BP16_2009113_RSS _Feed_Persuasive_Commercial_2

BP15_2009113_Chuck_Mill's_Site

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2009

I have spent countless hours scouring the Internet for Web 2.0 tools.

The Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture (ETC) course requires researching and blogging about Web 2.0 tools but my motivation for locating excellent tools goes beyond the requirements of this course. My Action Research project draws upon Web 2.0 tools and the introduction of several of them to my students. Additionally, having extra tools in the teacher’s toolkit is a good thing. I have had a lot of fun researching, experimenting with and evaluating these tools.

I have always been intrigued by comic books. Growing up, my older brothers had quite the collection of Superman, Batman and the Archies. I wanted to find some type of a comic strip layout tool I could introduce to my classes. I teach Video Graphics and I am looking for small interesting projects that include a writing component. A short comic strip about school life just might be something the students are interested in.

In researching the Web I found several different comic strip tools. Most were not free so that caused me to move in another direction. I did find one that I think meets the needs of this particular project. It is called Comic Strip Creator. It is available as a free download but works only with Windows. Since there is only one Mac computer in my entire school (a loaner from Apple), this will not be a problem. After downloading the program I could not get it to work. I sent the company an email and they responded the next day saying I needed to “turn off” any anti virus software installed on the computer. It installed like a dream after I did this.

Comic Strip Creator is great. I laid out this comic strip in about 3 minutes. In addition to downloading the program, there is also a download for clip art and backgrounds. I used both of them in this example. And finally, a word to the wise… be careful when searching for the site. The correct url is listed below. Changing the .org to .com may “strip” you of all rights as a teacher!

http://www.comicstripcreator.org/

POSTED BY CMILLS AT 5:03 PM

My comment:

Chuck,


Thanks for this website! One of the best times I had in this course so far, and I felt I was at my most creative is when my daughter and I played around with ComicLife. I then got serious about the project for the month and worked diligently to create a meaningful product for the class. I turned around and tried to use ComicLife in my class but to no avail. We ended up drawing cartoons for Lady Macbeth-Villainess extraordinaire but I wanted students to use my two classroom computers to create digital cartoon strips as we only have PCs. Hopefully you have provided me the answer.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2009

BP14_2009113_Web 2.0 Tool_Comic Strip Creator

I have spent countless hours scouring the Internet for Web 2.0 tools.

The Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture (ETC) course requires researching and blogging about Web 2.0 tools but my motivation for locating excellent tools goes beyond the requirements of this course. My Action Research project draws upon Web 2.0 tools and the introduction of several of them to my students. Additionally, having extra tools in the teacher’s toolkit is a good thing. I have had a lot of fun researching, experimenting with and evaluating these tools.

I have always been intrigued by comic books. Growing up, my older brothers had quite the collection of Superman, Batman and the Archies. I wanted to find some type of a comic strip layout tool I could introduce to my classes. I teach Video Graphics and I am looking for small interesting projects that include a writing component. A short comic strip about school life just might be something the students are interested in.

In researching the Web I found several different comic strip tools. Most were not free so that caused me to move in another direction. I did find one that I think meets the needs of this particular project. It is called Comic Strip Creator. It is available as a free download but works only with Windows. Since there is only one Mac computer in my entire school (a loaner from Apple), this will not be a problem. After downloading the program I could not get it to work. I sent the company an email and they responded the next day saying I needed to “turn off” any anti virus software installed on the computer. It installed like a dream after I did this.

Comic Strip Creator is great. I laid out this comic strip in about 3 minutes. In addition to downloading the program, there is also a download for clip art and backgrounds. I used both of them in this example. And finally, a word to the wise… be careful when searching for the site. The correct url is listed below. Changing the .org to .com may “strip” you of all rights as a teacher!

http://www.comicstripcreator.org/

POSTED BY CMILLS AT 5:03 PM

Chuck,


Thanks for this website! One of the best times I had in this course so far, and I felt I was at my most creative is when my daughter and I played around with ComicLife. I then got serious about the project for the month and worked diligently to create a meaningful product for the class. I turned around and tried to use ComicLife in my class but to no avail. We ended up drawing cartoons for Lady Macbeth-Villainess extraordinaire but I wanted students to use my two classroom computers to create digital cartoon strips as we only have PCs. Hopefully you have provided me the answer.

BP14_2009113_Dedras_Site

I found a cool new tool to use that students and adults/teachers will like for both professional and social use. I am creating an example now and will share both it and the site by tomorrow. Hope you find it as cool as I do!

