I felt a greater level of comfort tonight with html . . . through the magic use of NVU! In my past life as a full time student, I worked extensively with Dreamweaver at UW Madison as an e-portfolio consultant. I was amazed at how similar these two applications were. Such, Dreamweaver has a few more features - but not $400 worth. Additionally, I was amazed as to how fast it all came back.
I'm looking forward to extending my scope a little more next week. I'm ready for a new challenge!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
CED 533 Class 2
It's all starting to come back to me! The html code writing that I did in high school programming class is beginning to become clear again. I have to say that I really enjoy Dreamweaver much more than actually writing the code however. Why go through the frustration of trying to write the code if Dreamweaver will do it without a lot of the frustration?
During last week's lecture, I developed a better appreciation for the true power that today's computers hold. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom with the huge floppy disks and the "smooth" animations on the orange or green and black screens. I thought we had it made! It's amazing how far we have come in about 15 years. I wish that our students today could truly understand the impact of how far we have come. My students get frustrated when a website takes longer than 15 seconds to load or when a screen reader pronounces a word with a weird articulation. We really have come a long way!
Speaking of my students, I felt like I had a little bit of insight into their learning challenges this week. My attention was a little limited last week during class. About 30 minutes into the lecture, when CSS and other coding was being discussed, I had this "I have no idea what we're talking about" moment. For a few minutes, I sat there thinking that this is way above my head and I'll never be able to wrap my mind around it. Having a little better problem solving skills than the majority of my students, I was able to refocus and develop a little bit of an understanding of what we were learning about. Later in the lab, I felt much more confident with what was discussed. Just goes to show what a hands-on learner I am! In retrospect, it helped me to greater understand a challenging situation for my students the next day. As we were in the middle of a lesson on graphing, I caught that deer in the headlights look (which I had the night before) from several of my students. While I often get this look, I had a greater understanding for how they felt! Funny how a lesson which was totally unrelated to anything I would ever teach to first and second graders with learning disabilities would help me to understand them just a little better!
During last week's lecture, I developed a better appreciation for the true power that today's computers hold. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom with the huge floppy disks and the "smooth" animations on the orange or green and black screens. I thought we had it made! It's amazing how far we have come in about 15 years. I wish that our students today could truly understand the impact of how far we have come. My students get frustrated when a website takes longer than 15 seconds to load or when a screen reader pronounces a word with a weird articulation. We really have come a long way!
Speaking of my students, I felt like I had a little bit of insight into their learning challenges this week. My attention was a little limited last week during class. About 30 minutes into the lecture, when CSS and other coding was being discussed, I had this "I have no idea what we're talking about" moment. For a few minutes, I sat there thinking that this is way above my head and I'll never be able to wrap my mind around it. Having a little better problem solving skills than the majority of my students, I was able to refocus and develop a little bit of an understanding of what we were learning about. Later in the lab, I felt much more confident with what was discussed. Just goes to show what a hands-on learner I am! In retrospect, it helped me to greater understand a challenging situation for my students the next day. As we were in the middle of a lesson on graphing, I caught that deer in the headlights look (which I had the night before) from several of my students. While I often get this look, I had a greater understanding for how they felt! Funny how a lesson which was totally unrelated to anything I would ever teach to first and second graders with learning disabilities would help me to understand them just a little better!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
CED 533 Class 1
I can't say that writing html code is my favorite thing nor anything that I would want to pursue a career in. However, I am doing my best to keep an open mind and give it a good try. I'm sure I'll find something relevant to my teaching situation. As we worked at the computers, I was amazed at how quickly my html training came back.
As we went through the history and evolution of the web this week, I was truly amazed at how quickly we have progressed as a technological society. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom and thinking that they were the coolest things ever. I also remember the Macs with mice and colored (oooh!) screens in my fourth grade classroom and thinking this was it. What more could we ever need! My, times have changed! Having recently had the experience of being with no computer access from a Thursday through a Monday at work, I came to realize how truly dependent we have become on these devices. No e-mail, no IEP access, no SMARTBoard, no Microsoft Word. We were truly lost as a staff, as were the students who have known it no other way.
This will truly be a learning experience for me!
As we went through the history and evolution of the web this week, I was truly amazed at how quickly we have progressed as a technological society. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom and thinking that they were the coolest things ever. I also remember the Macs with mice and colored (oooh!) screens in my fourth grade classroom and thinking this was it. What more could we ever need! My, times have changed! Having recently had the experience of being with no computer access from a Thursday through a Monday at work, I came to realize how truly dependent we have become on these devices. No e-mail, no IEP access, no SMARTBoard, no Microsoft Word. We were truly lost as a staff, as were the students who have known it no other way.
This will truly be a learning experience for me!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
CED 531, Class Five
The process of digital storytelling can be quite complex but very rewarding. I have completed several multimedia projects on my own to detail trips I've taken with friends and family. For my students, completing multimedia projects requires a great deal of support, but they are certainly within our reach. One idea I have been contemplating is doing something with VoiceThread to chronical special projects that we do in our classroom. There seems to be a lot of mystery in what takes place in a resource room. This would be one way to provide some insight for people visiting my website. My thought would be to load pictures of activities that we've done and then allow the students to make comments on the project. Doing so would give them the opportunity to evaluate what they have done and formulate their thought as to what they have learned. Additionally, Voicethread has the capability to add and delete pages over time, so it could be an easily edited on-going project. They would also build on their abilities to summarize important information from the activity and speak coherently. As I write this blog entry, I'm further convincing myself that I should be doing this project. As always, my greatest enemy is time. Any multimedia project that we engage in, my students and I take on with great enthusiasm. We'll have to fit it in at some point during the remainder of the year!
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