Week 9

Hallelujah! I feel like singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" after completing this online course. I have mixed feelings and thoughts on all of this technology. There were some definite favorite sites I really enjoyed and yet, some not so favorite sites I read.

I have several favorites which were Wordle, Animoto and VOKI. I think wordle is probably the most approachable of any of the sites. It is so much fun to use and I would love to see what the students would come up with for their own personal designs. My second favorite was Animoto. Once I understood exactly how it works and the type of tools you need it was more than fun to create a small video with music. I know I want to use this in the very near future and show to the students how it's done. My third favorite was VOKI. As weird as it was to select a animated person, flower or whatever I really kind of thought that is the kind of weird but good, to share in the classroom. I am sure that most of the students are already aware of most of the programs and might be able to help their not so tech smart teachers!

My least favorite was Photostory3. The reason is that I could not get it to download on my computer. So therefore it was frustrating and time consuming.
I do think that with most of the programs there is a lot of frustration in general and trying to stay level headed with all of it was difficult. I know that this was the reason to take this online computer course to advance with technology but, at the same time you need to have someone online with you at the same time. This course has tons and tons of information and sometimes to much to even comprehend. I thought a lot of the Atomic Learning section was informative but, difficult to understand.
I do want to thank Michelle Griffith for being such a great tech rep. throughout this ordeal and grateful for her patience.
I hope to continue with lots of this information and use it as much as possible in the classroom.
What a journey this has been! Bon Voyage'!

Week 8

Under the 21st Century Projects I liked the Creativity & Innovation Series the best. One of the presentations was titled "Myth & Lore We Share." The application types involved social networking , word processing and presentation. I think it could be useful to do a project on "World Opera" and use some of the other elements to this project such as the photoshop for great visuals. There are many other subjects to explore in fine arts using Atomic Learning and I know it could be helpful in any music classroom.

Week 7

Week 7 - Projects for the classroom. I really enjoyed the "Wordle" section the best. It was so cool to use with different fonts, layouts and color schemes. I created one of my own and published it to that website. What you create with Wordle is yours to use however you like. I think that the students would have so much fun using this. Thinkfinity was ok, but not something that useful for me to use. KidPix was also, a good one... they had some great ideas for all content areas.
Last was Terra Clues and I think it was a fun way to learn and find answers by searching the web. I thought it was an interesting way to answer a clue and then geographically find it on the map.

Week 6

Classroom Aids in week 6 has lots of great tools to help most of your lesson plans. My favorite was "Kid's Zone." All of the resources like mind benders, this day in history, word of the day, quote of the day and did you know would be so great to use on a daily basis. Math Manipulatives was not something that I could use in music class. Scribble Maps is a great visual to use. Google Lit trips was also, a good one especially if you wanted to document your family vacation or other special event. Word Sift is very interesting as I would love to use it to look up a famous music composer from a certain time period, it really offers a lot of useful information.
I can't say I could use all of the web sites, but I could definitely use 2 or 3 of them.

Week 5

The PBworks -Wiki Works is a very easy program to get in to. It's a great tool to have for a collection of web pages to share ideas. Especially when you are not able to meet with others (a group) face to face you can with this program. The basic instructions to "Edit," "Write" and "Save" your content make navigating a smooth transition.
As compared to Blogging, I think Wiki is a much more simple program to learn. And I think it would really be useful within music teachers to coordinate music programs for your campus. I also, think it would be handy to use throughout the district at every level ...the student, the classroom, teachers and administration.

Week 4

This was so much information on creating a video. After viewing each of the web sites ... Photostory was probably my least favorite to use, as the site information was over whelming and you definitely need time to sort through each section. I ended up using Animoto for my video and created one from that website using their pictures and used their music. My original intent was to download my personal pictures of celebrating my mother's 80th birthday in June. This was a huge occasion for all of my family and I wanted to share my wonderful experience with you, but each of these programs would not accept my photos to download or the music that I had selected, so I went to plan "B" and used what Animoto had to offer. I hope you enjoy it. It only seemed appropriate to choose "Traveling" as my title seeing it is summer time!

Week 3

The Google Earth site has tons of info about touring the world in 3-D geography or exploring the ocean and historical imagery. All of these are great references to be used in a music class. In each music lesson plans there is always a "spotlight" section to refer to with geography, history, etc. I really loved the 3-D effect and think that the kids would enjoy it, too.
The Google Reader is a great way to have to expand your research. I subscribed to one of the Classical Composers sites and it has so much info including biography's, pictures and CD's of these composers. I also, subscribed to Children's Classical Concert Combines Learning and Laughter which personally has the type of info to be used in the classroom everyday. There's music appreciation, music theory and how to balance all of this in each lesson plan.
This was a great avenue to explore!