BrittnyNalini's Blog

Last Blog

brittnynalini — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:08:35 +0000

This week was our final week in class. We spent the class time working on our final projects. For our final project we had to create a book using myebook.com. In the book we reflected upon all the projects we have done through out the course. The project was a really good way to review and revisit everything we have learned in ED 217. This class has been really great and I have learned a lot. Many of the things I have learned are really useful and have helped me as an education student. I know I will use many of the things I have learned when I become a teacher.

I would like to thank Dr. McCullough for a great semester. He was an awesome professor to have!

Blog 13

brittnynalini — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:55:57 +0000

This week in class we learned about a very interesting site called Myebook.com. Myebook is a website where anyone can create, share, and publish their own books online. We are using this website in class to complete our last and final project. For this project we are going to make our own books that summarize the important subjects and projects we learned and did throughout the course. This is just one of the many ways someone can use Myebook. You can write a novel, comic, magazine, make a brochure, or even a photo album using this site. You can bring content from anywhere such as Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, or your mind, and Myebook gives you the tools to create your own masterpiece.

In the future I can see myself using this site to make a professional portfolio for job interviews and applications. I can make my portfolio on Myebook and send it out with my applications. Employers can view it online or I can print or save it to a disk to send out. I believe if offers a great alternative the boring old paper application. A well, put together, finished digital project could really stand out against other portfolios.

Blog 10

brittnynalini — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:31:03 +0000

This week in class we learned about Twitter. I have heard of Twitter before but never really had a reason to use it. I was glad to learn more about it because I didn’t understand why people used it. Twitter is basically another type of social networking. It uses live feeds to keep people connected and informed about each other. On Twitter you can choose to follow people, which means whatever little blurb they type about themselves will show up on your feeds. You can follow websites, friends, family, celebrities, and the news using Twitter. On your home page Twitter allows you 140 characters to tell anyone that follows you what you want them to know about you. The space is labeled “what are you doing” , but you can put any bit of information you chose in there. For instance a cool website you found or some news you heard of. Many people use Twitter as a Personal Learning Network. They follow people with a common interest to learn more about that topic. The live feed informs the follower of the latest information on that topic given by others who take interest in it. This is and example of a Twitter page.

by Clarita82

Blog 9

brittnynalini — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:40:28 +0000

This week in class we started to learn things for our Module 3 assignment. For this assignment we have to do a collaborative project. We were assigned to groups to make a digital story. To do this project we need to use a collaborative tool that will help us work together. The collaborative tool I found most useful was the Etherpad page. On this page all of my group members can chat and leave messages for each other about our project. Any of us can access the page at anytime, this makes working in a group very easy. Group members can all work on their own time instead of trying to meet in one place at one time.

Also to do this project we need to use a digital story resource. I really liked the site Mixbook.com. On this site you can create a story in a scrap-booking kind of way. The books you make on this site can actually be printed out and purchased. The site offers tons of backgrounds and page layouts. This is a site I’ve never heard of before and I think it’s an awesome idea. I plan to play around with it for possible Christmas presents for my loved ones.

Blog 8

brittnynalini — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:40:05 +0000

This week in class we worked on our Module 2 assignments. For my project I decided to make a presentation using inspiration. The topic for my presentation was a project from another class. For my Early Childhood class I had to come up with 3 lesson plans in art, music and movement, and dramatic play. I used inspiration as a way to map out all of the components of each lesson plan. In the center of the map the main topic is also a hyperlink to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Early Learning site. Here I found all the standards I needed to base my lessons off of. For the rest of the map I used graphics from inspiration and used notes for the topics with a lot of text. Overall I thought using inspiration was very helpful and efficient.

Blog 7

brittnynalini — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:23:55 +0000

This week in class we learned about features in Microsoft Power Point. Powerpoint can seem like a boring way to present but we learned ways to make things more interesting. Instead of just doing the normal click and read, it is more appealing to use hyperlinks to go through a show. You can put hyperlinks in the show that go to websites, other programs, or other places in the show. It is very effective to have a table on contents page and then link different pages to the topics on that page. This way you can go back and forth through pages easily without going through the whole show.

