Experiment with UDL Book Builder

I loved creating a little book through the UDL Book Builder. I felt slightly challenged since like normally I do not like to read directions. I like to just jump in and start messing around, which is not always the best way. After a couple of pages and looking at the page reviews I figures it out. I could see so many positive ways to use this tool in a classroom for the students, possibly even in mathematics (especially with the use of the little animated coaches which can provide hints). I imagine this project could work in two ways, being student or teacher created. I believe students could do a great research projects with the Book Builder with incorporating pictures, text, speech, etc. Of course this would again be time consuming, and would have to be balanced out with the rest of the curriculum to ensure all the required TEKS are covered. I would love to have time in my math classes to do something like this. I am thinking may be after the dreaded TAKS test is over I can take the time to experiment and see how these activities will work in my class.

Creating a Learning Unit

I found it to be very interesting to create the learning unit for the week 3 assignment. I can see how students can learn by becoming themselves involved with the learning process when teachers create fun flexible group oriented projects that involves all students and allows them to be creative and use technology to research and present digital media oriented projects. Instead of the typical, boring teacher oriented lecture, students are involved in their learning process and take ownership over what they are learning, how they are learning and how they can present what they have learned. The flexibility of this universal design allows for multiple means of expressions and exploration to help struggling students and students with disabilities finding ways to learn and express themselves, which traditional teaching does not offer.
However, I do believe schools in Texas still have a long way to go until they reach the point of being able to truly modernize schools and allow student to learn how they need to be able to keep up with the demands of this 21st century economy.

PSA Production Process

The PSA production was a group process among four students in different parts of Texas as a online activity, which was conducted with the use of modern technology to communicate, such as a wiki, emails, and phone texting. As group we did try to collaborate and interact with each other, and also assign specific tasks to each person, yet I do feel that with the next group project we may be able to do a better job with sharing the workload amongst each other from the beginning. We all learned and it was a good experience to see how group activities work. Copyright information should always be a part of any production, small or large to give the original creator due credit for the work.
In this post I will include a few of the communication ideas from three wiki pages which were used to create this PSA. To see the full creation process please refer to this wiki, and the following pages:
http://petra77.wikispaces.com/
1. PSA Group
2. PSA Project
3. PSA Workspace

Ok, here we go again: Let's find a topic!!!!

1. (Petra) We need a topic: It only has to be 60 seconds long, include text, or graphic effects, cant be to difficult. I got so tired of Movie Maker and ADOBE (which my computer would not install), I downloaded Ulead. It looks really good. On Movie Maker, I even had a hard time getting the text on the correct slide. It just did not work like it said it would.

2. (Christy) I am open to any topic....we can do something with money. What age group are we going after? And, we need to decide who does what job? Has anyone email our Academic Coach to let her know who is all in the group? I will be leaving out of town for a few days, but I will have access to email. I will check the wiki Friday evening when I get home. Please email me if there is anything I can do. I haven't had a vacation in many, many years. I need this badly!

7. (Darlene) I like the pirating movies or songs. We have had so much emphasis on copyright law and giving proper credit. Plus, I think it could be "cute" as well as informative. However, I'm good with whatever the group wants to do.

Here is our topic:

1. Pirating movies or songs: (Meredith) I like this one because it is what I know, there are a lot of videos on you tube about this. I just need to know for sure IF we are videoing or if we are just using existing video and doing voiceovers.

2. Christy emailed and thought we could show a jail at the end of the video. (What about handcuffs lol)

3. (Petra) If it is ok with you guys I would like to do some research and start writing a the narration about it. Meredith give me some ideas what you were thinking about?

4. (Darlene) I LOVE our topic! I will be happy to do the voiceover or whatever needs to be done except adding the music. I can't seem to figure out how to import songs from my iTunes account...

8. (Christy) Darlene, I have been trying to add music from iTunes to Movie Maker, but when I go to the iTunes folder it just shows the titles and no music. What is your issue with iTunes? I would like to figure it out.

