ALF Animoto Style

For those of you wonder what exactly ALF is, it stands for the American Liver Foundation!  Just about two years ago my little sister then 15 years old out of no where started suffering from acute liver failure.  And within two weeks only 20% of her liver was functioning.   We needed a miracle!  And I am happy to say we received one, my sister has been doing well in recovering, and will be off to her first year in college come the Fall.  With all that being said my family and I participate annually in the Liver Life Walk and with the American Liver Foundation.  So every year I speak with co workers in hopes that they will find the cause just as important as I do and either contribute a donation or participate in the Liver Life Walk with a team.  Every little bit helps towards research and educating those who don't already know that Liver Disease is one of the top ten cause of death across the United States.




Because I am not an educator I chose to do my Animoto on ALF because I know it is something I am able to share with my colleagues in trying to rally their support around this cause.  I found creating the Animoto to be pretty easy, however I did accidentally produce my first draft when in fact I thought I was previewing it.  But I quickly realized my error and got back to the drawing board.  I hope you guys enjoy my first Animoto!

For my images I used the Google advanced image search.  When doing this image search I actually found an image of my family and other participants from an event we were part of  which was kind of cool because we had no clue it was searchable! I also used the American Liver Foundation website for a couple of the facts listed in the Animoto.

Blogging = Interactive Learning Tool

In reading Online Collaborative Inquiry:Classroom Blogging Ventures and Multiple Literacies it really opened my eyes further on just how Blogging can enhance a students literacy skills. Blogging and wikis are not used in place of the basic classroom assignments they are used in addition to those scheduled assignments. The goal of using these online tools are to get students accustomed to writing on a regular basis in different types of formats. Students can still write academically, or as informal as the teacher may allow to complete an assignment. It also encourages students to have discussions that are academically based with one another when using blogs. 

I especially LOVE the fact that blogging allows for a sort of global pen pal aspect for teachers and students. I think it just adds a layer of excitement for students in wanting to complete reading and writing assignments knowing that they will have an opportunity to share and collaborate with students that are thousands of miles away.  Take Aviva Dunsiger, who teaches at the Ancaster Meadow School, Ontario, Canada she goes above and beyond to give her students an experience with Skype. I thought it was very interesting because she was able to incorporate literacy into this lesson and I would have never thought of anything like this for a second grade classroom check it out!

Diigo and I

I know I have mentioned Diigo in a previous post but since then I have actually added a few more items to my library and learned that I can share the link directly to my Diigo library!  So I have been on the web and in my RSS trying to find different blogs that spark my interest.  I beginning to think that I am very picky about what I add to my library, given that I have browsed through quite a lot of blogs on various topics in Higher Ed, but not to many have caught my eye.  So I decided to just do a search on "education blogs" in general and have found more blogs that way.  The cool thing is that I actually found a couple of blogs that kind of go along with what we have been talking about in class in regards to why teachers should opt to using technology in classrooms, and even this one called Cool Cat Teacher Blog which is awesome because she shares different types of freebies that teachers may find helpful in the class room.  I am pretty open to different eduacational blogs, anyone have any suggestions for my library?!?

Baby Steps...

Richardson covers RSS and Diigo in these chapters...both things that I am still trying to get the hang of.  Diigo seems to be going a little more smoothly for me than the RSS, although it may be because I have played around with the Diigo site a little more, it seems to be a little more user friendly at least to me, and in reading through the chapters there are things I didn't know you could do with the Diigo site that I will be going back to try.  I already have my diigolet set up on multiple computers so that I can start bookmarking!!  As for the RSS I "think" I have successfully added a couple blogs from a couple of classmates to my feed but I wasn't really sure on how to confirm, but I think the chapters have given me a little more guidance in figuring some of those things out.  However, it may just be that I will need some more hands on with each of these programs to REALLY get the hang of it, as I have only been playing with these new tools for about a week and a half.  I feel a bit challenged at times but I know I have to take baby steps and should have it in no time....anyone else feeling that way?

Blog On!

While scrolling through the list of blogs I decided to check out Stump The Teacher.  The catchy name is what drew me to the blog.  Once I got to the actual site I really liked the way this teacher had his blog set up.  He had different sections you could access; Video Tutorials, Presentations, etc.  I especially liked the video tutorial section because there was something to help with most everything from blogging, to setting up twitter account, and the most recent post was on how to use google docs.  I think he did a great job at tapping into the needs of those who visit his blog and providing the resources for his visitors its like a one stop shop!  His blog also makes me want to push myself more especially when it comes to thinking of catchy titles for my blogs...time to put my thinking cap back on!  How do you guys come up with your titles?  Any advice out there for a first time blogger?!

Fun with Animoto

  


I went browsing through the sample Animotos and came across Lori's.  She created a Animoto on Idioms that I thought was pretty cool.  Not only did she use the text to show for example " cat got your tongue?" she found images to also coincide with each phrase so her class could see a visual.  I also really enjoyed the fact that she actually took the time to make each of the Idioms fit into a continuous story line that involved a teacher and two students.  It was pretty clever and has given me some inspiration for when I start my Animoto project.

Wiki...What?!

It's funny, throughout my academic career I have aways been told to stay away from Wikipedia, as it is not considered to be a reliant resource. And now years later having read a couple chapters Richardson, I am getting know that a Wiki can be used in so many different ways. 

You can use a Wiki as a means of connecting, collaborating, and creating with others near and far.  One of the great things are you can start a Wiki on most any topic!  While I am not an educator I can see how this tool can be useful by professors in many of the courses  offered at the college level. Richardson refers to a ton of examples in these chapters, and one of them belonged to  Jason Welker .  On Jason's Wikki he provides tools for both the student and the teacher on the topic of Economics. 

Imagine if Professors at the collegiate level used this as a way to have their students build on material they have covered in class by having them log on to contribute their research on whatever the topic may have been in class.  Or even if the Professor used it more like Jason Welker where they may provide different tools the class may need as they move through the curriculum.  It would make for a more interesting way to cover the material, wouldn't it?!

I am happy to be taking this course because I am beginning to see the other side of the Wiki, and how it can be useful to educators at any level.



Blog Exploration

In my exploration for blogs that relate to issues in Higher Education, I came across a couple that related to the college admissions process. Each of the these blogs seemed to vary which was cool because I was able to read different perspectives on some topics that surround higher education and the admissions process.  Some of the blogs I viewed were from the view of a first year college student, or from a college counselor, or and Admissions Officer themselves.  Because I had never done a search on "College Admissions Officer" blogs before I was shocked to see that many schools have blogs set for their admissions department.  At Goodwin College we are definitely in touch with the Social Media world we have a Twitter, Facebook, and About Me pages set up, but no blogs that I know of as of yet.  So it may be pretty cool to see if blogging is an avenue the college may take for continued outreach to current and prospective students.   In what ways do you think blogging can be a successful tool for colleges to use to engage current and prospective students?

Here are a couple blog links that I added to my Diigolet, take some time to check them out!

http://www.getintocollegeblog.com/

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/

Animoto Inspiration!

If you haven't had the chance to view Anne Marie's Animoto you can find the link below. She took the book "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and transformed it by using Animoto take a second to check it out!  I found her Animoto to be refreshing she had a wonderful idea of putting this novel to music and making a mini video to give her students another way to view the story and a chance to to compare the illustrations to "real life" objects etc.  While I am not a teacher,  this example helps to show me another way to utilize a tool like Animoto .  I don't know that I would have thought to put a book into motion on my own, but now I know it is possible, I think Animoto will be my favorite new thing! How about you?