Also in Power Point text and graphics can have fun actions and sounds. You can format animations and effects how ever you want them using the format palette. Also every slide can have its own special transition and texts and graphics can enter or exit the screen in creative ways.

Blog 6

brittnynalini — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:35:20 +0000

This week in class we learned about another really cool presentation tool. It is called Prezi and it can best be described as a mix of power point and inspiration. Prezi uses a big open canvas concept for making a presentation. You can add text, pictures, links, and other media anywhere on the page. You then pick the order that it appears in the presentation.

Example of a Prezi Page by Dominoe

You can create the page to look how ever you want by placing your text a pictures in many. Prezi only offers a few styles in terms of text and background color but it still is a very different to present any topic.

This week we also learned about using different effects in a word document to make a more interesting presentation. WordArt allows you to stray away from the ordinary text options in Word. You can pick from a large variety of shapes, line colors, fill options, and fonts to make your text more visually appealing. You can also insert photos using the many graphic shape options given. Another Word feature we’ve been missing is hyperlinking within a document. For instance if your document has a table of contents and many topics. You can hyperlink any part of the table of contents to the part in the document is refers to. This makes presenting a document much more efficient.

Blog 5

brittnynalini — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:10:54 +0000

This week in Class we started learning content for module 2. For module 2 we are supposed to create a presentation about a topic we are learning about in another class. We can make the presentation using word, Powerpoint, or inspiration. Inspiration is a new tool to me and I have found it to be very useful and more powerful than word or Powerpoint. Inspiration allows you to create a presentation using a diagram or outline. Making a presentation using a diagram has the benefit of including many cool features. You can add links, videos, sound bites, pictures, and hidden notes to your topics. Even more useful and convenient than inspiration is it’s free online version webspiration. Webspiration can be used anywhere there is internet access and it automatically saves your work. As long as you have an account you can make and access your documents anywhere.

This week i also learned it is illegal to post pictures from Google or Flickr. Flickr is safer to use because you have the option of searching through pictures that are legal to post. You do this by using the creative commons feature when doing an advanced search. Searching for photos this way ensures that you will not get in trouble for posting other peoples pictures. They are safe to use in a presentation.

by Andreas

Blog 4

brittnynalini — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:59:37 +0000

This week in class I learned about 2 very useful websites. Delicous.com is a social bookmarking site where people bookmark websites they like and share them with others. It can be used as a new way to search things instead of using a search engine like Google. Delicious is better than Google because the sites that listed in a search have been looked at by others. This means you are almost guaranteed to find good and relevent information. When searching with Google so many sites come up that it is impossible to really find the best out there, but Delicious has sites that other people think are useful. Flickr is the other useful site that I learned about this week. It is a Photo sharing and storing site. It is a free program that allows people to save and share hundreds if not thousands of their photos with world. Both Delicious and Flickr use “tags” to help people find what they are looking for. Tags are one word description that categorize the photo or website, and when people type in that tag name a bunch of different options will come up relating to the topic.

The second half of the week we got work time to work on our first project. I finished mine and I really hope I earned an A. The project is definitely a very useful one. I plan to use the majority of the tools and programs I discovered and wrote about for my future classroom.

Blog 3

brittnynalini — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:51:04 +0000

This week in class I learned new ways to perform searches on the internet. I learned to use the advanced search on Google to make searching more efficient and to find better content. Searching within a specific domain or websites helps narrow down the sites and information that come up. This makes searching quicker and more effective. I also learned Google isn’t the only good search engine out there. Redz is a different type of search engine that I haven’t seen before. Instead of listing links to various sites it shows pictures of the homepages that you can sift through and pick to look at. It is a visual way of looking through many websites that i find very useful and appealing.

This week I also learned about Google Docs. Google Docs is like and online version of Word. I think it’s better than Word because I can access my Work anytime anywhere. If I do my papers and assignments on Google Docs there’s no way to forget them or loose them because it can be accessed on any computer. I also like Google Docs because it makes collaboration and group projects very simple. It’s great that each group member can work on something whenever it’s convenient for them and not have to worry about being in the same place at the same time. It’s also very cool that survey’s and Powerpoint shows can be made a viewed through Google Docs. I will defiantly be using Google Docs as a student and as a teacher.