(Petra) Ok guys here is the narration. I know it is longer than a minute. We can add or subtract anything we need to. I guess it depends what is easy to videotape. I really did not know what you all wanted. Let's tweak it like we need it.

(Petra) Title: Lets brainstorm and come up with something quick. What about:

Pirating, Don't Do IT!, or

21st Century Pirates, or

Free may not be Cheap,

(Christy)*I love "21st Century Pirates"....maybe we can have a pirate head as the opening scene, with the title running across it.

(Darlene) I like "21st Century Pirates" also.

(Meredith) I love the 21st Century Pirates...and the Pirate at the opening scene...

(Petra) OK, here is the outline: Please tell me if this looks like what you were thinking about. Please feel free to change anything you want.

PSA Outline: PLEASE REFER TO MY WIKI TO SEE THE ACTUAL OUTLINE.

Petra) Hi guys, could we please try to organize ourselves for this week and divide the tasks like you had offered?

TIMELINE: Do you think this part could be done by Wednesday or Thursday so we can try to finish a little earlier. I know Meredith is going out of town again and I would like to go to Denton to see my two daughters in college.

Christy: Can you still take some of the scene shots of a pirate, your son and the other teenagers or whatever shots or stillpics you can.

Darlene: Can you take the other shots since you also have a camera like you offered? I can not find my firewire to transfer the videos to the computer.

Petra: I also will take some shots.

Yes Petra. Which shots do you want me to take? Christy, if you will email me or add to the bottom of this page, I will take some shots for us.

Meredith/Petra; Meredith,you had said Movie Maker is now easy for you, maybe after they sent us all the clips you and I can try to put it together. I downloaded Ulead, so I can try with that too.

(Meredith) here is a link to some pirates of the caribbean music or Indiana Jones..I can seperate the video from the music(I should be able to if it is not locked by the creater)
Bad boys from cops????hahaha

(Petra) Here are some pictures of pirates, teenagers in handcuffs, just handcuffs, and other stuff to look at. They all came from flickr.com.

(Darlene) I am taking shots at Best Buy or Walmart today (Thur). I took 3 great shots today, but now my camera won't work!

(Christy) Here is the narration, its still too long, but I wanted everyone to hear my voice and see if its ok. If we have the video set up we can re-word everything to fit the video. I have tried it a view different ways, but until its put to the video its hard to tell.

Messed up on a few words......
(Petra) It sounds really good, I like it...

(Petra) I went all over town (very small town) today to get some more videos on my picture camera. The first few came out ok, and I will try to put them on here, yet the better ones with movies and music from Wal-Mart and the movie store show the video really small in the middle. I will try to fix it.
(Petra) I stayed up late messing with these shots and could only load them up on You Tube. I guess since I took them on my pic camera. I never did this before and the last six shots look a little bit fuzzy, so let me know.

(Petra) Here are some more video clips I took at Best Buy. I put them all on on file in Movie Maker and uploaded them to You Tube.

(Christy) I have worked on the narration some more. I have it down to about 56 seconds, but I will be able to adjust even more once we have the video set up. Does anyone know of anything else that needs to be done. Don't forget about blog posts, and I am going to put this link on my paper where it asks for urls, for communication purposes. Petra, I think the part of the narration about not stealing from a store is where we could include the shots at best buy....they were clear, maybe show the best buy sign, then a shot of the rows of movies and cds. I liked the way that looked. I keep forgetting how short 60 seconds is.....I keep thinking of things we could do, but really its very short. Let me know what needs to be done.

(Petra) That sounds great. Meredith is going to work on putting she shots in the Movie Maker today. We want to all be done by Friday, so we can enjoy the 4th of July.

