Creation Activity 4: Collaborative Brainstorming

Hi everyone!  Just got back from Pittsburgh, thanks to the snow, and  I decided to use the budgeting process for this creation activity.  I used Giffy to build a flow chart and found it quite easy and fun. I have never used any of these programs before, except for the time we used Webspiration in class.  I have to say for an online tool this was easy to use.  To me it seems a little like powerpoint, but without the changing slides.  Overall I would use this again.  Here is the link to the project for the budget process that I created.

 http://www.gliffy.com/publish/3024313/

Creativity and the Digital Presentation

It has been one crazy week, trying to run a conference for over 300 people, so I am a little behind.  I have never used anything like Prezi or Glogster before and found the tools interesting and frustrating.  Glogster was hard for me to figure out so I tried Prezi and found it better suited for my needs.  I thought to myself, I have an executive board meeting in Pittsburgh this week and have to plan for the spring conference(usually over 600 attend) and have to plan the agenda so I might as well do a design I can use.

So here it is, it is simple but will work for the group next week:

http://prezi.com/ncohh2yfzpls/acapa-2011-12/

After using it, I can see how it can be used in the classroom to generate ideas and create a flowing presentation, much better than power point.  I can also see how students can link thing together and really "get into" their work.  

Social Bookmarking

I really don't use social bookmarking that much.  One time I created a delicious site with some really great bookmarks(or at least I thought they were), an I forgot to move them over by the September 23rd deadline and now have lost them all :-(. 

Overall social bookmarking is an easy task and good so you don't loose some of your favorite sites, but then again isn't that what your favorites in your explorer are for?

I think social bookmarking can be a good thing, especially for educators and administrators, so they can share resources with each other without emailing the links to each other.  These links are readily accessible to all the world to see.  I do think for somethings like associations, these social bookmarks could be useful because everyone who would belong to the association could access it and add to it for the betterment of the members.

OK, I just have read my first two comments from everyone and don't think blogging is so bad.  I still am having a hard time thinking about what to write, but it seems like blogging is a discussion board that the whole world can see.  The only thing that worries me now is "what does the world think of this blog"

The First Blog

This is the first time I have ever used a blog and I can say that this was a pretty easy task.  The hardest thing is thinking about what to write and what to call it.  For everyone out there who has never done anything like this, I can honestly say that this is pretty interesting.

If you are someone in the Doctorate Program at Wilkes and are not in the Ed Technology Track, this is a class you may want to take.  As someone who is at the end of the Ed Leadership Program and only took the required technology courses, I am glad I have this experience.

 I'd say the one negative I can think of would be the lack of technology available. For example some schools may not have computers in every classroom, or they do they may not work properly. The school may not have access to an updated lab; both of those problems could be a major hindrance for having blogs in the lesson plan. There are also many instances in which the students may not even have access to a computer or internet at home and this could hurt classroom use.  Other issues that can be negative when it comes to blogs are that they could be difficult to grade and take time to set up and maintain.  Set may be easy but the monitoring of the blog is what can be difficult, especially if it is a classroom blog.

I think one positive aspect of blogging would be that it is an open communication line. If the teacher is using the blog to update parents on the happenings of the classroom they have all of that information at such easy access.  Blogs can also give the quiet student who does not like to speak in class a chance to share ideas without the fear of talking out loud in class

The blog can also encourage reading and writing. Students who spend more time on the computer then they do reading novels may spend more time reading assignments and writing about them in a blog format. If you are using a blog and students are still learning to spell, you could try disabling automatic spell checking software to encourage them to check their own spelling.

Post again soon!!!!!!!!!!!