Week+-+4+-+February+1,+2010+-+Absent

Unfortunately I was absent for this class. Luckily I am very familiar with Windows Movie Maker. I am very fond of photographs and I have been using Windows Movie Maker for years to make slideshows and combine videos of my family and friends. Looking at the class website I also see that we discussed cell phones in the classroom. As I mentioned on last weeks page I have recently become open to the idea of using cell phones in the classroom. We also talked about the usefulness of podcasting, which again I ** d**i scussed on last week's page. Lastly we discussed Format Factory. I have never used this before but was very happy to know it existed and was free. I am often frustrated by the fact that I do not have the right format. I have since tried the program and it seems fairly straightforward. However when talking to a classmate I was informed that the experience with it in the class was less than satisfactory. I will have to withhold judgement on this program until I have used it more thoroughly. Reading: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (Marc Prensky) I completely agree with this article. I absolutely see myself as a digital immigrant. As I was reading i could identify with his description of a digital immigrant. I still have to print out a hard copy to edit my work. I also believe that students have changed. During my practicum I was amazed at how many students own cell phones. When I went to high school, a short six years ago, cell phones were not an issue. I am a digital immigrant who does feel insulted by students who multi-task when I am talking. Since taking this class I realize that students are different. The digital native does not think it is disrespectful to multi-task. As Mr. Prensky says, its part of who they are. I agree that students think differently now. Prensky states a few characteristics of the digital natives, including a preference for games. During my practicum I played a game on the internet with my class. It was a plagiarism game where students had to kill Goblins by answering questions about plagiarism. The game was a hit. It made me realize how students respond better to technological games than traditional lessons. This is understandable. I think that it is worth a teachers time to try and find games and activities like this to engage our digital native students. Prensky states that ' Smart adult immigrants accept that they don't know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate ". I think this is the most crucial statement in the article. If teachers want to teach these digital natives they need to accept and embrace technology. I like technology even though I struggle with it. I have taken this course as an attempt to connect with my digital native students. As a teacher I plan on learning all I can from my students.
 * General Information

Software: As stated earlier this week we used Windows Movie Maker. I love this program. It is useful for combining pictures, movies and videos. You can also add titles and credits. One downfall is that there is not a lot of room for text. Also you can not add charts and diagrams unless you save them as a picture and incorporate it that way. If I was to revise this program I would have a blank page option, similiar to Power Point Presentations, where users would be able to add text, pictures, charts, etc. I can see this being useful in the classroom. The one advantage it has over PowerPoint is that you can incorporate music into it. You can ask students to create a movie instead of an essay. You could also ask groups to make a movie depicting an event in History. In English you could ask students to recreate their novel, poem or story using photos and videos. Also I remember a project I had to do which was completely writing chapters about myself. Students could do this project using videos and pictures instead of just words. An example of how I used Windows Movie Maker is the following video I made of my nephew Ryan.media type="file" key="Ryan Jamie.wmv" **