"Meine Oma" Digital Story

"Africa" Video

Software Choice for Video Editing

After some frustrating research, I decided to stay with the “Microsoft Movie Maker” video editing software. I am not happy with it, yet I am frustrated with all the computer problems I suddenly experienced. I had downloaded two additional free software programs, “Zwei-Stein and one that was not one the list, yet kept popping up. I also downloaded the “Adobe Premiere Element 7” video software. None of my partners looked at “Zwei-Stein”, so I deleted this one. Movie Maker drove me crazy. I could not figure how to make the music stop when the clips stopped. Amazing how much time one can waste trying to figure out technology, and yet, I LOVE IT. I know everybody explained how easy it is, yet to me it was more frustrating. The help section was easy to read, however what it said did not solve my problems. In addition, while downloading all these items, I also managed to download a Trojan, which consistently froze my computer. After I finally fixed this mess, I decided to try “Adobe Premiere Elements”. I had no luck there either. During the installation, a screen came up, telling me that my CPU was not sufficient for this program to be installed. Again, I think I am going to stick with “Microsoft Movie Maker”, or here is a great idea, may be it is time for a new laptop.

Second Web Conference

I was a little bit disappointing in the second web conference. I think they are great and a wonderful idea, yet I was hoping for a little input on homework assignment #2. I was wondering where to find some videos besides the sites that were gives to us.
All this is so new, we need to organize ourselves to see what we want and need to discuss in these meetings. I am sure we all have different agendas we are interested in and we surely all can learn from each other.

Web Conference Pilot

I was very surprised about the Web Conference Pilot activity. Initially there were some problems and issues with the technology portion of the program that had to be worked out, especially since most of us in this conference were new to this.
Eventually we worked out these issues and started talking to each other. Several of the students had web cams, which allowed them to be seen on a screen and interact. Finally, after talking in discussion groups it is nice to put a face to a person. One of the web cams showed a student upside down, which was funny, yet she did great and hang in their. I guess some problems still need to be worked on.
All of the participants were able to communicate with each other with the help of microphones. Again, we needed to solve some echo, and other sound problems. Furthermore, all of us were able to type messages to each other and respond this way.
It was great! For the most part of this study I have felt like I am in this alone. Unlike regular classrooms, there is little interaction with other students or the professors. Using this conference today, I learned more from our professor and some of the other students then in the other classes. I was glad to hear we will continue with these conferences and meet again. Technology is great, I am always amazed to see what all can be done. This was a great experience.

Website Evaluation

Good websites are not always easy to locate. Too often I look for specific, detailed information and become extremely frustrated by finding websites that are totally irrelevant or have little information to offer. Whenever I do find valuable websites, I try to add them to my favorites list for future use. One of this URL’s I added is,” www.tcet.unt.edu/start/”. I came across it by goggling for professional development in the four TA TEKS strands. The title of the website is “Technology Applications Center for Educator Development”.

As soon as the site opened I liked the overall design. The overview is easy to see and understand. Six areas are targeted with clearly labeled colorful titles navigating to more information. Each title is explained and described and enhanced with an additional icon. Also, what I really appreciated were the four big links at the bottom of the page referring to other important agencies relevant to education. The page also includes an email address for contact, copy write information, date of creation and credit information; therefore authenticity can be easily proven.

The information I found on the website was very helpful and resourceful to what I was looking for. Each key area has many additional resource links to much additional information. The titles are labeled properly and the content of the sites relates to the main ideas stated. What I really liked is that at the bottom of the links were the original six key icons, allowing easy access back to each of their main links. I found what I was looking for in regards to technology professional development and was furthermore able to research a variety of additional information, including technology assessment tools and clarifying activities. With the demands to bring all Texas learners into the 21^st century by the year 2020, this website provides adequate information to supply educators and administration with data needed. I was nice to have all this information available through the use of only one website, which without a doubt is valuable to all educators.

However, there are also some minor down sides to this website. Looking throughout the design I did not see any question capabilities. In addition, I noticed that some of the links no longer exist, and can not be accessed. Also some links can not be reached, since URL formats have changed and I was prompted to change to a new format. In conclusion, these negative are extreme minor to the knowledge and benefits this website offers.