What most made you say, or think, “that’s so neat?” Why? [from chapter 31] What was your favorite activity of the semester and why?

Advanced performance tracking sounds pretty cool. I know plenty of people who would love to get their golf and/or tennis swing analyzed. The use of the microhydraulic capability glove that makes smaller and smaller corrections as you improve is a great supplement to the performance tracker. I wonder if you could save the analysis and improved results on a disc that you could play over and over at home? Of course, if it really works then you wouldn’t need to watch it over and over. On the down side, I got a little scared about all the super-hyped parents who would use it to create the next Tiger Woods out of their two-year-old. For a world language teacher, how cool would it be to have a student use it to learn the correct pronunciation of certain L2 words? The better the student’s pronunciation the less the microhydraulic capability glove would have to work! A great tool for world language teachers who don’t ever seem to have enough time to check on individual speech!

I love the idea of Dr. Warwick’s implant for those people who are disabled. What a great idea to help them lead a more normal, independent life! As for educational purposes, I’m not quite sure how they could be used except for maybe as a pocket-translator that would be automatically accessed when needed. Hmm… that could possibly put me out of a job.

Applying artificial intelligence’s I-PUSH learning environments would be a cool application for second language learning. Setting up different tutorial scenarios for students to work on at different times, or multiple times, would allow teachers to have more time for hands-on help with others who need it. If the I-PUSH tutorials had voice/pronunciation recognition, students’ verbal abilities could increase dramatically. Being able to provide one-on-one, or three-on-one, verbal help is one of the most difficult things to manage in a time-constrained classroom. Adding simulations on top of this would be phenomenal! Imagine a student negotiating the virtual Paris Métro system. They would have to use correct vocabulary (taught beforehand by the teacher), correct pronunciation, correct grammar to negotiate the subway system and reach the correct destination. Any mishaps would also provide a learning experience. Students would learn (hopefully) from these mistakes and not repeat them the next time they utilize the simulation I-PUSH tutorial. They could repeat it as many times as necessary to learn what they are supposed to. This would be WAY better than the contrived “conversations” that students have to do now.

My favorite EDT 5410 activity was the creation of my own website. I’m so proud of the fact that I did it all by myself with only a couple of minor problems. Currently, it seems to be the most useful thing. Adding pages, and information to my pages, is quick and easy to do. It is something that all students can access (even if through the public library’s computers) and use.

Week 7 R/D 12

Describe two tangible take-aways that you think you could apply in your work. In other words, what are two ways you believe you can apply ideas in this chapter to improve your teaching/instructional design work? [from chapter 30]

I won’t place as much value on student knowledge based on their feedback surveys. I’ll still use feedback surveys, but I’ll compare them with test results. I think they will be best used in the future to tweak particular aspects of a lesson, get ideas from students, self-evaluate my lesson’s effectiveness and my effectiveness as an instructor.

The information about how much working memory a person has will affect my lesson plans. In particular, lower-level language students (who have less prior knowledge to aid them in learning) will receive lessons done in smaller, more well-developed chunks that give them an immediate opportunity to use/apply material from the lesson. Making sure to pay attention to the expertise reversal effect with higher-level students is important and something that I didn’t consciously pay a lot of attention to. Sometimes I use material for both levels because; 1) it took so long to create, 2) I think it is cool, or 3) I don’t have anything appropriate for that particular level.

My school has us write out our lesson plans the week prior to being taught using a form that pretty much looks like the cognitive process of learning described on page 315. It forces me to think out how the kids’ thought process might be as they receive my lesson. I am also much better prepared than some teachers I know who fly by the seat of their pants some days. I’ll try my best to continue doing lessons in that form when I move to another school.

Week 6 web site related lesson

Web Seek and Find for Elementary French

Using Madame Wellman’s web site http://dmvwellman.googlepages.com/home you need to complete the following activities.

Find five (5) new words in French. Write the French word and its English meaning. Each word must start with a different letter of the alphabet!

Go to the “Belette” site. Listen to and find one song that you know in English. Write the name of the song in French and English.

Find a game at the “Kids Playground” site that you like to play. There are many to choose from. [DO NOT use the “English/Anglais” section. Failure to use the “Français/French” section will earn you a failing grade.] After you’ve learned how to play it, write down how to play it (in English) so you can teach someone else. Be prepared to actually teach someone how to play it too!

This lesson helps elementary students with becoming more comfortable using their second language (L2). It provides a smaller, secure area in which they have to use L2. It makes the tasks something they can actually accomplish and be able to use more efficiently in further studies.

