Week 4

This week we started out by presenting a PowerPoint (PP) and presenting to grade age students. As I am not currently teaching, I took a previous presentation that I constructed from college and modified it to high school students. It was over Forensic Adipocere and its part in the forensic science world. Since I don’t have the ability to present this to high school students in the classroom, I sent it to some friends who have high school aged children and had them take a look at it. I am most proud of the fluidity of the presentation; it just easily flows from one slide to another. I worked really hard on this in college and presented it in Senior Presentation. Since this was for college students, there were not many restrictions for images, seeing as this would be presented to high school students now, I may need to tone down some of them sine they maybe a little too much and too graphic for school policy. Since I couldn’t present this to science students, I knew I was going to get a lot of that is gross comments which I did. Not too many students were interested in this, as it was definitely science based. Next time I need to tie this to the real world and even mention the TV show CSI or Bones and maybe students will start to be more interested in this.  

We also explored a website called TED (technology, entertainment, and design). I surfed around for a while and watched quite a few videos. I definitely bookmarked this site! The science videos were very interesting.  From the videos I watched and countless others, I know this would be so useful in the science classroom. You can present to students that anyone can do experiments; you are only limited by your imagination and not your age. We also see how genetic engineering can be useful to decrease the number of disease carrying species. This would work for the learning of experiments as well as genetics and engineering which are objectives required in the State of Washington end of course exam.

We had four technological explorations to look at this week as well, ComicLife and ISpeech, VoiceThread, Storybird and Scribblar, and Xtranormal and Virtual Manipulatives.

I have to admit I have absolutely no drawing skills what so ever. If you need something hand drawn, well I can draw a stick figure and a heart and that’s about it. With ComicLife, you can bring pictures to life such as in a comic book. Here you can create your own comic book. You upload pictures, drawings, stills, etc. to the website and drop and drag captions and word balloons. This resource helps inspire creativity. The use of comics can help motivate the unmotivated reader, teach students about stories with a plot, beginning, ending, etc., and become a visual representation of knowledge. It also has spell checker support, templates to help get you started, page numbering system, and different fonts and layouts for customization. You also provide the students with additional learning in the art of digital graphics writing! You as a teacher do have to remember to copyright laws. This would be a good resource to help teach your students how to do this properly. The site also has links in helping you and the students know how to do this.  

We also looked at another text to speech resource. ISpeech provides two types of services with text to speech and automated speech recognition (ASR). Text to speech lets users send them text and they provide the users with computer-generated speech. ASR allows users to submit audio data from a microphone or a file and they return transcript of what was said. This can be done on mobile devices as well as through the web. You can even build an application if need be, but that’s really for a business.

I am not currently a teacher, but this is something that is definitely beneficial to all my students. With ComicLife, I could use this for my own use to present classroom rules which I will create with the help of the students. This would be a fun way to create and understand all the rules for the year and a learning experience for the students. Since I want to teach high school biology, this would also be neat to use for a life cycle lesson. Using funny pictures with captions can help visual learners in their studies as well as create funny things that some other students can remember for their notes. ISpeech would be good for the visually impaired. They could have assignments sent in and transcribed so they could hear them as well as transcribing a study guide or notes that were taken in class. This would be useful with any form of written document that needs to be transcribed verbally.

I would recommend this for educators to use in the classroom. The Comic Life would be something new and different to use in the classroom. It seems very easy to use with a tutorial if you need help. If you have ever created a PowerPoint presentation, I think would you will be just fine.  They have software for your Windows or Mac computer as well as any IPhone/IPad device. The application is $5 for your IPhone/IPad device. You can buy one license for $19.99 which works on just one computer, but you can purchase more licenses for more computers and you receive a discount the more you buy. For 1000 licenses, the costs are $2490 and for 500 licenses, the costs are $1749. As a teacher I think you would be ok with just putting it on your computer for now and purchasing more if you think there is a need for it. ISpeech seems pretty cool and fairly easy to use, but the costs are what get to me. They charge per word, really per word!!! You buy them in credits where one word equals one credit or for ARS one transaction is one credit. So 10,000 credits is $200, 100,000 is $1000, 1,000,000 is $5000. Anything greater than that costs around .0001 cents per word and you have to contact them personally. For your cell phone its pay per install. Its .25 per install for the first 10,000-100,000, .20 per install for 100,001-500,000 installs, and .175 per install for 500,001-1,000,000. Anything more than that you have to contact them personally again. I just find the cost very hard to swallow; you can buy software for cheaper than does the same thing for a fraction of the price. The only thing this offers is the ability to convert text as well. I figure they have to have something out there much cheaper than this.

Voice thread already sets itself apart by not being software but a cloud application.  It’s a multimedia slideshow which is navigable by users. This allows you to collaborate, communicate, and connect as it states on the website. In VoiceThread you can upload, share, and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files, and videos. This can also integrate with a board range of information systems including Angel Learning at we use at the University of the Cumberlands. Individuals can comment on your presentations using video, audio, or text. You can also either decide to keep your information private, share with certain individuals, or make public. Just like other technology, there is a mobile application you can use on your Apple devices. They also a link to an education VoiceThread that is specifically for the education world. They have quite a few videos on there. They point of this is the ability to use it on campus and collaborate with teachers and students. There was also a VoiceThread Wiki space created by an individual where it has grown to a collection of VoiceThreads from students and teachers. It provides examples of how they are using VoiceThread in the classroom. There are samples, resources, and best practices. There is an array for them for every age group and every subject.

