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The first thing I was introduced to in the course was Digital Images.  I had to crop, enhance, create a panorama, and practice various other techniques with photos.  I was not sure, at first, how I would be able to integrate this into a classroom setting, but after a lot of thought, I do believe I now have a few ideas.  Digital Images can be used in various classroom settings.  I teach Reading and World Cultures, so I focused on the things I do in my classroom and how Digital Images may enhance student engagement.  Some ideas I came up with are as follows.  To encourage writing, a digital photo can be used as the foundation.  Students can be given a photo to look at, study and then write about it.  This can encourage descriptive writing as well as free writing and/or story-telling.  Another way I could use this is to create a classroom magazine with updates as to what we are learning in class.  Students could be given roles such as reporter, photographer, editor etc. and when it comes time to adding photos into the magazine, students can put their cropping, enhancing, and special effects to use to make our magazine more visually appealing to the readers.  As I am currently a classroom teacher, I think of ways to integrate what I have learned directly into my classroom now, however, being that this is an Education Media course, all of these techniques could be taught by the Media Specialist of the school.  Currently at my school, my own media specialist loves to take full classes and teach lessons.  These will be excellent ideas to take to her for next year!

The second thing I was able to get from this course is the importance of organizing classroom websites.  I have a classroom website that I use quite often and students are able to access it for various reasons.  However, I never gave much thought to the organization of the layout.  Creating a web of my website to see where things fall and how they are viewed by the students really helped me to see what I may be able to do differently for next year.  Easy navigation is a very important aspect of the classroom website.  Many parents are still not very tech savvy and it is my job to make it easy for them to navigate to where they need to be.  This is something that I do not consider as often as I should!  Clear and concise headings and buttons are a must for this reason.  Students in this generation know how to navigate technology better than most adults.  When I was organizing my already-created website, I noticed there were some pages that may have seemed a little cluttered or misplaced.  However, the purpose of my class site is to keep students and parents up to date on classroom events.  Students who are absent can got to the website to gather the day’s lesson and activities, parents can read information on school events, due dates for assignments, projects, and anything else that requires a time limit, as well as 24/7 access to my school and home email addresses. 

Skype can become a great tool in the classroom for parent-student-teacher interaction.  As of right now, students have access to an AOL Instant Messenger Screen Name I created solely for students to reach me.  I have this linked to my cell phone so students have the ability to send me an Instant Message, making me able to attend to my students’ needs even while I am out and about.  I truly believe in being accessible to both my students and their parents.  For this reason, I also give my cell number to parents who feel they may need to contact me outside of school hours.  Many Professors who work in the Distance Education realm also provide this option.  This step gets me one step closer to how it would be if I were ever become an online teacher.  I would like to utilize Skype into my parent-student-teacher connection because I think it is a great way to stay connected.  Students are able to connect with other students about homework, class work, and projects.  This is especially useful for group projects because they can contact each other and work via Internet (with the option of video conference if both parties have web cameras).

Finally, I was able to learn about the “behind-the-scenes” of Online Courses.  Which I think should be a component to many instructional technology type courses such as this!  Through the activity provided to us via WebCourses, I learned how much maintenance goes into an online class.  There are many different areas an online teacher must routinely check to be sure everything runs smoothly.  I am not yet able to apply this to my classroom, though I do have the ability to create test/assignments/quizzes online and have students take them via the computer and submit them.  This is not as complex as WebCourses, but it is a baby step into that direction.  With our new program that will be introduced District-wide next year, Skyward allows students to complete assignments online and teachers can opt to have the computer grade it, which will them automatically insert the grade into the grade book, or students can do the assignment online, and the teacher can still manually grade it, and enter the score into the grade book at his/her leisure.  I do feel that by using Skyward, my district is slowly creeping towards the feel of an online curriculum course.  If I combine all that I have learned through this class, I am willing to bet I would be quite close to having a solely online course.  Close, not completely there though.

Spring Break?

So, this week I am finally on Spring Break. I've been waiting and waiting for this moment since...Well, I guess since Winter Break. lol

This week has been very fun and exciting...however I have a technology frustration to share with all of you.

My son turned 1 on March 20th. Greatest day! So, we had a small family party that night followed by an even bigger party the following weekend (the 28th). Well, Noah, my son, received a pool for his birthday, so I took some video footage of him playing, excitedly, in his pool from my digital video camera. While he was getting ready for cake, I thought I'd welcome the opportunity to download the footage onto my computer. So, I pulled out the SD card, slid it into my computer...and....the card would not work. I tried every angle possible to fix the problem, no luck. There was still room to record the cake, so I just dealt with the problem.

