BP14-Photoshop

Yikes!!! Who knew Photoshop was so complicated.

If you read my previous post, you know that I learn better by doing, rather than listening and watching. I am a hands on kind of learner. That being said, I decided to open Photoshop and take a stab at it. I've seen so many pictures of children in black and white with these striking eyes, so I thought to myself "Andrea, you can figure this out! How hard can it really be?"

WOW!!! This is one that I think I am going to need to watch some tutorials on.

So, I went to lynda.com and found a Photoshop tutorial all about enhancing eyes. I opened my picture I wanted to change and the tutorial side by side. I admit, I watched this one about 3 times before I even started to try and modify the picture. I was able to figure out how to enhance the blue in his eyes. What puzzled me was how to get the rest of the picture in black and white. Again, I played, and after many trials and much frustration, I figured it out.

Did I make it harder than it needed to be, probably. Did I learn how to do it? YES!!!

Here is the original picture.











Here is my new version.







Is it perfect? Not quite, you can still see some white areas in his eyes where I couldn't quite get them in right. But I do think with time, I can figure this out. It's going to take some more trial and error, but I am confident I will get it.

BP13-GoogleDocs-Presentations #2

You'll see that this post happened for a reason. View the presentation to find out why.



If you follow this link, you can view the presentation online with access to the speaker notes (my thoughts).

BP12_Google Docs-Presentations #1

I've been watching the lynda.com tutorials on Google Docs presentations. At first glance, they seem familiar to me. I am already thinking they are similar to Keynote and Power Point. What I found useful was the New Features tab. This is where you can click and learn about new features to Google Docs. One click learning-gotta love it!!

In Presentations, you can create a presentation quickly and simply. There are templates to use for presentations depending on your needs or you can create your own. If you can't find a background you like in the gallery, open up the templates and choose form the many that are created. Editing the objects in a presentation is so simple. You use the command buttons at the top of the presentation screen and format the object till your heart's content.

If you want to give your presentation a permanent name, you go to File--Rename and name your document with a permanent name. How simple is this?!

If you've already got presentations made in PowerPoint, you can very easily upload them and GoogleDocs will convert them for you. You can add slides into current presentations by importing them into the current presentations. You can't simply copy and paste slides into a presentation, you have to import them.

Presentations is limited in some of it's abilities; like transitions and animations. But for simple, straight forward presentations, it seems like a good choice.

BP11_OMM_Wordle

Here is my one minute message about Wordle.

BP10_Comments to Elizabeth

Here's a link to my comments on Elizabeth's one minute message.

BP9_Comment to Kiylise

Here's a link to my comment on Kiylise's one minute message about SmileBox.

BP8_Wordle

My web 2.0 tool for this week is Wordle. (www.wordle.com) We were introduced to this tool in a previous class, but I’ve found more than just fun uses for it in the classroom.

Here’s a very simple example of what you can do with Wordle. I took a newsletter for m parents and copied and pasted all the text into Wordle. I hit create and voila!

The words that repeat in the text get bigger the more times they are in the text.

Another thought I had was to use this as an anticipation guide for an up coming unit. One of the big themes for us in third grade is Kenosha. I spend all year covering the history of the city and it’s people. We take a lot of field trips to Kenosha landmarks and even visit a cemetery. This would be a good tool to get the kids excited about learning Kenosha’s history.

Another interesting idea I had would be to use it for vocabulary lessons. You could copy all the vocabulary words into a word cloud and have the students highlight the ones they learn as they learn them.

Here’s another thought, students tend to use a lot of the same words over and over again in a paper. Have them copy and paste the paper into Wordle. The words they use the most will be the biggest and they can then go into their paper and try to modify the use of those words.

A final idea (and I used this one last year). The students in my classroom wrote about their year in third grade. They wrote about their favorite parts, field trips, what they learned and what I could do better as a teacher. I took all the positive writings and pasted them into Wordle. (I kept their feedback to me for next year.) I them created my word cloud and added it to the iMovie about our year together at the end.

BP7_OMM_Spelling City

BP6_Comments to Gregg

Follow this link to my comments about Gregg's Web 2.0 tool.

It's all about the money. :(

Photo taken from Flickr from borman818 under the Creative Commons liscense.

