Laws of Copyrights

I was a little familiar with copyright laws before reading this section. I understand why these laws are necessary, it is important that the maker of the work receives full credit. I was a bit surprised, however, to learn how much of a song or movie clip can be used. I thought it would be okay to use the entire song and a much longer movie clip. It is so important for teachers to be aware of these laws before they present materials in their classrooms because of the examples they set for their students. Our culture has such a high piracy rate from computer software that copyies rented movies to music programs that allow you to download songs for free and copy them onto a cd. It I ever have any questions regarding copyright laws, I will most definitely consult the school's librarian.

Technology in the Classroom

Technology offers so many effective resources and programs that teachers can integrate into their curricula. Inspiration offers great graphic organizing skills, making it possible for students to brainstorm science projects, written assignments, etc, so that their final project can be well-developed. It is easy to use; lots of teaching and brainstorming time isn't lost by having to teach the students a difficult program. I think a program like photostory could also make different projects more fun and interesting. I have a feeling (as a future elementary school teacher) that my students' age groups would love recording their own narration to such a visually stimulating project. Podcasts could be tons of fun, as well. A teacher could have his or her own podcast providing notes on certain topics, or assignments (etc), or the students could even do a news report, mock interview, or presentation, and the class could have unlimited access to it. I think two essential programs to present-day teachers are Microsoft Expression Web and blogs. I feel that Expression Web helps the owner of the webpage add awesome personal touches while not being hard to understand or input unto the actual website. I think that blogs add ample opportunities to keep in touch with students and parents concerning assignments, announcements, test days, questions/tutoring - it is an incredible contact tool that I plan on keeping up with in my classroom 100%.

Good Use of Technology

In this class I have learned many new ways to use technology in the classroom. There are many ways to incoporate teachnology. For example, a teacher could use photostory, inspiration and blogs. Photostory can be used in projects with information and pictures. Inspiration can be used to come up with ideas for a project. Blogs can be used to communicate with other students across the United States. Those are probably the only ones I would use in my classroom.

Technology

I really enjoyed viewing Thursday's class Science Fair videos. I think that everyone did a great job, but Group E's Gak experiment was the most interesting. Group E did a greaat job explaining the process of creating gak and the video was fun to watch.

I think that it is very important to teach students the importance of technology. Technology has become very popular over the last decade, and students need to understand it to help them progress educationally. As a future teacher, I am going to teach my students about Blogging. Blogging is a great way for students to discuss current events around the world, work as teams, and improve their writing skills.

Science Fair Video Experiences

I really enjoyed working with my group. We had fun learning how to edit the video and record the experiment. I learned alot about using the program to edit videos from my group. If I had to do this by myself I could not have done it. We had no problem getting together and meeting.

Any subject topic taught in school would make a good eduational video. Anything that the students can learn about. I think with making a video it will be something different and new for how a student can learn. The main characteristics that make a good video is the information in the video.

Teachers need to know they are teaching the material correctly and in a good educational way. Teachers need to edit it in an interesting and fun way. If the students are in the video all the students need to have a part in the video are helping out behind the scenes.

Science Experiment Experiences

We did our science experiment on testing the relationship between the sense of taste with the sense of smell. I enjoyed working with my group and thought everyone participated equally. It was a positive experiences because we all got along really well. This project was a bit of a challenge when it came to editing our video. When we uploaded the video to movie maker, single clips were broken up into several clips. This made it very difficult to clip it correctly. Also, when we went back to look at our clips, there was one that had buzzing in the background... and there was no way for us to delete it.

Looking at our video, I think we could have possibly shown our science experiment in a way that would of had less silence... there were long pauses in the video, while we watched the taste tester chew their starburst. Instead, we could have shown some interesting facts, then come back to the taste tester to get their results. To keep interest, videos need to maintain sound and movement.

Overall, this was a great experience... and I think all of us learned a lot.

EDMD video project

Working on the science fair video was challenging and fulfilling. There were so many elements to the assignment that can appeal to people with different interests.

I really enjoyed working with my group on the assignment. We worked together really well - gave constructive feedback/criticism when it was needed, and we all fulfilled our responsibility to the group. All of us have different gifts, and we were really able to capitalize on what we were all good at doing in order to create our video.

Editing can do so much to create a good video. Adding things like music, transformations, and captions really helps the video be just as interesting as it is educational or informative. Understanding how to work a video camera really helps, too! Kristin made the video more interesting by zooming in and out of the clips during important cuts. I'm so glad I was able to do a project like this in our class, because I'm not sure I could have done it alone.

Teachers should definitely understand the windows movie maker program really well before using it in the classroom. It is not a hard program to understand, but the teacher should not begin a movie maker project before understanding the ropes of movie maker, because he/she and his/her students will be lost. The teacher needs to understand how to split clips, add music, add informative captions effectively, and add transformations so that the teacher may show his or her students how do to all of it. It would also be helpful if the teacher knew how to work the video camera properly so that the teacher could film the videos or help someone in the class film effectively - holding the camera still, zooming in and out of different clips. It can be a difficult project to do if the teacher does not stay organized.