Windows Movie Maker

[At one time I had the movie embedded on my blog, but now it won't show up. Don't know what to do about that.]

Video Link

I just love doing this stuff. I've used Windows Movie Maker before but never realized that I could insert PowerPoint slides. And this makes it much easier (in my opinion) to create a video for Teacher Tube. And I love being able to embed in on my blog.

What I really liked about this assignment was my new ability to share my projects. There have been times when I've created PowerPoint shows (mostly for classes for "make-believe" students) that are pretty good and that I've been proud of. However, most of the time nobody but my teacher ever gets to see them. I like being able to make movies out of my PowerPoint presentations and then upload them to Teacher Tube so others can possibly use them.

Overall, this was one of my favorite assignments. And it didn't take much time at all!

Rubistar Rubric

Colonial America Research Paper Rubric

Colonial America Research Paper Rubric - GOOGLE DOCS

Colonial America Research Paper Rubric - OPENS IN EXCEL

I always thought using Rubistar was completely unnecessary for creating a rubric. It's so easy to just create a table on Word. I'm big on changing the color, font, etc. But after completing this assignment, I realized that Rubistar can come in handy, especially if a teacher is going to use the templates already available. It was nice to let Rubistar fill in the boxes. Creating a rubric with a table on Word or Excel is simple, but coming up with the criteria for each section can be a little exhausting. For two of my categories, templates were available, but since the other two were not listed exactly how I wanted, I had to write the criteria myself. I liked using Rubistar, and I was able to change the color and font later. Another benefit of using Rubistar is the rubric's availability online. Parents and students would be able to view the rubric from anywhere. This can obviously be done with Google Docs as well.

Google Docs Exported PDF

This was very simple to do. It's kind of neat how these assignments build on previously learned skills. Once I created my PowerPoint presentation, uploaded it to Google Docs, and embedded it on my blog, it was easy to figure out how to export it as a PDF.

View "The Writing Process" PDF file

Embedding PowerPoints

How exciting! I'm learning so many new things! I'm glad I learned how to embed. My problem is, though, creating PowerPoint presentations that are too large to embed. I was able to embed the Jeopardy game. The adaptations presentation from the previous assignment was over 2 MB so I couldn't embed it. Instead, I embedded a presentation I had made for a school assignment a couple years ago.

Jeopardy PowerPoint

I made my jeopardy game as a review for a "Colonial America" unit. It is based on several Social Studies CSOs for fourth grade. (SS.4.5.4, SS.4.5.6, SS.4.5.8, SS.4.5.9)

Colonial America Jeopardy

I am aware that the "500" in the last column is a link that takes you to a Snuggies website. That must be something we were also supposed to correct since some other people's do the same thing. I've tried to fix it, but right now my FTP site is not working and will not let me upload the PowerPoint show again. I'll have to try again later.

These games are definitely a really neat way to review chapters or units and serve as a fun way to review for tests. There are several websites that offer a large variety of gameshows in the form of PowerPoints. The templates are available for download and the teacher, or whoever else, can just insert his or her own information.

I've also uploaded my PowerPoint presentation to Google Docs. I hope it's available for everyone to see. I guess I still don't get the whole sharing thing.

PowerPoint Show

Okay, so I've had a little difficulty with the PowerPoint. It's not too bad; it's just a lot of uploading and re-uploading and making sure I save the project with the correct extension. I thought I had my PowerPoint Show uploaded to my FTP and ready to go until I realized that the text was messed up (on the second and last slides). Because I downloaded the particular font, it changed to Arial due to the save options. I thought I had embedded the fonts, but I guess I didn't. So I've re-uploaded it to my FTP and I hope it's the correct font. I also timed the slides so that the viewer doesn't have to click. However, I wonder if there's too much time for each slide. There's quite a bit of information on the slides, so I wanted to allow enough time. If they're too slow for you, just click to the next one.

PowerPoint (When I open this link on my comptuer with Vista, it opens in the PowerPoint program. When I open it on another computer without Vista, it opens the same as the PowerPoint Show.)

PowerPoint Show

I enjoyed this assignment. I know PowerPoint is used a lot, but I believe students benefit from having it incorporated into lessons. It's still a nice change of pace in the classroom. I like to make PowerPoint presentations; I'm rather picky about them. I think PowerPoint presentations need to look professional. I've seen so many that just look plain stinky. (I will not judge any of my classmates' presentations, so don't worry.) When they are used to teach children, they especially need to be eye-catching, colorful, and appealing. I also think children have fun creating their own PowerPoint presentations, and it's something they can easily do at home as well as in the classroom.

Podcast

How can I summarize my first experience creating and publishing a Podcast? A total nightmare. I'm relunctant to say that I had a horribly difficult time with this assignment, because figuring out this technology stuff is pretty easy for me. But not this. The downloading Audacity (the second time) and making my Podcast was easy. Of course it took a couple of hours to do that--to write my script and record and re-record it over and over. The first time I did this, I had it ready to post on my blog when I realized that I had downloaded the wrong program. So I had to download Audacity again (or for the first time; I'm still not sure what happened) and start from the very beginning! I finally got it right when the real trouble began.

With no step-by-step instructions, this assignment was excruciating. Thanks to Debbie from Charlestown (THANKS SO MUCH!) I learned how to do it. But I did think that it was ridiculous the number of steps I had to go through just to post it to my blog. Luckily I had iTunes to covert it with, but it took awhile before I learned how to change those settings. But this still didn't work! Because of Debbie, I also learned that the reason I had trouble was because I have Windows VISTA. Oh my gosh! Thankfully my husband has a computer with Windows 2003 where I had to upload my song.

Before doing this assignment, I was excited about using Podcasts with my students. I will probably use others' Podcasts to teach my students, but it will be a LONG time before I create one again if I ever choose to do this again. It was a rather traumatizing experience. And to make things worse, after I had finished my Podcast, I realized, on ANOTHER link, that I was supposed to have a second speaker. But after all this mess, I'm not going back and fixing it.

By the way, this was a crappy week to do that anyway, because I have a bad cold and you can hear it in the Podcast. :(

My Podcast

My Podcast Script

DELETE

I must be an idiot. I couldn't figure out how to delete this post.

Read the above post and you'll see why I don't care.