WELL...this past weekend...EASTER weekend, my wife and I went to visit her parents. We went to the beach, mini golf, blah blah blah...and come Sunday before we left for our trip home, I wanted to download the pictures onto my mother-in-law's computer. SAME PROBLEM HAPPENED! Different SD card, Different computer! This was the strangest thing. So, I tried putting the card in my computer and it worked. I just scratched my head is confusion, frustration, and disbelief.

My wife thought maybe the card was locked...but it wasn't. So now we are out of theories. I'd now like to hear yours! Has this happened to anyone else?

That, and sunburnt feet, is how the start of my Spring Break occurred!

-Jack

Skyward is coming, Skyward is coming, Skyward is coming...

Ok, so its not the British Red Coats, but to the staff at my school, it may be just as bad. Our district is implementing a new mainframe for next school year. This mainframe is an all-in-one system that encompasses the teacher gradebook, attendance, student records, pay-roll, and more.

Why then, am I telling everyone about this? Because I have been selected, as well as a few others around the district, to pilot the grading portion of this program for the final nine weeks of this school year.

Being well versed in the arena of technology, I encourage new and exciting ideas, but this is not the case for most at my school. For example, when I mentioned to my team leader that our new grading program will allow us (the teachers) to create quizzes online and allow the students to answer them right inside the grading program where the program will then score the results and enter them directly into the gradebook, my colleague said (and I'm not exaggerating) "What's so good about that? I don't think I'm going to like that because then I can't how my students are answering the question."

When I asked him if he ever gave multiple choice questions, he responded with a resounding "yes." So I asked him what the difference was in seeing the student's circle or bubble and a computerized check box, and he told me it just didn't feel right."

At any rate, I'm excited to be a part of this pilot. The only difference that I've noticed between our new grading program and a typical LEM is there does not seem to be a drop box functionality or a discussion board. However, students will be able to send and receive messages and our IT department is working on interweaving email into the program...so we'll see.

Anyway, this is going to be an interesting final nine weeks to say the least!

-Jack

Technology at Work

Well, this past Friday I put my new technology to use. I think the kids really enjoyed their new learning "toys." As mentioned before, I was awarded a grant to utilize Nintendo DS handheld gaming systems as well as a Nintendo Wii for whole group purposes. Friday the students were given an orientation to the DS games. They learned the requirements I have set forth in order for them to use them which involve the following:
1) All students must keep a journal of all activities completed with the game CrossworDS. They are to log which crossword they complete, as well the words they encounter. Students also have to notate when a new word they are unfamiliar with is introduced to them from the game.

2) Students were informed of the proper usage and safety protocols set in place to keep our new technology in good shape for a very long time. I was actually surprised to see how many students were not familiar with the DS handheld gaming system at all.

3) Students were then given the opportunity to utilize the Nintendo Wii game "My Word Coach" for the remainder of the class period.

All in all, I believe it is safe to say my students are definitely excited to be using the Nintendo gaming systems as a part of their learning experience.

My plan for implementation is as follows: For the remainder of the school year, my reading classes are going to begin Literature Circles. One day a week, rather than reading or meeting as a group, one literature group will be given the DS's to use instead of reading. They will all be told that poor behavior during their literature circle meetings and reading times will directly affect whether or not they will be allowed to utilize the Nintendo DS on their scheduled day.

Only time will tell...and Spring Break is finally coming (April 10th). We only have three days next week (Thursday is a half day and Friday is no school) so I may not be able to start until after then...we'll see!!!!

-Jack

And so it ends....

With comps ending a huge relief has been lifted off my shoulders.

But, I have some more good news I would like to share with everyone!! I recently received an educational grant through the Ed Foundation and was able to purchase 1 Wii, 3 extra controllers, 5 Nintendo Ds', and 5 My Word Coaches for the DS. I've used my own Wii in the classroom with My Word Coach and it is such a great learning tool. The kids are engaged and learning all at the same time. I'm really excited to have this technology available to my students.
I haven't used the DS yet, but I am hoping to test it this week. I do believe it will work our just fine. Working in a school where technology is at the bottom of the list, I've really had to push to get what I have!

Comps Comps Somps!

I really welcomed the Spring Break we had because I had to study for my Master's Comprehensive Exams. I take them March 20th - 23rd. I have been so overloaded with studying that i have put everything for this class on the back burner. I just put the finishing touches on my choice activity and I am in the process, as I type, of sending it in. I am worried about not having done exactly as was expected. But, in my defense...Comps!
Do you ever wonder where the time goes? I feel like even though I welcomed the break...it just flew by me without me ever really truly noticing I was on break...I guess I blame it on the studying...I've been robbed of a true Spring Break.
Anyway, I did my choice activity on Skype. What an amazing program. I've had the ability to use it for a semester long project last semester and it was a life saver. All of my group members lived quite a distance from one another, so Skype really saved us! I do encourae those of you who have yet to try Skype to give it a shot. You might quite enjoy it! :)

Good Night!

