CKV: The Story of Richard Schmidt II

July 10, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

One of the apps I used to create my movie was iMovie. I had never downloaded iMovie before on my iPad so I was able to get iMovie for free! The cost of this app is $4.99, however, the price is definitely worth it! With this app, I am able to create movie trailers and movies. I can upload pictures, movies, videos, or anything I want to create my very own movie. For this project, I was able to add a voice recording from Garageband and upload pictures. Editing the pictures to make them the length I wanted was easy!

Another app I used is Garageband. This app I solely used for recording my voice. There is an option to record audio on iMovie, however, I wanted to test out this app to see what it was like. This app was only $4.99. There are so many features and instruments to explore on Garageband. Making music or simply recording audio was easy and fun to play with.

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The third app I used was Photo Editor by Aviary. There were many pictures I scanned from my Papa and mom that were fuzzy and a little blurry. This app helped me to edit those photos. I am able to adjust the lighting, sharpness, color, and many more features. This app is free and very easy to use. From this app you can share your newly, edited photos to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or email it!

This project was my favorite project from this semester. I not only was able to explore all these different apps and create my very own movie, but I also was able to make a movie about someone I love. My papa means the world to me. He’s told me a little bit about his background before, but being able to hear it with all of the details made it more meaningful. I have lived in Missouri my whole life and most of my extended family has also except my Papa. I went to high school in Prairie Village, Kansas and now am attending two colleges in Manhattan, Kansas (Manhattan Christian College and Kansas State University). My love for Kansas grows more and more each year I spend in this wonderful state. Hearing Papa talk about all of his adventures and lifetime growing up in Kansas, made me love Kansas even more. Making this movie about him makes me love him even more also. I loved looking through all his old pictures. He and my Nana looked so different when they were younger. My mom said I look a little bit like my Nana, which I take as an amazing compliment! I hope when I am older I can live as great as a life that my Papa lived. I hope to one day leave a legacy like him.

Digital Storytelling with Adobe Slate

July 8, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I used the free app Adobe Slate to create my digital story. My digital story was about James Naismith and the invention of basketball. This app was very easy to use! I was able to import photos and links and input text. It similarly works like PowerPoint, however, it is much more interactive and looks more attractive and professional.

I loved using this app, and I think every school should implement the app into their classroom. This would shift the traditional direct instruction with PowerPoint to a more engaging and active involvement with Adobe Slate in the classroom. As an educator, I would be able to give assignments where my students could use this app. It would give them an opportunity to create their own project on someone, an event, or a time period I have assigned them. I recommend this app for every educator! It is an amazing resource to make every classroom the optimum learning environment!

Using Apps in the Classroom, iTunes courses

July 7, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

For this project, I first needed to download the iTunes U app. This app provides iTunes U provides everything an educator needs to bring their classroom together. I clicked on “For Educators” icon. This icon took me to a different page with gave me diverse books and resources to use as an educator. I explored the books that were under “Using Apps in the classroom”. This particular collection gives educators books which provide information on apps they can utilize in the classroom and how they can implement these apps into lesson plans. I clicked on the “See All” and was able to view all eighteen books this section provided!

The three books I specifically explored was Photographing History: Archiving With Apps, Student Authored Portfolios: Archiving Learning with iPad, and Explain Everything Lesson Ideas. I used Explain Everything for my Interactive Whiteboard Apps & Screencasting project! I enjoyed reading the book “Student Authored Portfolios: Archiving learning with iPad”. I believe in an active learning environment for my students rather than solely direct instruction. Students will enjoy what they are learning when they are learning it for themselves and are able to apply what they are learning actively participating and engaging in the material.

This book suggest having students create a blog. They recommend two blog site teacher can use, but I favor Edublog. Giving students the opportunity to create their own blog gives them ownership of their learning! It inspires students to do their best work also! I would use this app in the classroom, because I think grading students on their blog and portfolio that they make is more representative of what they know rather than grading them over memorizing material for a test. I would have them create various projects reviewing a history book, creating a history video, making a history project, etc. There are diverse ways I could use implement information in this book into my classroom. This book is a great resource for educators regardless of their subject emphasis.

