24 February- Digital Story 1

We just learned about digital stories in class. I think using digital stories in the classroom will make class more exciting. There are so many different things to do in the classroom and students like variety. This will be a good resource added to my pool of things to do for class. I love making things and being creative. This is a good way to create things for my future classroom, or practice making things for my future classroom. I think this will also be a good thing to use if I ever have a presentation I need to do. I could use digital stories to help get my point across.

My future students could also make digital stories. Children these days are so good at using technology and love using technology. I think they would have so much fun making digital stories all while learning at the same time. I could also use this assignment as a group project to get my students collaborating and working together. Knowing how to make digital stories could change the way I teach because it is another thing I can use in my teaching that I never would have thought of before because I wouldn't have known how to make one. This will also help me become a better teacher because our world is turning into a technological world. Everything revolves around technology and our students will also revolve around technology. Using digital stories will help with this.

17 February- Vidcast Reflection

Ashleigh Simmons

EDEL 3250

Vidcast Key Assignment

Colors- I Am A Rainbow

My group and I decided to do our vidcast on the colors for kindergarten students. The core curriculum is under fine arts. It is standard 1: Students will develop a sense of self. And objective 3: Develop and use skills to communicate ideas, information, and feelings. Underneath the objective 3 letter b. is where it gets more specific. It says students will recognize similar colors as being members of the family of reds, blues, and yellows and shapes as being similar to squares, circles, and triangles. We wanted to focus on the colors.

We chose this topic first of all because we thought it would be a fun one to do, and second of all because we thought making a vidcast of colors would be a good introduction to teaching colors in the kindergarten classroom. I really like the song we chose because it talks about each of the colors and something they can compare to. Music will definitely be a part of my classroom. I know that whenever I hear a catchy song I remember the lyrics whether it be a song for learning, or just a fun song. By putting this song to pictures that match the lyrics, we are helping them remember the colors better because we are engaging multiple senses all at once.
In my future classroom, I would like to use this video as an introduction to colors. Then I would use it as a review of colors. This is a song that the kindergartners could learn to remember their colors and start to compare their colors to other things. The one thing I remember in elementary school was always learning songs to remember things. I want to make music a part of my classroom as a learning tool. The song in this video could be one of the songs my students will learn.

10 February- Vidcasts Week 1

So, in class we learned about vidcasts and all of the different options and resources we can use to make vidcasts. I thought all this was pretty cool! I have always wondered how people make so many cool videos and have just never known even where to start. It will definitely be fun to play around on as a student, as a future teacher, and just as person! Vidcasts can be used for so many different things. Knowing how to do vidcasts can help if I ever need something for a class presentation, or if I need to make a video of a bunch of pictures for a family reunion, or to prepare for my future classroom.

I will definitely be able to use vidcasts in my future classroom, whether I use them for classroom instructions or whether I let my students make vidcasts. Just today my little sister was talking about how she was making a movie with 2 of her classmate friends for a class project. I could definitely implement vidcasts into my future classroom. I also love that we can put our vidcasts on youtube and share that resource with others and in return use other teachers vidcasts for our classroom.

3 February- Podcasts

In class we talked about making podcasts. We talked about how we can use them in the classroom, and then we made one. It is so nice learning about all of the free technology out there that we can use as resources in our classrooms. We are learning about podcasts so that we can use them in our future classroom. I don't know if this can apply to me as a student or in my everyday life right now, but it will definitely be of good help in the future.

I can see myself using podcasts on my classroom website for days when a student might miss class and the lecture was on instructions for making something, or something that was important to be in class for. I would upload them and then the students could listen to them at home with their parents. I think students would enjoy making their own podcasts also. That would be a fun activity for in class.