Yodio - Thrilling Narratives

task 051 Jing Tutorial MAR

http://www.screencast.com/users/MelanieRyan2/folders/Jing/media/ba385a4e-083a-4a80-9c80-38dd98e34d83

Task 0210 Melanie's Editorial Image

This is the Editorial Imafe for task 0210.

This is the edited version.

This is the original.

Task 018 Melanie's Illustrated Poster

This is my Task 016/017 Illustrated Poster about genre. It is designed to give a visual of popular books for children labeled with the appropriate genre.

Completed Final Assignment

http://mryan.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/

My Wiki has gone from basically existing to actually being a site that will be a helpful tool both for academics and for communication. As I explained in my earlier blogs, I created curriculum pages with external links for practice and information in that each area. Other pages, such as the page for my newsletters and daily schedule have internal links. I added some pictures on the Dauphin Island page, but decided to keep the Wiki very simple in design. My homework page is set up and ready for homework to be posted nightly. I feel so much better about this resource and so much more confident in maneuvering my way through the steps needed to change and add to the Wiki.

Skype

Thursday my daughter and I Skyped---I guess I can use this word as a verb. We did not have cameras, but it was still cool with voice only. I can see the potential for this tool for keeping in touch socially---especially with someone far away using a camera. I can also see how useful this could be in the business world and in education. Being able to communicate one on one with a group or individual with the option of screen share, etc.could be invaluable.

Work on Wiki for Final Project

Today I have spent a couple of hours working on my Wiki. I added pages for language arts, math, reading, social studies, and science. On each page I added links with enrichment for each subject such as math games for math and National Geographic for Kids for social studies. I have a homework page set up and ready for the new year's homework assignments to be posted nightly. I also created and posted my schedule for next year on my schedule page. There are some other things I have in mind, but I have to get advice on how to do them! I am encouraged at the progress so far.

Final Project Progress

I have discovered an incredibly helpful wiki tutorialon the T drive @ school put together by some of the tech coaches in our school system! I can play it and pause it as needed as I work on overhauling my wiki!

Dauphin Island Webquest

I have completed my Dauphin Island WebQuest and published it today. I hope it is good and that others will enjoy using it! http://dauphinisland.weebly.com/

Article Response: The Student WebQuest

This article is basically an introduction to Webquests. It defines WebQuest and tells about what elements are neccessary to make one successful.It tells a little bit about the original creators and gives suggestions of good exemplars for us to experience. Personally, I can see that there are so many options with this tool. It seems that the challenge in creating one is, of course, time and then, know-how. It takes a lot of time to come up with a real world scenario that requires the learner to take his or her learning to the analyze, synthesize, and create level. Then, the Quest creator must put the website together gathering everything from pictures to appropriate sites for students to investigate. the creator must understand the technological processes of doing these things. However, challenges aside, I am excited about the possibilities WebQuests offer me and my students.

Final Project

For my final project, I would like to take my existing Wiki and develop it much further. I would like to have a page for each subject I teach with information about what we are doing in that subject as well as links for students and parents. I would like to revamp the way I do my homework page to make it easier for me to use. I would like to include more pictures to make the Wiki more interesting and inviting.

Lesley Web 2.0

BrainPOP

The Web Application I will be showing everyone in class is BrainPOP at BrainPOP.com
This program offers so much for K-12 in all subject areas. It is for kids, parents, and teachers. BrainPOP revolves around 3-5 minute movies starring animated characters, Tim and Mobie. You can find a movie on about any subject you are interested in...from rounding numbers to the Black Death to food chains to similes and metaphors. The site offers experiments, activities, and quizzes to go along with each movie. The site is not free, but you can subscribe to a trial membership. It is an awesome teaching tool!

Article Response: The Learning Power of Webquests

Wow! This article is really heavy duty! It makes me question whether or not my plan for my WebQuest would be acceptable to the author's guidelines. He maintains that a WebQuest should require the learner to make something new, which I certainly understand, that being the pinnacle of learning on Bloom's taxonomy. He does realize that some basic fact finding is necessary. A student can begin a Quest with fact retrieval and then go on to use that information to solve problems and predict outcomes. I spent some time browsing through a few of the WebQuests created by the author. They all involved working in groups and were, in my opinion, very challenging.

Response to Article: YouTube Comes to the Classroom

I guess when I usually think of YouTube it is as a recreational/entertainment resource. However, I can certainly see the author's point that it could be a powerful tool for education. Students love knowing they are creating for an audience. If assignments involve helping students find their voices, and communicating via Youtube makes them feel that their work is authentic, it stands to reason that the depth and quality of their work will improve.
I also learned something new in this article. The Website, KeepVID, that enables PC users to convert videos to another format sounds like a great tool. This would help protect students from accessing the negative things on YouTube.

Google Tips 7 Tricks

Tricks & Tips
Avoid using a question as a query.
When Google detects very common words such as where, do, I, for, and a, known as stop words, it ignores them
If you want pages containing any (instead of all) of your search terms, use the OR operator.
Use the + operator or enclose more than one term in quotes (" ") to insist that Google search for exactly these words.

Google limits queries to 32 words.
Search Behaviors
Descriptions
Implicit AND
Google returns pages that match all your search terms. Because you don't need to include the logical operator AND between your terms, this notation is called an implicit AND.
Exact Matching
Google returns pages that match your search terms exactly.
Word Variation
Automatic Stemming
Google returns pages that match variants of your search terms.
Common-Word Exclusion
Google ignores some common words called “stop words,” e.g., the, on, where, and how. Stop words tend to slow down searches without improving results.
32-Word Limit
Google limits queries to 32 words.
Term Proximity
Google gives more priority to pages that have search terms near each other.
Term Order
Google gives more priority to pages that have search termsin the same order as the query.
Case Insensitivity
Google is case-insensitive; it shows both upper- and lowercase results.
Ignoring Punctuation
Google ignores most punctuation and special characters including , . ; ? [ ] ( ) @ / * < >


The tilde (~) operator takes the word immediately following it and searches both for that specific word and for the word’s synonyms. It also searches for the term with alternative endings. The tilde operator works best

Special Characters: Summary
This table summarizes how to use the basic search operators described in this chapter. You may include any of these operators multiple times in a query.
Notation
Find result
Example
term1 term2
with both term1 and term2
[ carry-on luggage ]
term1 OR term2 term1 term2
with either term1 or term2 or both
[ Tahiti OR Hawaii ]
[ Tahiti Hawaii ]
+term
with term (The + operator is typically used in front of stop words that Google would otherwise ignore or when you want Google to return only pages that match your search terms exactly. However, the + operator can be used on any terms.)
[ +i spy ]
–term
without term
[ twins minnesota –baseball ]
~term
with term or one of its synonyms (currently supported on Web and Directory search)
[ google ~guide ]
number1..number2
with a number in the specified range
[ recumbent bicycle $250..$1000 ]
"terms1 * terms2"
with the phrase (enclosed in quotes) and * replaced by one or more words
[ “Google * my life” ]
“phrase“
with the exact phrase, a proper name, or a set of words in a specific order
[ “I have a dream” ]
[ “Rio de Janeiro” ]

The Wayback Machine, also known as the Internet Archive, maintains a digital library of snapshots of many Internet sites.

Hypertext Book Activity

This summary, including hypertext, is on the book The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley; illustrated by Brian Selznik.

Wordle

Created by Cassie using Wordle based upon her interview with me.