Inspiring ideas for Teachers, iTunes U courses

July 7, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I used the app iTunes u to find several resources I can use as a teacher. Once I got this app, I opened it up and clicked on the icon “educators”.

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Once I clicked this, I was sent to a different page which provided me different sections to be explored like inspiring lesson ideas, using apps in the classroom, teaching with iPad, etc. For this assignment I looked through the inspiring lesson ideas. This provided me with 30 diverse courses I could subscribe to! I was particularly interested in three courses: It’s All Geography to Me, Building Self-Advocacy, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was surprised at how many of these courses I could use in my own classroom for social studies. When you subscribe to a course it provides you with videos, books, documents, apps, images, materials, and web links to use for the course. These courses are a great resource to implement in the classroom regardless the subject.

I chose the course It’s All Geography to Me to subscribe to. This course was specific to teaching geography for the first time to seventh and eighth graders. The instructor of the course, Mr. Keith Heggart, does not solely use direct instruction but encourages active engagement with the content the students are learning. Isaac Pineda, author of the One Best Thing iBook “Student Authored Textbooks: A Student’s Perspective on History“, promotes this type of teaching strategy. He states, “By allowing the students to engage in active learning it gave them the power to research, question, and investigate. It gives them ownership and allows them to engage in inquiry-based learning.”

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The home page of the course provides an overview of the course, instructor information, outline of the course, pedagogical philosophy, about the ADE Program, and about lessons for the classrooms. Understanding and implementing this course in my classroom would be easy and perfect for my philosophy for teaching! Geography can sometimes be a hard subject for middle schoolers. I would use lesson ideas from this course by giving my students the opportunity to create their own field report of areas I have assigned to them. This would give them the ownership of choosing what they want to study and create an individual motivation to learn. This course is a great resource that gives me various ideas to utilize in my classroom!

One Best Thing iBooks: Ideas for the Classroom for TEACHERS

July 7, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I read the One Best Thing iBook “Student Authored Textbooks: A student’s Perspective on History” by Isaac Pineda. This iBook talked about the benefits and need to shift away from a teacher-centered classroom and instead move towards a student-centered classroom. This book talks about creating an environment to enhance student’s learning. Isaac Pineda creates this environment by ” giving the students the power to research, question and investigate. I give them ownership and allow my students to engage in inquiry-based learning”. The students do this by creating their own Multi-touch textbook in which they provide information on what they have learned. I learned that helping my students create this Multi-touch textbook is fairly easy and also incorporates Common Core Standards. Implementing this hands-on learning experience provides students with an opportunity to engage in and reflect on what they are learning.

I would definitely use this in my classroom! This would allow the students to work on this project individually or collaboratively in groups. It would give my students a chance to get away from direct instruction and get involved with researching and learning more of the material than they would be able to in a regular fifty minute class session. At the end of a unit lesson, midterm, or final I could use this as a summative assessment. This gives my students a chance to show what they have learned that does not involve taking a test or turning in homework from reading the night before. This a fantastic iBook every teacher and future teacher should read because it provides a relevant teaching strategy that promotes critical thinking and active learning for students.

Interactive Whiteboard Apps & Screencasting, My First Screencast

July 7, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I successfully completed my first Screencast! This took quite a long time completing, because I wanted to make sure I practiced what I was going to say and the information was correct.

I used the app Explain Everything.This app was only $2.99and was very easy to use!

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It has so many features. I am able to import photos or videos into slides. You can from there record, type, draw, orplace an arrow to explain the video or picture you just imported. I read the One Best Thing ibook “Explain Everything: Formative Assessment and Screencasting” which provided steps of how to use the app and the benefits of using the app. This app would be a great resource to use in the classroom, especially for a flipped classroom! I would send the link to my students in which they can watch beforeour next class period. In the classroom I would not have to spend time lecturing over the material, I can instead implement hands-on activities.

