Movie Maker

Our most recent assignment in class was to create a movie using Movie Maker.  I thought this was very exciting to create!  We each got to pick out our own topic of interest.  I chose my dog; I love my dog like a child, for he is my child.  I used pictures from when he was younger to present day.  In my movie I incorporated music and used a voice over feature for narration.

I feel like these would be useful in the classroom for when parents came to visit, like open house.  You could take pictures of the students, of course with parents’ consent, throughout the first weeks of school and display them as a movie to replay while parents are present.  Or you could create a themed movie for classroom parties.  Another educational way you could use Movie Maker would be you could video yourself reading a book and acting it out with lots of props.  This would be very exciting for the younger children during story time.  Also, like us students in this class, you could have your students create a movie on a given topic as a PBL assignment.  I look forward to using this program and feature in my own classroom.

To tie this in with NETS-S you would be designing and developing learning experiences through technology.

Web Tools

Our most recent assignment on web tools was very informational on becoming a future educator.  I learned about a lot of resources I can use when teaching different lessons.  As a student now, I already use quizlet to help me study for test and different lessons and what not.  Being able to pass that onto my students is something I will do.  It is very informational and useful to have to create a “set” into quizlet.  We also experienced with different websites that are available for teachers to use for different lessons.  There were many different activity sheets on literally every topic you can think of.  I found it very informational and something that I do see myself using as a future teacher.  We also created a crossword puzzle which I think are so fun!  I really think my students will enjoy doing these weekly maybe even using them as a vocabulary test, making it more fun and less stressful as the thought of it being a test.  I also think it would be great to have the students create these themselves to maybe go along with a book we are reading in the class.

Tying this in with the NETS-T would be very easy.  Exposing the children to quizlet and the crossword puzzle creation on the computer would definitely be educational to the student.