I am not currently a teacher, but this is something that is definitely beneficial to all my students. VoiceThread would be interesting to use for the students. You could use this in the science classroom to create a story for a certain topic, bring the life cycle of a particular animal to life, and teach the process of research and experiments. With the ability to create and upload all types of things from documents to media, there are endless possibilities where you can even share with other teachers. With the VoiceThread Wiki, you can use this the same way as the original, but here you have examples and samples which can help you brainstorm and construct ones on your own for your classrooms or upload ones to the site to share with other teachers and collaborators.

I would recommend this for educators. It seems very easy to use since there is no software downloading, but it can get very expensive quick. For just your own account its $15 a month or $79 a year. You can create student usernames for up to 50 students, you can always add more later for $2 each. You are editor of their work with a manger tool to create classes and student accounts. It also provides you a custom web address to easily share public VoiceThreads. If you need more than one account such as for a school license, this can range from 500 users for $476 to 2000 users for around $2100. You can always ask for more but you need to contact them directly. The Wiki space is highly recommended if you purchase VoiceThread. It’s easy to navigate, free to use, and a great tool to help you learn and understand VoiceThread.

When this site popped up, I was amazed at first at the beautiful artwork. I think of handmade stories with crude hand drawn pictures, not these beautiful pictures. Storybird gives the ability to be a story teller. They have artwork from illustrators and animators and inspire writers of any age to create stories. Then you can read and share them with this large community of children, students, and teachers! This allows for creativity and expression as well as learning the art of writing and reading. You can create a regular or a teacher account which provides private classes where student names are hidden and discussions are private. These stories are so animated and beautiful. 

Scribblar.com is a simple online collaboration. It contains a real-time multi-user whiteboard, image upload and download, text chat, and live audio. You can always upgrade to the Scribblar Pro which allows you integrate it into you existing website. This is good for school district and small businesses.  It’s the same thing as the original but allows you to use your own logo, and personalize it. It can be used for the online classroom or tutoring platform. 

With Storybird, this would be a great addition to an English or Reading class. Here you students could let their minds be their guide with beautiful animations to go along with it. You could also use it in the biology classroom to illustrate a life cycle of a certain animal or ecological event. I wish there was something like this for our classes when I was younger so it could inspire and empower creativity and imagination.

Scribblar could be utilized a lot of ways in the classroom. It could be used to tutor students with the use of the whiteboard. It could connect students from different classes to work on collaborative projects together. This could also connect students around the world to connect and work together. This would also be very useful for brainstorming ideas on research and projects. The opportunities are endless.

I would recommend both resources for educators. Each site is easy to use and could provide a lot of benefits to the classroom. Storybird allows for teachers to buy a Pro series which offers more advance services such as a review dashboard, grading capabilities, printable handouts, class archiving, and feedback on work. If you want to download the books, for 150 books it is $69 a year and $99 a year for 300 books. To me it doesn’t seem that expensive for a lifetime of memories. Scribblar is free for everyday use, but the Pro is custom made for each individual so you have to contact them to get the price for it.

Xtranormal actually takes the words from your stories and brings to live with animation! You have the ability to add and delete characters, change the camera angles, have the characters speak dialogue, and upload media such as pictures and audio to your story. You pretty much become the director of your own story. For anyone who has ever wanted to create a movie, this is a sight to take a look at. Special tools allow you to create assignments, moderate, grade, and give feedback. Learning now takes a more hands on experience, can help teachers reinvent their lectures, and you can help engage your students more. 

The virtual manipulatives is a national library created by Utah State University. This resource is a project that began in 1999 to develop a library of interactive, web-based virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials for K-12 mathematics instruction. The usage of this virtual learning environment helps engage the students in the lessons of mathematics. Visual objects that help illustrate mathematical relationships and applications and allow students to visually examine concepts. They also have the eNLVM which is an extension of the original and are interactive online units that target objectives and include online activities and assessments. Teachers can view class answers and assess how students are doing. Teachers can also modify the lessons to the needs of students and share their lessons as well as collaborate with others

I am not currently a teacher, but this is something that is definitely beneficial to all my students. Xtranormal could be something new and interesting to bring to the classroom. With this you could animate lectures and bring history to life from 1776. You could bring fun animation to the life cycle of a frog, or animate an ecological disaster and what the consequences of this could be on the ecosystem. The virtual manipulatives would be an incredibly helpful resource in the mathematics classroom. As I one of those students who struggle daily with math, I would have enjoyed this in my classes so that I could understand more. This could be helpful in different contents of mathematics and would allow for the teachers to readily see if the students understand the information and change their instruction as needed.

I would recommend this for educators to use in the classroom. It seems very easy to use and has a complete manual and demos to help you get started. It is $10 a month for the teacher and to add student access is .50 cents per student. This offers all the amenities you will need to create whatever movies you want.  The virtual manipulatives also seems easy to navigate and contains tutorials as well. The offer the license in English or Spanish and run around $39.95 per computer go up from there with a slight discount the more you purchase. For mathematic classes this would be such a good investment for the students especially students who learn visually.