Week 7 Reflection: “The Learning Revolution Has Begun”

July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I had previously written about “The Learning Revolution Has Begun” by Steve Hargadon and decided to write another because his posts are passionate and cause you to critically think. This post was specifically about what Ivan Illich thought of school. he believe that school functions more a business institution than an environment promoting learning and education. He asks a monumental question, “How is it that schools not only work in the same way [as businesses], but actually seem to be the primary means of facilitating our compliant support to the larger institutionalized society model–setting the stage, is it were, and convincing us that we should listen to those who tell us to buy and do what isn’t good for us?” Answering his questions will also answer the question of what is the purpose of schools? There seems to be laws like No Child Left Behind Act and Common Core Standards that provide schools medicine to a “prescription” they have. However, Steve Hargadon states that they are strengthening the institution with these prescriptions instead of diagnosing and fixing the actual problem. I keep on hearing it is not smart to go into teaching right now, especially in Kansas. Seeing the recent education budget cuts gives me more doubts. However, I believe that if teachers and administration as a whole find the source of the problem and fix that before implementing “prescriptions”, we can start a gradual process in building up our schools to become a learning environment for our students again.

Week 6 Reflection: “Recharge Learning”

July 6, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I read the blog Recharge Learning which promotes a positive view on teaching and learning. I read the blog “Collaboration is an essential Skill for Today’s Learners“. This post gives the benefits of implementing collaboration in the classroom. Collaboration is when students work together collectively. Collaboration is an essential tool needed for students today, because it promotes individual and group learning. These are the four main benefits of collaboration in the classroom the blog gives:

Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.
Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.

The blog also gives numerous collaboration resources to use for classrooms. I will use collaboration in my classroom because it will help my students to think more critical about the material I have provided. It will also allow them to teach and learn from their fellow peers. Collaboration is a great tool I will utilize in my own classroom!

iMovie Trailers: “Columbus’s Journey”

July 6, 2015July 7, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

I used the app iMovie app to create a movie trailer. I have created movie trailers before for fun and so this project was pretty simple. I chose to make my movie trailer on Christopher Columbus. I created a comic strip relating to Columbus’s travels in the app Comic Maker HD for a previous project. I thought it would be good to expand on this idea even further with a different app. I realized through this process how many ways I can use this app in my future classroom! It would be a great resource to use to introduce a new lesson to my students. I could also use this app for my students to create their own movie trailer for material we have discussed! My iPad had never downloaded this app before so I was able to get it for free. However, if it has already been downloaded on your device, this app is $4.99, but the price is definitely worth it!

Week 10 Reflection: TechEdge in the Classroom

July 6, 2015 rebeccahawthorne

TechEdge is an incredible resource I will use when I am a future teacher. It has YouTube channel with videos to view which provide diverse apps teachers can use in the classroom. I went to the videos that were directly related to history apps. I viewed three videos, Episode 9, Episode, 49, and Episode 67, that were located in the TechEdge iPad edition for History. One of the videos were related to apps specifically for one iPad classrooms and the two others were solely for history apps. Guy Trainin was the commentator of these apps. He would tell you what the app was, how to use it, and the benefits of getting the app. All of the apps he suggested was free!

Three of my favorite apps TechEdge suggested was World Book-This Day in History, To the Brink, and US History Timeline. The app “This day in history” gives you interesting historical information for every day. This would be great to utilize in my classroom every day to give one or two important facts to start off the day. “To the Brink” gives information about President Jonathan F Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It gives sources, photos, documents, videos, and short explanations of how it all connects. This would be a great reference to use especially when teaching on the Cold War. It would give my students a visual representation of what we are discussing in the classroom. The app “US History Timeline” is a great app to use during our discussion of US history. Looking at this timeline would provide another great visual representation for the students. It also allows for myself and students to research more events on the timeline more in-depth. The TechEdge YouTube channel will be a great resource to continue using to find more useful apps to use in my future classroom!

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