week 13

Tech Article Presentations

I learned a lot from watching everyone’s presentations!  One general comment I wanted to make is that technology allowed for dynamic creativity in this project.  Opening up our options to include music, video, prezi, and glogster really opened me up to do something I wouldn’t normally do in a classroom setting.  Once again I am growing in my understanding of technology!

I liked Sarah’s prezi.  There was a lot of information and it took me a second to figure out how to navigate but I learned plenty!  I especially enjoyed learning from the videos that she included in her prezi.  I was surprised to learn that skype is free and easy to install.  I didn’t know that!  Also I was surprised to learn that you don’t need a webcam?  How cool!  I was intrigued by the teacher that talked about learning skype on a personal level first so that you know how to use it already when the stakes are higher (in the classroom).  What good advice! 

Joe’s and Josh’s presentations got me thinking about how big a change occurs in the classroom when the internet is integrated.  Just a simple connection to the internet (which like Josh says in his song is not cheap) can open the classroom up to include the whole world.  Even though the cost of a broadband internet connection may be high, schools should think of how much they will save on educational videos and field trips which can be obtained free online.

Julie’s video game glogster taught me that video games can have value in the classroom.  I was surprised to learn that surgeons who play video games are faster and more efficient than those that don’t.  I guess my perception of video gamers is all wrong!  If used appropriately, I learned that they can improve right brain functions.  Cool! 

Digital Portfolios

http://web.pdx.edu/~pgerst/goals.htm  pretty good!

I like that “Paul” has an introductory page that explains how to navigate the rest of his ePortfolio.  The links to the different pages worked fine.  The one that was an “external link” opened ok but none of the video boxes played anything.  So that was kind of poor. 

http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/collections/castl_he/ebarkley/project/index.html really good!

This one was very well organized.  Lots of pictures and very professional-looking.  I noticed in browsing a couple of these portfolios that a lot of my perception depended on how things were arranged and just basically how it looked.  It is more important here I think than in a classic portfolio to make the portfolio eye-catching and to make it look interesting.