Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Presenting infront of my Peers.

I presented some findings of my Action Research project tonight at a staff meeting. I felt that part of my findings should be shared to co-workers since they are the ones that wonder what in the world are we doing in the computer lab again. The presentation took about 20 mins. Visuals were the actual websites, some of the projects my students created and explanations why we did what we did. I received good reviews from teachers who are interested in adapting their lessons to include media for next year and are asking if I would help them over the summer. Other teachers who did not desire that kind of media were well entertained by the projects some of my students did. The best comment received was "That seems like you did so much in such a short amount of time." I never looked at it from that angle. I appreciate all that Full Sail University has done to provide this opportunity for my students as well as I.

Thursday, March 18, 2010


A wonderful website for the use of studying spelling words. My 4th graders like the quality of games compared to other games we have played. The site allows you to print off worksheets and papers and will even give the tests to the students while grading their work.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Clark_Chuck_Week 1 - Compare and Contrast Two Types of Presentation Styles


Bill Gates


If you did not know it was Bill Gates you would figure that this presenter is a beginner. He is relaxed, soft spoken, laid back, and comical. His body language tells me that he is board and is annoyed. If you are going to say that you are excited to be telling you about this then your body has to be excited too.When Bill is talking about goals his body language is making it hard to believe the goals will ever be obtained. Should control nervous ticks. With Bill Gates the word um comes up quite a bit in the speech and he stumbles over words sometimes repeating them. His voice is almost monotone and lacks emotion. The slides are full of information that is cluttered and don’t effectively communicate the message because they are on one slide. Failing a presentation means leaving your audience with little or no recollection of bullet points, and to change Bill Gates presentation around he would have to put as many bullet slides as he possibly can. Presenters must reach out and make an emotional connection with the audience.


Steve Jobs


Watching Steve Jobs give a presentation is inspiring. Steve does several things to communicate the message to the listener. He makes the presentation feel good and exciting. He uses a tag line. A headline that introduces what the presentation is about. He then gives a quick outline while going into the message. Steve makes it easy for the listener to follow along. His transitions are smooth and you know when Steve is done and ready to move on. He opens and closes each transition. Steve is excited and passionate. He wants to wow the audience by using exciting emotional words. He shows that he is having fun and likes to sell the experience. When Steve uses numbers he always makes them relevant. Steve’s slides are appealing and they drive the point home. The slides are not cluttered, but rather paint a picture. He uses maybe one or two visuals per slides and very limited words. He treats it like a show, using video clips or guests, drama to point to the one memorial moment. Then after concluding he adds something else to the presentation to give the feeling like the audience received a bonus.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

bp8_20091024_week3_bloggingandresearch_web2.0_woopid

Teachers and students will appreciate this site for the wealth of information that it contains. Many tutorials are here, movie, calendar, and software are just some of the items you can search for then watch a how to video. If you don't find what you are looking for there is a section that you can post a request. 998 videos for mac alone. Its worth checking out.

bp_7_20091014_researchandblogging_web2.0tools_xtranorma

Xtranormal is a fun way to take an essay and turn it into a video. Presentation is fun with xtranormal.com. Writing from experience our class took a paper on George Washington Carver and turned into a feature movie. We brought in popcorn and laughed at the way the characters portrayed the story. Simply cut and paste text into the dialogue box, then edit with transitions. Options to pick the setting is available.

bp6_week3_researchandblogging_web2.0_Kaltura


This site is basically a video building collaboration site that incorporate flash. Any number of contributers can edit video here. I see this to be useful in the classroom as each student will take a part of a project and compete by adding to the video creating one larger project. I admire the possibility that learning theories can be incorporated through out creating video. Woring with groups adds to the experience.

bp5_20091012_week3_research_web2.0_classtool

Classtools provides the teacher withe templates to create tests, quizzes, timelines, and flash-cards. The tools I have used were the timeline and the venn diagram. My students loved working with the program. I found it to be valuable to learning because it drawn the attention to the subjects we studied. I also found that information is organized by the students in a way they could retain easier. Check this one out it is a nice one.