-Jack

School, School, and More School

So, this week I have been busy at work making sure my students are prepared to take the FCAT next week. When I come home, I look to see what I should be working on for my two classes and then pick one to do for the evening. I feel I have neglected this class this week and have been more focused on the research for my comps that I am taking in two weeks. I am thankful for Spring Break so I can play catch up with this class. My plan is to have my next assignment for this class completed well before the actual due date. That would be a HUGE accomplishment for me.
Well, nothing else is new with me. See ya when FCAT is OVER!

-Jack

The War Between Digital Images and Being Sick.

The first part of my journey was to complete the Digital Images section. I've been working so hard on these all while fighting this horrible sickness that has caught me and my family completely off guard -- including my11 month old son! However, I've been plowing through, trying my hardest to complete this project. I love taking pictures so this is not difficult in that sense, but making sure I have the correct shot compositions was a bit of a challenge. I loved the rule of thirds composition. This to me just set an entire different mode for photography for me. It was different and it was fun creating the perfect shot.
Editing Images was not a difficult task as it was a huge part of a course I took last semester. I had a great time playing around with all the editing tools last semester that it was a lot less stressful this semester seeing as I knew what I was doing. For this I am thankful because I am not sure just how much more stress I can handle at the moment.
This assignment, tough it truly did kick my butt along with being sick, was a very interesting assignment to work on. I was quite proud of having all these different compositions to bring back to my wife and to my mother (who missed her calling as a photographer).
Looking forward to my next task!
-Jack

Weekly Posting 2-18

I cannot believe it is Wednesday already. The days this week have completely gone right by me. I guess being off on Monday doesn't help with this either.
So I've been working through my journey and it's really taking a lot more time than I expected. The digital images aspect is fascinating because I learned about different views of a picture and how to create these views. I feel I might be able to take better pictures because of this...which is what going to school is all about - learning how to do something new. I always thought I was pretty comfortable with taking pictures and they always seemed to come out looking great. But going into this assignment, I truly felt I was out of my comfort zone. I mean, this is something I've never experienced before...or maybe I have but never knew it. So reading about all the different types of ways you can take a picture was a step backwards for me in the sense that I was very uncomfortable holding a camera for once. But that one step backwards was erased by my two steps forwards when I could see what I am actually capable of doing now. And the best part is taking it to my mother (who is truly a photographer at heart - she just missed her calling) and showing her what she can do.
I am glad that I've had the opportunity to learn what I've learned about these digital images so far - regardless of the butt kicking I may be receiving. ;0

-Jack

Emerging Technologies Post

The most interesting piece of technology I see used daily, hourly, even by the minute is text messaging. Oddly enough, this past Monday I realized that I can utilize the "group" function in my blackberry address book in order to store multiple phone numbers at once. I hope to offer classroom updates through text messaging updates. Students and an increasing amount of adults today are utilizing text messaging thanks to its convenience. The inconvenience of leaving a voice mail is no more. Here are a few of the biggest advantages of texting over conventional phone conversation.

1) Phone calls can come at any time as can text messages, however, with phone calls, immediate response is necessary in order to communicate to the person calling you. However, with texting, you do not have to drop what you are doing that instant, you can finish peeling that potato or whatever else you are doing, then pick the phone and respond via text.

2) When you are in an area where your cell phone does not receive service, a text message appears the moment your phone enters an area with service. You do not need to dial your voice mail at all, simply click on your messages and view.

3) The annoyance of waiting for someone to finish their verbal conversation, texting remains less intrusive and more polite while speaking or engaging in a group of people.

Now, I would really like to see the education world hone in on the idea of text messaging for students within their lessons as well as be utilized for a means of increased communication. One of my goals, is to provide active weekly updates, or even daily updates for homework assignments, etc. Through the group listing in the address book, I can send one text message that reaches numerous people. I am going to begin encouraging my parents to sign up for this service (provided they have a text messaging plan).

Those are my thoughts!

-Jack

Troubleshooting Reflection

Troubleshooting, Troubleshooting, Troubleshooting....

Where would we be without troubleshooting? I believe, as I suppose many do, that the amount of troubleshooting necessary just to operate simple functions on the computer grows exponentially. Logically, the problems and issues causing troubleshooting should be decreasing due to better programming and software development, alas, this has not been the case.

