Telling Stories

This weeks topic of digital storytelling was really very intersting. I looked at the assignment prior to doing any of the reading and was definitely a bit scared. I am fairly comfortable on the computer and with technology but do not have a clue when it comes to making a "movie". I really thought that I was in for a long week trying to figure this out! So, I took a step back and decided to do the reading and look at various samples. The reading was very informative and looking at the various examples made me realize that i might actually be able to make a digital story! With this relief then came the pondering of ideas. What could i make a digital story about? The beter question was what pictures did i have access to or could i take and what kind of digital story would i be able to use with my students? After a lot of thought, i decided that a science related story would work well for my students and thought that i would have an easy time finding pictures of a butterfly and the various life cycles it goes through. Although it took me a few hours, i was pretty pleased that i was able to come up with an idea and start to create my story. Photo Story 3 proved very easy to use (so far) and i have already found and loaded all of the pictures for my story. After completing this portion of my story, i took a break to meet with my group and will continue with my story throughout this week with hope that the rest of the process is made easy with photo story!

Excel-lent

In college i took a software class in a computer lab. During this class, we utilized excel frequently in order to complete assignments utlizing a lot of numbers. By the end of the semester, i still did not completely understand excel. Through trial and error, i am now able to utilize excel for simple spreadsheets with some ease but that is the extent of my abilities. Creating a crossword puzzle really made me aware of some of the capabilities of excel and opened my eyes to the possiblities of what it can be used for (not just spreadsheets for wedding planning!). I definitely think that, rather then teaching excel as a stand alone software, it should be taught in context throughout the various content areas. This would enable students to see excel as something beyond a spreadsheet maker. By actually utilizing excel in order to create something meaningful to them, students would actually understand HOW to use this software.

By creating a crossword puzzle in excel, students would not only learn how to utilize excel but they would also learn the vocabulary. In order to create a crossword puzzle, the students would have to locate vocabulary relevant to the topic and they would then have to define each of this words. Defining these words would definitely help the students to further learn the vocabulary. In order to actually physically create the crossword, students would either already need to know how to do so on excel or they would need to follow the directions. This would help them to see what excel is capable of and how to actually utilize the available tools.
I thought that this was a well thought out activity. However, if i was using this with students, i would specify how many vocabulary words were to be used in the crossword. I would do this in order to avoid recieving a crossword with only three vocabulary words.

I created a science crossword puzzle utilizing both excel along with an online tool - what a differance! The excel system requires you to actually create all of the crossword boxes and determine where and how to place each word. This can be very time consuming and frustrating. It is very difficulty to discover how to intersect the words in order to create a puzzle. By utilizing an online tool, all of the work is done for you. You simply put in the words and the clues and the tool creates a crossword puzzle for you - all of the hard guesswork is eliminated!
**Assignment Submission – Submit A4 (HA4) to Moodle for grading and post it together with the reflection on the experience to your blog.