Power Point

 Here is the digital link to my dropbox where you can view my power point

I would certainly use this power point with my students to teach them about the rainforest and about conservation. But, this power point could be used for adults too! I downloaded the drop box and it is now on my desktop! All you have to do is drop something in your share folder and anyone can see it!

Google Earth

After installing Google Earth on my hard-drive I first looked up my own address. We are constantly changing our property because we have horses and their paddocks needed to be moved around to help save grass etc. So...it was cool to look at Google Earth (last pictures taken in 2010) and see how it looked exactly at that time. Here is that picture:

Then I imported my KML Google Map file into Google Earth. When I clicked KML is automatically imported it into Google Earth. Awesome. Here is that image:

Google Earth is way cool. There are thousands of possibilities for the classroom using Google Earth. I was looking at the Second Grade SOL objectives and on their students need to learn about capitals of states and main physical features of the United States. What better way to show your class an actual picture of the features and be able to play around with the views etc to learn about features or where capitals are and why they are placed there. Here is a great link to lots of lesson plans that incorporate those concepts:

Lesson Plans Using Google Earth

21st Century Mapping

Ahh! How cool is Batchgeo! This website takes your excel spread sheet and turns it into a map that can give you so many clues about the data you have! Just looking at all the data cant show you what this map does! Here is the map:

View Where We Live in EDU 585 in a full screen map

As you can see the Map shows you much better visual presentation of the data that we collected! This program would be an awesome tool in the classroom! For example I could use this by having groups of students collect data on where famous historical figures lived! Putting all these points on a map would show them where the people of the past (say Thomas Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln etc etc) were concentrated and why they lived in the places they did. Was it because water was close by? What did the geography look like around there? They could also use it to pinpoint Civil War battles...the list could go on and on. I think what is important to note is that actually having the visual representation of where places are on the map will give students a better opportunity to learn. They are understanding how far apart things are, where certain states are in compared to other states, how far things are a part from each other etc. These are all things you and I do not really think about but to an elementary school student seeing how far some of the Civil War guys actually marched would be amazing to them. 

Tools like this will change education (for the better I think). You are still learning about the important people or events in the past you just get to supplement it with awesome visual tools. So many students are visual learners and all students can benefit from actually seeing something on a map or in a presentation. This truly will make the classroom more interesting and fun for students because they will get to help in the process of making the map! 

 

The Best Places to Eat in Knoxville Tennessee

Here is a link to the Google Document I created for the Google Maps Project! 

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1k8dbSd-aesBGKSb9ZjX6z-upbs9H4buYodwIqmQ-eFQ

Jing Screencast

So I know it might sound crazy in this day in age but before this class I had never created a Google Document (don't laugh at me). Although it is simple I think it is important for me to have a video showing how to create a Google Document so students can use it to collaborate and I can simply play them this video. It would be perfect for student to sign up for topics for papers to insure that no two students are going to present on the same topic! It would also be extremely helpful to email out to parents so that they can use Google Docs to sign up for food for class parties etc. All I have to do is send them this video and they will know how to create a document!

Here is the link to my video:

http://screencast.com/t/dqvices9wSu

Jing Graphic

For my Jing Graphic I chose to incorporate something I would teach about in my classroom. In first grade science we learn about the 3 parts of an Ant. The Head, Thorax, and Abdomen. To help my students visualize the parts of the ant on an actual image of an ant I was able to capture a picture of an ant using Jing and then actually box out and type on the image. This tool will be great for so many other things in the classroom. Here is the image I made:

Here is the screencasted image:

http://screencast.com/t/IdMhbvJyAoX

Here is another image I made practicing with the arrows feature on Jing:

Diigo

So I installed the Diigolet on my browser (Firefox)! What was really cool is that I could just drag the icon up onto my bookmarks toolbar (on my Mac) and it was installed! It is right there on my toolbar making it easy to use and at my disposal so I think I am more likely to use it! 

