Thats All She Wrote

This will be my last post of my adventures in TPTE. To say the least it was a interesting class with great people. Throughout this month I learned of many different Web 2.0 tools that I can use in my band class. Especially any tool that uses pictures is a great to use for memories for the students as they grow in band since we take a lot of trips for performing in marching band and concert bands.

Blogs and wikis are a great idea to collaborate with students to have them share school related information. I will have a band website when I do become a director to keep students up to date on everything that will be going on within our program.

So all in all this class just showed me some other tools I may be able to use. However the reality is that I could get a job were there is no computers or internet connections but being aware of the possibilities is resourceful.

Thank you Dr. Obannon for allowing us music kids to be in this tech class to finish our degree. Hope you have a great summer!

Wikis

Wikis are a collaboration website where as long as users have a pbworks account they can add information and work on the website together. Working on the site was very straight forward and easy to work with my classmates. In class we made a resource wiki that is Music and Art based and this class and another class has been working on it this whole month. We added photos and a navigation bar for pages and added music resources students or teachers may find useful.

I learned that wikis are very efficiant and can be used with students to have them make their own wiki. they can add information as they learn throughout there class. The memory in the wiki saves everything so it will be very easy to grade fairly on a students work.

Above is a link to our music wiki.

Blog About Blogging

Yes! A Blog about blogging that is exactly what this blog is! So blogging is basically updates from an author about whatever they want to write about. So its almost as a computer journal, but the world can see it! So I have already mention that i am indeed an experience blogger. I do not have a blog about my self right now because, well I have a Facebook. Before in high school I was a complete nerd and joined in different role-playing games on Xanga (older blog site). Also I am the web-mistress for an music education organization at University of Tennessee. That particular blog site is actually through this blogger site, and you can view it here.

Lastly, my feelings for blogging...Well I warn you they are not good. I first off want to say is that I do have a Facebook, and many more accounts with my information on it. But I do not think it is safe or wise to put SO much information on the Web about yourself. Maybe I have watched to many movies but I am very careful of what I share on the Internet. I try to put just the bare minimum that I would even tell a stranger on the street. I think Blogs are great for maybe people who are traveling to let their friends know how they are but one still must be careful. Information sites about a certain topic are fine though! Its just my problem lies with personal information on the web.

Movie Maker Live!

This was my hands down favorite project of the class! Above you will see my use of Window Movie Live Maker in order to give you a second look into my life. This program is great to put little movies together for students to tell a story. Or Students can use this tool to tell their own story. This tool can be used for student presentations as well as study guides.

Using this program is alot easier then photoshop, I think. There isn't buttons that are difficult to understand or anything. Everything has a very simple way of producing a video. All I had to do was upload the files I want to use and then customize them to my liking. Creativity is unlimited so anything is possible to make with this program. With this program you can use sound clips from music, pictures, and recordings of a video or sound you have done yourself. So any videos can be created using a digital story and it can look super great as well as being very entertaining.

Animoto

Spreadsheet-Example

A spreadsheet is another name for a worksheet. This can be made using Microsoft Excel. I have to admit it is super hard for me to understand this program, no matter how many directions I have. However I fought my way through it and created a demo worksheet above. This a a good idea in theory for students to interactively take a quiz and get imediate results. However in a band class setting it will be super hard to take test like this especially when band classes can have 100 or more students. Although I can use this for any sub-music classes I will have to teach such as music theory or general music.

Google Forms