Trying Not to Hurt Your Eyes

Okay, here's the first one: http://www.belladesoto.us/

Wow. Just...wow. If you try to look at it, be warned that it will take forever to load because there is so much going on. How does someone even do that? How is there absolutely no sense of "Maybe I should try to organize this a little better." In fact, I'm almost inclined to believe that someone set this up so they could make every "worst website" list that ever comes out. I mean, you gotta be kidding me.

Here's the next one: http://noeband.gr/

This website is really simple, but cool looking and easy to use. When you click on most of the links, it doesn't take you off the page, the info just appears to the side. I love that. There's very little getting in the way of anything.

So I guess I would tell my students that they need to keep their presentations or any digital work simple because you want the viewer to get it. I have been failing for three days now at coming up with an activity or something for my kids to do and I've got nothing. I feel like I've been doing well so far on the topics in this class, but I'm struggling with this one. I'm not even coming up with a good topic for my own presentation. Ugh. I'll keep thinking.

(thinking)

(thinking)

Okay, it's been multiple hours but I came up with an idea. It's not much, but it makes an important point I think. There was one slide that didn't come through on Slideshare, I don't know why, but here it is:

A Simple Brain Exercise

View more presentations from JRNelson9.

Comics-ing it up

I had a lot of fun making this comic. I downloaded comic life, and was really surprised at 1) How complicated the things you make can be and 2) how easy it is to use. Drag and drop, intuition on how to move things around, etc. I didn't put in too many of the extra things, but I poked around and looked at the tools and stuff, and I was blown away by how much the program can do, and anyone can pick it right up! It was really easy and I think students would pick up on it really quickly and have a lot of fun doing it. Adapting "normal" texts into comic format would be a great way to get kids visualizing and creating, but also get them to pick out important points (you would have to cut a lot of stuff from the text), think about how emotions come through, and challenge them to think in a way they probably haven't before.

One of the things I really liked was realizing that I had to figure out how to get the pictures and text boxes to work together. I would put in a picture, then realize I had no place for text, so putting it off center actually helped, which is counter-intuitive when arranging pictures. The other thing I had to think about, which I already mentioned, is deciding what to put in and what to leave out. That's a hard decision, but I think students would really benefit from that decision-making process.

The comic I created is about my son, Joshua. Really, I chose it because I had a huge library of pictures to work from and I had already done our Honeymoon for Voicethread. Apparently Blogger does not accept PDF files, and I can't get it to convert to any other type of file, so I had to upload it to my softball team's website. Here's the link:

www.si-softball.org/ComicJoshuaSmall.pdf

Podcast-Schmodcast

I really like the idea of podcasting in class because students really get into it and have fun while doing things that are, I think at least, worthwhile.

First my 9th graders did a practice podcast where they had to perform the script for a five-minute radio show I provided. This was a perfect practice run because it's a little more complicated than the other podcasts they'll do, so they got very comfortable with how to work the equipment, and they also had to put in some sound effects, music, and character voices, which they had a lot of fun with. Again, it was just a practice, so I wasn't expecting greatness, but in the future I may use something else as a practice and make this an assignment. They could find a radio show script online and perform it, or write their own. OR BOTH!

The main thing they'll be doing is responding to literature. In small groups they will read short stories and then record their discussion about the story. They'll also do a podcast responding to a play we're going to see at the end of the month. One main thing I like about this is that it gets everyone involved in the discussion. They are only in groups of three, so pretty much everyone has to talk for it to be successful. Nobody can sit in the back corner and skate by.

The other thing I really like about it is time. In the spring we'll do Lit. circles and I was thinking I would have to take four class days and just sit and listen to a group discussion each day. This way, they can record it all at once and I can just listen to them at my leisure.

I am putting the podcasts on iTunes as "Mr. Nelson's English World," though it isn't letting me submit anything on iTunes right now because they're "experiencing technical difficulties." After a quick internet search, I discovered people having this problem every few months for the last four years or so. You'd think they'd be able to fix it, but I digress. I think putting them on iTunes as an "actual" podcast lends a little weight to the project. It's not just me listening, it's anyone. I told my 9th grade boys, "If you sound like a doofus, anyone in the world could hear you sounding like a doofus." They have also told their parents about it, and then reported to me that their parents were excited to be able to hear them online.

This whole process is also my final project for this class, so we'll see how it goes!

My Podcast

This is my podcast about how I can use podcasting in my classroom. I just put the file right in here, but I did go through the process with media mill and iTunes.

My Digital Storytelling Video

Here is the video that I created for digital storytelling, edited in iMovie and shot by my wonderful wife (you may hear our kids in the background a couple times). I did this in class, so some of the timing is a little off because I was trying to keep the sound low so as not to disturb anyone, but overall I was glad to play around with iMovie and figure out how some things worked. I'm not sure why the "album cover intro" comes up twice, I must have clicked something twice or something. I think this would be really fun for kids, and easy to use too. We had a great time making videos in high school, and I'm hoping to work it into my classes somehow.

My DJ goes wiki-wiki

Here is the wiki I created:

http://comm9speech.pbworks.com/

I created it for the speech unit we do in my 9th grade class, and I decided it would be a good spot for students to share their ideas about how to give good speeches. It includes tips for researching, writing, and all kinds of stuff. I think this is great because kids may have ideas for how to memorize something, for example, that I've never thought of, and that may help another member of the class. They can give each other ideas outside of sitting in class. I think this is also way less daunting for kids. We already sort of talked about this, but the kid who doesn't want to raise his hand in class may be an awesome contributor on a wiki site.

The other part of my wiki is that I would take the groups for their radio show project and assign each of them a genre of radio show like mystery, comedy, drama, sci-fi, etc. Each group would then create a page for themselves and write a short description of each genre and its characteristics. Then the other groups can go and read about each one while deciding what they want to do for their own radio show.

Finally, I have a section for resources where kids can find examples of old radio shows. They can post links to websites that have audio files or scripts and things like that, and I think that would be a really good way to help all the students find good resources when planning their radio show.

A long post all about my honeymoon

Okay, first, here's my flickr slideshow:



I chose this set of pictures because our wedding/honeymoon was awesome, and we had so much fun. I think what brings all of these pictures together is beauty. From the beauty of creation to artistic beauty to my beautiful wife :-) I look at these pictures and remember how much fun we had, how great our wedding was, and how different our life was just four years ago. To others who look at these pictures, I think they would a few things. First, they would see two people who love each other and had a great time on their honeymoon and are happy together. I also think they would see the beauty of the North Shore, because I don't think enough Minnesotans take advantage of what we have in this state. Finally, I think people would see that you don't have to go to some expensive, exotic locale to have an awesome honeymoon. A lot of our friends went to Hawaii or Puerto Rico or places like that, but we simply couldn't afford that. So we chose Grand Marais and could not have been happier. Those memories will last a lifetime, and I wouldn't do it any differently.

In my 9th grade class, I do a lesson on merging storytelling with pictures using a story called "Insomnia" and the famous painting "Nighthawks." The students have to find pictures and tell their story without knowing anything about the picture. I think voicethread would be cool to use because then they could use multiple pictures really easily and they could have multiple people telling different parts of the story. It adds an entirely new dimension to their creative process.

Okay, here's my voicethread. Hopefully this works. I had problems with embedding it, so it's just a link. Same pictures, but with commentary!

http://voicethread.com/share/645905/