The site is: www.slides.com. It allows you and your students to create slide shows right on the computer by uploading pictures and choosing how you want them to be viewed. It also allows you to add captions to tell a story from a visual perspective with minimal words. I made one as an example. Check it out at: www.slide.com

I seem to have gotten a little turned around here in that I thought that I had already included in formation for this new site along with information on Flickr as they can be used in conjunction with one another. After making my Flickr page, I shared the idea with a colleague who then shared with me the idea of Slide.com as he had used it to make a "Day in the Life" mini documentary. I decided to take some of the pictures I uploaded to my Flickr page and use them to make a demonstration slide show. This turned into several short slide shows as I tried to figure out which one looked the best, so I could share with you all. I have chosen "Family flight lessons" and will send out the link to you later.

When working with both of these applications, several students came to mind and ideas or how they would utilize this tool started popping up. I thought this application would be especially great for my students that love to draw and are very visual in their approach to learning.

Because science is such a hands on subject, it works with mostly everything that we do.

Some lessons that I would use this for are:

Living Systems organization- there are 5 levels of living things (cells, tissue, organs, organ systems, organisms) and each can be represented with a picture representation.

The idea is to have students search for pictures of items that would represent each and make a group in correct order with tags to show the levels. This would allow them to accomplish the same task with individuality and creativity. Also, this would be an engaging activity that can be stored, shared and even used for other projects later on (Life science builds on previous topics). They could also take this information and create a slide show for presentation, thereby connecting two applications.

Other ideas for lessons are listed below. This includes one that I found on the web. Enjoy!

1. Education History program

2. Student Museum on line

3. Environmental Awareness project

My comment:

Dedra, slide.com sounds like user friendly and easy kinesthetic way to take notes present lessons to classmates/students. Since I am anxious to incorporate Flickr, students cell phones/picture taking ability, and more updated powerpoint technology in my classroom this looks like it could really tie everything in!

BP13_2009113_RSS_Feed

RSS feeds could be applicable in my personal and professional life by organizing my favorite informational sites at a glance. “The aggregator provides a consolidated view of the content in a single browser display or desktop application. Such aggregators or applications are also referred to as RSS readers, feed readers, feed aggregators or news readers” (http://sih.sagepub.com/rss/). I would customize my personal RSS feed for quotes of the day, top news features, recipes, health articles, and national weather reports. For my professional RSS feed, I would personalize it by setting up SAT Questions of the Day, my literature blog, Edutopia, local news pieces, photography, and No Fear Shakespeare.com. This would save me a lot of time in searching for my usually used websites, Web 2.0 tools, and e-mail subscriptions. Colleague Kiley Craft (personal communication, October 15, 2009) commented, “RSS Feeds save the user time by checking for updates and gathering them into one place.” I would like to see my high school create an RSS feed that parents, teachers, and students could subscribe to for updates about the campus, school closings, test dates, athletic events, dances, award ceremonies, social events, rallies, tutorials, etc.

As an example for my administration, I could set up a blog that is capable of RSS feeds, displaying lesson plans, PowerPoints, my classroom agenda, standards, and more (up until this year we had Edline, but we have a different database that doesn’t utilize this tool; I know our parents, students, and teachers miss the ability to communicate and post their assignments online). I definitely see a future for RSS feeds in managing my educational and personal goals.

SAGE Publications. (2009) RSS feeds. Retrieved from http://sih.sagepub.com/rss/

Image retrieved from http://creativenerds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/rss-bot.jpg

BP12_2009113_Kiley_Comment

RSS Feeds - The principal came into my room the other day and was asking what I knew about Twitter. Her main focus was on whether or not the audience could subscribe to the twitter or had to go looking for each post and whether or not the viewer could comment. I tried to explain to her what I knew about twitter when I realized what she really wanted was an RSS feed. She was looking for a way to broadcast information to parents and staff via the internet and web enabled devices for campus updates. She was looking for a newer technology than the autodialer we use now that calles parents home telephone numbers at night and plays a recorded message. But, she didn't want to get bogged down in technology and she wasn't excited about 3100 parents writing comments back that she would have to read. Now I have to put together a proposal for how she could use an RSS feed from the school's website to reach her audience. I'm actually excited about the prospect of several feeds for particular audiences. A Campus News for parents, Campus Update for staff, School Closure notice for both groups when we have a snow day, maybe even the department chairs could assemble information that was for staff students and parents interested in say art shows, musical performances, athletic could post game scores...

Image provided by http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-rss-feed-icons-the-ultimate-list/

My comment:

Sounds like a lot of interesting opportunities to communicate with colleagues and community, I wonder if business could become involved? Hopefully it won't involve too much extra work on a daily basis, it would be great way to tie in EL families if it could be translated into other languages.

BP11_2009112_Springpad