BP5_Comments to Pamela

Click on the link below to find my comment to Pamela about a great Web 2.0 tool she shared with us.

It's all about making life easier as a teacher! This is one tool that can help do just that.

BP4_Spelling City

My Web 2.0 tool for this week is SpellingCity.com. This is a site my students use at school and at home for spelling practice. There is a free membership and a premium membership ($50.00 a year). I utilize the free membership portion of the site and make it work for me.

For example, under list management, I type in each students name and words for the week. As the students get more accustomed to the site, they enter their own words each week. The site then allows them to practice, play a game or take a test with their words.




Practice-Located under Teach Me:
When practice is started, each word is read aloud, spelled aloud, used in a sentence and the read aloud again. The students can practice as many times as they want.

Play a Game:
Students can use one of eleven games to continue to practice their weekly spelling words. Games range from sentence practice to word searches.

Test:
With the testing feature, students hear the word aloud and in a sentence. They can listen to the word or the sentence as many times as they want before spelling it. When students click the check me button the test is scored immediately for them. For the teachers records a copy of the test can be printed. (I usually walk around and record the students scores right in my grade book instead of having them print and waste all the paper.)

My husband also uses the site in his 5th grade classroom. His students enjoy it as much as mine do.

BP3_Web 2.0 Tool

Could it be, a gold mine? Something I can use for my action research? I think it might be. It’s a Web 2.0 tool called Schoology (http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=Schoology). When you become a member of the site, you have access to so many tools that would be a wonderful asset to any classroom.

Schoology is a learning management system AND a social networking site all rolled into one. The site itself looks similar to Facebook. Parents, teachers and students have access to all the information an account administrator inputs to the site.

For example, a teacher adds her classes onto the site. She inputs a math assignment for the day. The assignment gets added right into the grade book, and parents and students now have access to what the assignment is. No more “I forgot my assignment notebook at school, so I didn’t know what the assignment was” excuses.

You can also use Schoology to take attendance and keep a grade book. With the attendance, you can make a note for any student on a particular day. (I don’t know that I would use the attendance or grade book feature, since my district already requires us to use Zangle, which is my online attendance and grade book.)

One of the features that really caught my attention was the quiz/test feature. As a user, you can create a test or a quiz right on the site. The students would then go on to Schoology and take the assessment.

Like I said, this might just be the gold mine I’ve been digging for to use for my action research!

BP1_Google Reader

These are the five blogs I'm watching and why.

http://creatinglifelonglearners.com/ by Matthew Needleman

The first three phrases I saw on the blog were; digital literacy, higher level thinking and closing the digital divide. WOW! Three of the topics that brought me to this program in the first place. I began skimming some posts and found some very useful tips. As a classroom teacher, I am always looking for new ways to implement technology in the classroom. This blog also incorporates some humor into sometimes a too serious profession.

feed://www.edutopia.org/edutopia_rss.xml

This blog comes from the site www.edutopia.com. I happened upon the site during some research and found a wealth of information. The blog has a huge range of information for any teacher, not just an elementary teacher. The posts ranges from what’s current in education to surveys.

http://www.lucygrayconsulting.com by Lucy Gray

After doing some digging for a blog about technology in the classroom, I came upon High Techpectations. She’s an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher who’s got practical application for technology in the classroom. She also has a bunch of posts titled Apple of My Eye: Resources Catching My Attention, which have different resources that could be used in the classroom.

http://karenogen.blogspot.com by Karen Ogen

Karen is a technology integration specialist from North Carolina. She has posted a plethora of activities to use in the classroom that are integrated with technology. Her ideas range from the practical applications to games students can play in the classroom.

http://community.scholastic.com/blog?blog.id=grade3blog By Marisa Ochoa

Marisa is a third grade teacher in Poway, California. She’s got great information posted about topics that relate directly to me. She’s got tips on how to communicate with parents that are practical for any teacher. I can’t wait to read more from her and find new ideas to use in my classroom.

BP2_iGoogle Screen Shots

Month 4

Month 4 brings me to blogging!!! ACK! I've tried over the last 20 0r so years of my life to keep a journal, scrapbook or maintain a website about my kids. It's never gone very long. We shall see how this goes. I know I'll have to post for assignments, but after that...who knows.