Week 6 Screencasting Potential Use

Montréal, Québec, Canada is the second largest French-speaking city in the world. It has four daily newspapers. The French-language newspapers (La Presse, Le Journal de Montréal, and Le Devoir), and the English-language paper, The Gazette. La Presse is the largest one.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/

As an end-of-the-year project for French I students, they will view a screencast (or several shorter ones) about how to navigate a French newspaper. Our foreign location of study has been Québec Province, Canada. They have already done other assignments on the Internet regarding Montréal, giving and following directions using Google Maps for example. The screencast will show them how to navigate a French Montréal newspaper, La Presse, and search for specific information contained within the various pages of the paper. Being relatively new to the study of world languages, navigating and searching for information that is entirely in French can be a daunting task. Having a screencast that they are able to replay at will should help ease some anxiety and wear and tear on my shoes from having to run around to show several students the same thing over and over. This assignment would serve as an end-cap to the Québec unit. It would review directions, weather words, dates, telling time, and other key vocabulary and allow them to apply it in a real-world situation. Learning to navigate a newspaper will help for further advanced lessons on grammar, reading, and writing summaries or responses to articles.

Scenario: You are going to be in Montréal with your family on vacation this summer. You are the only one who speaks French. You have only the French newspaper La Presse to help you out. What are you going to do? When are you going to do it? Will you be able to do it? How much does it cost?

Follow Madame Wellman’s screencast on navigating a French newspaper. You are going to learn how to find the weather, when certain tv shows are on, what concerts/activities are happening and when among other things. As a class, we are going to view the screencast together. Relevant questions and answers will come next. Then you are going to open a new Internet window (to keep the screencast available for replaying as needed) and find/answer the following. Remember your family is counting on you! Bonne chance!


La Presse de Montréal

View the screencast for each topic, as needed. Then answer the following in French.

-- La Météo/The Weather: You are planning on taking a bus for a day trip to Longeuil. What will the temperature and weather be in Longeuil tomorrow afternoon?
-- Les Actualités/The News: You are a little homesick. How would you find out what is happening in the U.S.? Write the name/headline of one story.
-- Les Arts et Spectacles/Arts & Entertainment: Your little brother wants to see a movie. Use the schedule to pick a kids’ movie to see. Write the name and address of the theatre, the name of the movie, and when you are going to see it.
-- Horaire télé: Mom and Dad are tired from walking around town all day. They want to watch a show, in English. They love Jeopardy!. What days and times is Jeopardy! on?
-- What is casse-tête? What do you do? Can you figure it out? Show Madame when you are done with it.

week 6 R/D 11

While reading Chapter 27 (R/D11), reflect on what you perceive to be your own areas of strength and what competencies you feel you need to work hardest to develop given your professional goals. State and describe at least three competencies you’d like to develop and why. I do understand that most of you are school teachers, not ID&T professionals, but certainly there is plenty overlap between these different types of roles.
-- Strengths—communication in visual, oral and written forms; planning instructional methods and materials; and organization. Teaching another language requires a variety of instructional methods. I usually have several forms incorporated into lessons to get the same idea across. I never know which one will be “the” one to work best. It also makes lessons much more interesting for my students. With eleven classes and 300 students I would die if I wasn’t organized at school. After I’ve had a down day (lack of sleep, sick), I get a little frustrated because I forgot to write down where I stopped for a particular class and the kids are telling me, “We’ve already done that!” I end up wasting valuable class time. We all know we can always use more class time.
Competencies—I’m not sure what my professional goals are. This is my first master’s class. I don’t know exactly what I want to do with this degree, yet.
I know I need to improve my skills and knowledge in IDT and related fields. If I’m earning a master’s in IDT, improving my skills and knowledge is priority number one. Each class, each assignment will help with that. Also having time off this summer will be great to play around with, and reinforce, all the stuff we’re working on now.
Managing the instructional process through the appropriate use of technology is sadly lacking due to the current absence of technology in my building. This class and getting a new job will help with that though.
Commit time and effort to the development of the profession. What better way to inform and promote IDT? I have a difficult time right now explaining what it is I’m going to school for. Instructional designers, training managers, and instructors are going to be so much more valuable as more and more people “get wired.” With the new graduation requirements there will be more of a demand for highly qualified people with training and certification in this field. Helping decide what kids and teachers will learn and use sounds pretty cool and fun.

week 6 R/D 10

(R/D10) For your reading reflection, since you have now read for the past few weeks about instructional design/technology in three different contexts (business, P -12 & higher ed), identify 2 or 3 significant themes or differences you have noticed across these contexts and describe them. Is there a particular area or way that you believe your current professional working environment could learn from the other contexts described in these chapters?
-- Well, each one seems to have the basics— they are well-organized, have management systems and employee training in place. All three try to employ the most motivated and knowledgeable people. Business is about the money. Schools’ main purpose is to educate. Higher ed is also concerned about making money, but if they don’t do a good job with educating students they won’t get the money.
Higher education requires much more in the way of meetings, research and training responsibilities than P-12. The things they do are very systematic, usually requiring piecemeal changes. Colleges and universities have to attract, and retain, their students. There is much more motivation/striving for excellence. P-12 students generally attend school where they live. Higher ed. has many faculty members for each area of study, whereas P-12 sometimes only have one or two teachers for a particular subject.
My current school is trying for systemic change through piecemeal work. They could learn a lot about having properly trained people in the correct positions who know what they are supposed to do and do it, organizing throughout, and following through on establishing and enforcing rules, consequences and decisions.