Garageband in the Classroom

Hello all!
For starters, I hope this experience has shown you how creative you all actually are! You all have put so much time and effort in these projects and now we're almost at the finish line!

Over the past few weeks you guys have create story maps (outlines) for your written pieces, uploaded both to Google Docs and working in your groups, you have managed to edit your written piece THREE times to produce the final written product which you will now use as a script for your podcast. After you have laid down you audio, how you edit your piece will be up to you! (No, as we discussed in class, your podcast does not have to stay in it's original order!).

Today in class, we did a quick review of Garageband, the software we will be using to build our podcasts.

We will review Garageband a bit more in class in order to feel completely comfortable with it before we lay down our audio. A lot of you have asked if you can lay down your audio outside of class and that is perfectly fine with me; just make sure you bring copies of it to class to edit!
Continue to Tweet me for questions and for answers and I'll see you all in class to start using Garageband!

The Wordiness of Word

Hello all! Great job with the story maps! Your ideas for your digital story maps are awesome and I can't wait to see what the finished product will look like!

Quick reminder-There is no stupid question! Some of you got a little hung up on the Google Docs but by working together, we were able to overcome the issue! Continue to ask away!

Tomorrow in class, (Monday), we will work in our groups to check out the story maps you guys created. The next step in this process is to actually put these story maps into words. We will spend the next few weeks in class using Microsoft Word to come up with the written part of our project. For this portion, we're going to stay in our groups for peer editing. After we've written our first drafts, we're also going to upload those to Google Docs so that we can do peer editing outside of the classroom.

I know that sounds like a mouthful but we're going to do everything step by step TOGETHER , so things won't be that difficult...I PROMISE!

See you tomorrow in class!

Inspired for Inspiration?

First off, you guys did an awesome job with the Twitter id's and following me. Click here for the Google Docs with everyone's Twitter id. You guys rocked!

Think back to the first post in this blog and the type of podcast I embedded. Remember, the end product for this unit will be a similar product! What type of story do you want to tell? How are you going to go about telling it? What media will you use? As we already discussed in class today, we will be using Inspiration in order to sort through our ideas about our podcast topics.

As promised, here is the link for the YouTube videos for Inspiration, just in case you need a refresher.
Quick Tour of Inspiration 9 Software. 

When I created my map, mine was color coded by topic choice and the speakers. Your story map does not have to look like this. Play around with the templates we used in class until you find one that suits the type of map you would like to create. You will have the rest of the week to complete your story map.

Using the group Gmail accounts we set up today in class, upload your story maps to the appropriate Google Doc by Friday. We will spend the entire part of Monday in our groups discussing the digital story we want to create and the maps  we've created in class. Rock on and don't forget to post by Friday!

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

Hello all! In my first post, I showed a podcast I created to enlighten some of why technology is important in the classroom. In addition, the podcast's purpose was also to show you the final product of a project we will be working on for our first unit. Because this is such an in depth project and will span over a few weeks, I have decided to use the social networking software Twitter for two reasons.

1. To show one way how a tool such as Twitter can be used within the classroom.
2. Because it is easy to use, free, and many of you are familiar with it.

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, please visit the following video on YouTube Twitter in Plain English. We will use email and Twitter this semester for all outside of school communication. I usually check my email frequently but if you have a question and Tweet it to me, I receive it immediately (because I have Twitter mobile, yay!) and I will be able to respond quicker to all your dying questions.

Once you set up your Twitter id's, "follow me". My twitter id is awat1986. As requests come in to "follow"  I will compile them in a list at Google Docs so you will have access to each other and "follow" each other. If for any reason you are having any trouble shoot me an email or post a comment to this blog entry. I'd like everyone signed up by Friday!

What this blog is....

I find it unbelievable that classroom technology integration is not as progressive as it should be. What is even more disheartening is that some feel there is no need for technology integration in ANY classroom and it is  a waste of time. I on the other hand, believe that if teachers who do feel the need for technology in the classroom can model how it can be used for the better good of education, it may sway how the nay-sayers feel about it.

For starters, why don't you check out a podcast I made about how the students and parents feel about technology in the classroom. It's about 4 minutes long but you will enjoy! (Hopefully)

Podcasts are great ways to share your opinions and views in a story format using pictures, words and music. Think back about the podcast you watched above. What was the main purpose for telling this story? What kind of mood did this podcast put you in? How did text and pictures play a role in telling this story?

For the first unit, we will be working on a story that tells a story that YOU want to tell and our end product will be a podast similar to the one I put together. This blog will help you along the way by showing you exactly how you can use technology in the English classroom to produce not just writing samples but different forms of technological products.

Have fun and buckle up for the ride!