Almost Finished.

Almost there, after today I will have finished all but three of my classes, and I am so ready for it to be over. While this semester hasn't been bad, I am still ready to be finished. So its time to buckle down and wrap up these classes and get ready for finals, and in the next two weeks it will all be over. I guess its time to stay calm and carry on.

Didn't See That One Coming

So I am sure a lot of you saw that flash storm that came though yesterday about 6:15. I was in the library working on a group project when it happened. I did think much about it and went on with my day until my roommate texted me and asked if I had made it through the storm, because some trees had fallen on some cars on the commuter lot next to the torch bearer. The lot I had parked in. I didn't think much about it because I was in the center of the lot, and I thought I was clear of any trees. Well much to my surprise when I went to my car to leave, I found that my car had been smooshed by a huge uprooted tree. It was 10x worse than anything I could have imagined. I would have never guessed but, things happen, and glad no one was hurt.

Digital Story in iMovie

This is my digital story of The University of Tennessee.

Digital Story...

I wasn't sure how I felt about making a digital story at first, I had used I movie in the past for various classes, as well as making a family christmas movie (precious I know), I had no intrest in telling a story about myself, I am not really very good at telling stories, but I love to listen to them. So I decided to do my Digital Story on The University of Tennessee, I thought that this could be a small quick informative video for students as they try and make decisions about where they will attend college, it helps them see the inside from someone who attended there. They get more from this than they can the mounds of college information packets that they will begin to acquire by their sophomore year of high school.

Inspiration

Using inspiration, you can create concept maps to use in your classroom. They can be as elaborate or as simple as you choose. Its a great tool, and works as a nice substitute for power points and other graphics and presentations in class. Its a nice way to provide visual notes to your students.

Animoto

I think that Animoto could be one of the most fun web 2.0 videos to use. I especially like the idea of having students create a 30 second video about themselves as well as the teacher creating one, as an alternative to an "About Me". I think Animoto could also be used to help students use technology in a presentation but not overwhelming them, instead of asking for a powerpoint, have them make a 30 second video. The students creating it will enjoy it more, as will the students watching it.

Science Scavenger Hunt!!

Picasa Slideshow

Picasa is a pretty cool, it makes photo sharing and viewing your photos online really simple. This tool could be used for just about anything, from classroom to personal use, it's just a great photo sharing tool.

Lesson Plan

Creating a lesson plan in this class proved to be a valuable experience once is was all done and over with. Creating this lesson plan helped me to see how valuable technology can be at enhancing a students overall experience with the lesson as well as what they take from it. Using the various web 2.0 tools that we have learned about this far, will also prove to be a valuable resource, from having students use the tools themselves to integrating them into the classroom, I think that they will prove invaluable.

WebQuests

WebQuest were something that I was not familiar with at all before Tuesday, but now that I have looked at several and seen what use they can be in the classroom, they can be a value tool in helping students understand material as well as breaking up the normal class work and standard group work into something more fun. Another aspect that I like about this WebQuest is that the provide real world application, something that many students do not see in the science classroom. Many of these WebQuest show you just how and when you can and will use this in real life. Creating Webquests or using some that have already been created is something that I can see myself doing in my classroom. I think that they can serve as a valuable resource, as long as they are not over used, because if they become over used the novelty of them wares off and students begin to see them as just another mundane assignment.

Web 2.0

I am doing my web 2.0 project on delicious, a site that at first I thought had no real practical uses, but after working on the project I found out that it had many more uses than I thought. Delicious serves as a way to access your own person web browser for any computer, delicious also makes it easy to share interesting websites that you have found with your friends or anyone online who shares common interests with you. While I can certainly see the reasons for using it, delicious is not something that I see myself using on an everyday basis, but throughout this project I have looked at several other web 2.0 tools, and some of these I can see myself using in the future and I look forward to learning more about them and the way that they can be applied with in the classroom.

Reflection on Website Evaluation

After evaluating a website based on the criteria listed on various websites, as well as using the form that was provided I found that there is much more to a find a scholarly source on the internet. After looking at several sites I saw that most of the sites post little of any information that helps to validate their claims. What I learned from this will prove useful when I look at websites I plan to use in the future.

Web Site Evaluation

This website; http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html serves as a good place to get information as to how to evaluate a website that you are thinking about using. It offers a basic outline for what you should look for when evaluating a website, and then takes the topics more in depth. It evens give detailed rationale to help you in making your decision.

Wiki Experience

I had never had any experience with wikis until we created them in class on PBWorks. It took me a while to figure out how to get somethings figured out, epically wrapping text around my pictures. Once I figured out how to do it was easily to format the pictures into my page exactly how I wanted them. I had some reservations about wikis and was concerned about using them, but they don't seem to be so difficult and I enjoyed working on them.

TPTE 486 Intro

I an Alex Dunbar and I am from Chattanooga Tennessee. I went to David Brainerd Christian School in Chattanooga, it was a very small private high school. I graduated with a total of eight people. I spent one semester at UTC before coming to UT Knoxville. MY major is biology with a concentration in ecology and evoultionary biology.  I plan to teach high school biology, and also have an interest in teaching either ecology or environmental science. I enjoy reading really any kind of book but True Crime has recently become and interest, and when I have the time I also enjoy scrapbooking. I enjoy sports of all kinds but basketball is my favorite but I also spent a semester playing rugby for the club team at UT.

Expectations For 486

At first I didn't have any idea of what to expect for this course, but after the first day and looking at the syllabus, I think that I will gain valuable information in using technology in the classroom.Many of the things covered in this course are things that I have never had any experience with and I look forward to figuring out how all these things work, and how they can be implemented in the classroom. My only concern with this class is that it will prove difficult to keep up with all that needs to be done in this class.