I think the most frustrating issue I usually encounter when using computers is my need usually outweighs the computer's ability, so I end up pushing the limits of the computer. At home, my wife and I currently only have one working machine, a Dell Inspiron notebook, so we have to share. The machine is a very solid and stable machine, so I had no qualms when it came to using it for video editing. This is where I made my first mistake. One of the most important lessons I've learned with troubleshooting over the years is the need to stay current with program updates and their machine requirements. Before I began my teaching career four years ago, I was heavily involved with gaming, which always requires a powerful video card. If there was one thing my machine's have always had in the past, it was a top of the line video card, until I began teaching that is. I purchased this machine knowing I needed to balance power with stable performance for utilizing it within the classroom. I certainly should have kept this in mind last fall, unfortunately though, I did not.

One of the classes I took during the Fall Semester required me to create a personal change story. I ended up only receiving half the points for the project due to many technical issues with Adobe Premier Elements. Initially I chose to use Sony Vegas Studio but quickly realized it has a problem rendering sound for QuickTime Movie files. Having successfully used a demo of Adobe Premier 4 for a class last summer, I decided to go ahead an purchase the full version--but I had to purchase the new version (7). My problems had only just begun.

Everything seemed to be going well while using Premier. I was successfully able to import all the necessary video media into the project file, edit the individual media for content, and render a draft video. However, as I stated before, fulfilling the bare minimum requirements generally does not suit me (hence the length of this blog) so I decided to spice up the story a little...what was I thinking??? I went out and bought one of John Mayer's new albums which had a couple of songs I wanted to use for background music. Upon ripping the music (doesn't that sound violent?) and importing them into the project I found out my grandiose computer simply could not handle what I was asking of it. Once I attempted to render the video, Premier would literally shut down on its own, giving me the message to save because it was running out of memory (obviously for you tech guru's out there the message was much more specific and detailed)

For those of you technically savvy, here were the computer specifications at the time:
Intel Centrino Duo Core Processor @ 2.00 GHz
1 GB of RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 (256 MB Video Card
1.5 GB of HardDrive Space Free on C: drive (Dell partion's a backup D: drive which I was unaware of when purchasing this notebook).
17 Inch Monitor with a refresh rate of 60 Hertz

Before scrolling down, since we all have to respond to each other's postings, I thought I would give everyone something to think about and possibly post...if this were your computer's spefifications what would you say the problem was?

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Ok, so I initially thought it was a RAM issue. Having always been up-to-date with my video requirements for gaming, video RAM was not on my mind (as it certainly should have been). So, I ordered another GB of RAM for the machine and installed it. Hoping this would solve my woes, I attempted to render the video again...only to see the same result. Also worth noting, the hard disk space was certianly not part of the answer either as I cleared up another ten GB of space and moved the data to my external hard drive so the drive had almost 30% free space.

A month has gone by since my change video was due to the professor, however she knew I had completed the project as I showed her the un-rendered project within Adobe Premier. I simply needed to render it! Knowing full well the only logical solution to the problem was a solution I could not provide, I brought the machine into class where one of my classmates was a Digital Media student. He worked for nearly an hour, attempting to render the video one segment at a time, but eventually, he ran into the same problem, though he did manage to get the notebook to render nearly all of the video which was much better than I had done. Finally, to make an already long story a little shorter, I burned all the necesssary components for the change video onto a DVD and gave it to the digital media student to take it home and render on his machine, which he was able to do with no problem.

To solve the problem for future video productions, I realized I need to take the time to upgrade one of my desktop machines with a video card that can handle this type of video production (especially now that I receive a supplement at my school as the Audio/Visual Director). Unfortunately, I have a whole nother trouble shooting issue at hand with the desktops...which is why I didn't use those in the first place...but that is another story all together!

As a savy computer user, the only way to alleviate the frustration is to finally fix the problem...but for my peers at school whom I work with and provide support facilitation in terms of technology, I've found the best way to alleviate the stress and frustation computer problems cause is to communicate the problem to those who can help you, whether it is online chat support or simply with a telephone call to a friend or savvy family member.

Post #1

Welcome to my Blog Site!

Here is a mini bio about myself. My name is Jack Babcock and this is my final semester of Graduate School, here at UCF. I currently live in Port St. Lucie, FL though I was born in Colorado. I've lived in many states, Florida the longest; therefore, Florida is where I call home. My true desire is to one day move to the DC area.
I've been married to my wife, Amanda, for two years now and we have an almost-10-month old son, Noah. I started out my teaching career as a first grade teacher in Flagler County, FL but I now teach 6th grade Reading and World Cultures at Southern Oaks Middle School.

Thanks for visiting my Blog and hope you come again soon! ;)