Playing with iMovie

This weekend I took some footage of the SU women's basketball team with a flip camera. I then created this little iMovie. It is a rough first attempt that I poked my way through and seemed to get lucky. The next one will be easier!

practicing with imovie and garageband

This is a practice. I am trying to figure out how to send a movie-like email to teachers or others that don't have an apple.

Screen Cast with video Intro

I have been playing with my new MacBook Pro learning all the Mac-way to do things. I made a cool introduction on iMovie to the screencast below, but I can't put the two together! :( I have an appointment tomorrow, but maybe someone out there knows how to do this?!

New Computer!

Yesterday, I purchased a new toy. I am the proud and slightly off balanced owner of a Mac Power Book 15". It seems really big and spacious b/c my personal pc was smaller. So far I am in love with the backlit keyboard which makes typing while watching TV at night much easier! But besides my iPhone, my last product purchased from apple was an Apple IIc which is the computer I completed my MA on way back in 1985, ah the days. The screen was black and I think the font was green, but that sounds wrong maybe the font was white. Anyway so far I am in love... I just need to figure out how it works! Back the tutorials :)

Thing 11.5 of 11.5!

Yeah!

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

My favorite was learning more about screencasts. I had seen them many times, but I didn't realize how easy they were to create. I will use this again and I have already taught a teacher/friend how to create screencasts.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Every day that I have worked in SBISD has been an asset in my lifelong learning goals. That probably sounds cheesy, but it is true. I feel so lucky that I landed a job in a district that has such visionary leadership and is so helpful in their library program. I know people who finished library school around the same time as me (little over a year ago) and they have jobs in other districts and they don't feel half the support, encouragement and exposure to innovative teaching ideas that I have had this last year. 11.5 Things complimented all the previous learning I have had.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

One big surprise were the amount of iTouch/iPhone apps for young children. I had thought that people weren't really directing technology towards that section of the market b/c of their limited buying power - except for educational industries. I totally forgot about parents who want to occupy the attention of their PK - 1st grade children! There are a lot of apps out there that actually help with emergent literacy and even some picture books that read the book aloud to the young child. Who knew?!

Another surprise I had was how few people I know who even knew what Second Life was. I am 48 and know that I am never going to be a digital native. I usually just assume that everyone else knows more about computers than I do or at the very least I ALWAYS approach it as a learning experience. I found out that none of my neices or nephews knew anything about SL or... they wanted to keep their knowledge a secret!

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I wish some other work days were spread through the summer. It was probably just my schedule, but I was busy every day that there were group work sessions where people could just show up and work at the Media center. However, anytime I emailed someone with a question, I got an answer so it wasn't bad. I never felt all along on "the beach." I could use more help with SL and will probably try to seek out help with that because I would like to learn more about it.

Thing 11 of 11.5

I liked the part of the Cool CatTeacher's blog where he focuses on the fact that digital citizenship isn't a one time lesson but should be taught by every teacher. I think that having a digital citizenship lesson would be a good beginning of the year activity that every teacher does during that first two week get to know you period. Lots of things are reviewed and/or taught during this period and teachers can gauge the level of knowledge of these thing through the initial lesson and expand on it if needed.

Since I work with elementary students, the areas that I would focus on during a digital citizenship are as follows:

1. Safety and Cyberbullying - don't share personal information & cyber manners
2. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet - ways to determine if the site is valid
3. Copyright rules - users can't copy everything out there, sometimes it is stealing

Thing 10 of 11.5 Things

After a couple of hours of real work and many hours of reading and worrying, I have created my avatar, gone to Information Island, ran into a couple of walls, landed in the water, sat on many different things that I didn't mean to sit on I must take a break and enter the real world. Second Life is confusing. I picked an avatar that has this see-through top and big breasts. I tried to alter it and at least my breasts aren't so out there in an embarrassing type of way. I went to the Library on Information Island looking for a place to go or information to get and wished my avatar, Lee2024 Foxdale, had her iphone with her. Everything was different like I was going cross culture. I wanted to go to some interesting location or see some interesting event, but that will need to wait. I think there could be a lot of interesting applications for teachers to use with students if the teacher was really good at it. If the teacher wasn't it would just be a time waster.

I think that now that I have the basics I could use a tutor or a group session to help me on the next step of Second Life (I took a balloon tour of the island, but the first time the ballon took off I wasn't in it :). I will have to play more with this. I have a call out on my FB status that I need help. We will see if any of my friends play in SL.