(right corner)

I did some more research on what Browser Add-Ons Firfox offers and there are literally thousands...I had NO idea. For instance in the above picture it would have been cool if I could highlight with a box where the diigolet on my screen shot is. I went to Firefox's Add-Ons site and in fact there is an add on for that! Its called "Awesome Screenshot". I downloaded it here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/awesome-screenshot-capture-/

This is how I used it:

I found it extremely useful that I had an idea to make my point (highlighting where the Diigolet icon is on my toolbar) more clear and there was an easy Add-On for that!

Here is a link to my public Diigo page and I will also post it in my links list gadget on the right toolbar on my blog. 

http://www.diigo.com/user/jpeck12

Since today is the first day of putting up links on your Diigo page I will explain why I picked the ones I did. 

1) In my Teaching Language Arts Class today my professor was talking about the Teacher Union Strike that is currently going on in Chicago. I had heard about this going on but honestly hadnt had time to read up on it so that is why a news article about the strike was my first bookmark. It was fun to play around with the highlighting tool and the note pad.

Annotated Link: 

http://diigo.com/0sw9v 

2) The second one I added was about the emotions of students and giving them detention for being angry. This was a short article but interesting to me for my classroom management class I am in. 

3) Another Classroom Management Article

I think that the ISTE NETS T Standards that apply to this assignment most would be 5. a which states that teachers model lifelong learning and participate in global learning communities which I think Diigo is. Also 3. d states that teachers will facilitate effect use of use innovative tools. Diigo would be amazing to use in any classroom where students are trying to find online resource articles or information. They can share, highlight and make notes right there on the page and safe it for future papers they will write on the topic etc.

Picasso

Here is the site I used to create my Picasso Portrait!

http://www.picassohead.com/create.html

I made my picture with two faces. One is me and the other is my son. I wanted to have him in my protrait :) I titled it Mother you can see it here:

http://www.picassohead.com/?id=e24bb73

I did not have much trouble with the site. It was simple to use but just getting creative and deciding what to put was the hardest part! So many options!

If I could change anything about the site it would be to have a two way direction for the "rotate" button. If you wanted to rotate a body part and then went to far in the rotation you had to go all the way around again. I found I did this A LOT...probably operator error. 

This website would be fun to teach my elementary school children about Pablo Picasso! Being able to have my students use a website like this and make their own Pablo Picasso Portraits will help them not forget his style and who he was as a historical character! Since the website is so easy it would be kid friendly and a great resource tool!

Resume Refurbish

First, let me start out by saying that when we had to do the first assignment where we had to put up our resume that my resume needed a huge over hall. I was pretty overwhelmed with it so I contacted Shenandoah's Career Services because I had heard that they can help you with your resume even though email. I emailed them and got a quick response and I emailed back and forth with Jennifer Spataro-Wilson who is the Director of Career Services. She helped me so much with my resume...narrowing things, what to put on there, what to highlight, what to spice up etc. It was so helpful! She even made my document look like an actual resume with perfect spacing and everything lined up beautifully! I highly recommend it!

http://www.su.edu/student_life/BE35B017E4F749E5AD09F9916DCEC90D.asp?CFID=8486151&CFTOKEN=11199951

Here is the score I got before I edited it:

Their suggestion was to remove the objective part of my resume...understandable so here is the score I got after that:

They just could'nt give me that full A huh??

Snipping!

Using the Snipping Tool was my next assignment and I learned how to do it on my mac! Thanks to Wikipedia for the help :)

Click to view image larger 
I think this tool would be a great tool in my classroom especially when I am teaching my students how to do something on the computer. I can take screen shots of each step and put them in a packet to help them complete a task. For example, if I was teaching them how to use Google Maps I would tell them how to get to the site and I would tell them to type: Fairfax, VA in the search tab. I could actually show them how to do it by showing them a snip like this off my computer:

Click to view image larger 
I could them let them find their house or a historic landmark I want them to learn about! Elementary students need a lot of direction and visual aid so I think being able to give them exactly what their computers should be looking like at each step will be an amazing tool!