Movie Story

     Creating a digital movie had to be my favorite assignment so far in class. I really liked how I had so many options to make my movie absolutely perfect and to my standards. There were so many more options and tools that could be used in the movie maker than I ever thought possible.
     My movie was about my daughter's life from the day she was born up until now at 2 years old. It was very difficult to keep that down to 2 minutes I had so much that I wanted to share. I am going to blame that on the "mom" in me.
     There are many ways that digital movies can be used in a classroom. The number one way that I think it would best fit would be to make a slideshow of the children from the first day to the last. It could be candid photos, important things that were done in the class, showing off projects, or just anything that was worth taking pictures of. These could be put together by the teacher and given to each child's parent at the end of the year. 
     I learned so much while doing this assignment. I never knew that you could do so much with just a stack of photographs. I will probably do another movie like this again one day so I am glad that I had the opportunity to do it for the first time with some assistance. 
     This sounds like a lot of work, but movie maker made the entire task very easy. The hardest part of the entire process was choosing which pictures to use. After that, it was smooth-sailing. While looking over the NETS-T standards, this particular activity would fall under the topic of 
"Model Digital Age Work and Learning." The actual goal is Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats.
 By doing a video for the children to take as a keepsake, this would show that the teacher is up to date on digital work and learning. It is also something nice for the families to have and be able to look back on. I plan to do this in my classroom one day. 

Here is my movie that I made in class!
Click here to see a video about my daughter Emma Ruth!

Web Tools

     The web tools that we learned about were all very great tools to be familiar with. I actually had a lot of fun creating the different required pages and playing around with the sites to see what I could find. All of the different tools would be very beneficial for an elementary teacher. The tools we used were to make an online rubric, an online quiz, an online worksheet and an online puzzle.
     The rubric could be used in a classroom for activities, projects, and even certain tests. This is something that every teacher should be familiar with using. Making the quiz was actually pretty fun. I liked how it gave you lots of options when it came to formatting the quiz to suit what the teacher is looking for. This will be a handy tool for making quizzes and tests for any grade not just elementary. The worksheet page I had fun with. There were so many different options and already made templates to choose from. It made it very easy to find the one I needed. This would be a very valuable tool in any grade as well. My personal favorite was the puzzle maker site. I love doing puzzles and have always used them when studying or trying to learn a new concept. This tool would be very valuable, especially for elementary, because children need something to look at. They need something physical to show them the concept. By making the information into a puzzle that is fun, the child will more than likely retain the information better.
      I really didn't encounter any problems when I was doing this assignment, which surprised me. I thought that I would get so very lost when trying to make all the different worksheets and tests, but I never did. That in itself should show a lot.
     While referring to the NETS-T standards, the goal that I thought was most appropriate for this activity falls under the topic
 "Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments." The actual goal is Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
 The internet is the best possible resource for a teacher and using the web tools that are available would be nothing short of beneficial to the students. 

Here is my test for Science Fair Experiments. See how you do!
Click here to take a test on Science Fair Experiments

Here is a rubric for my Science Fair Experiment project. What do you think?
Click here to see my rubric