Catching Up After the ETC Course

Hi Blog followers!

I am just taking a very quick 'breather' from the new course (EDE), and thought I'd put in a little comic relief. I've been reading this old, old book from the 70s about college professoring! It's a fun book by Oliver P. Kolstoe, and a quick, fun read. What I love about this little book is the wonderful way it is illustrated by Don-Paul Benjamin. I am including one of his cute cartoon-like illustrations because it made me think of our Action Research projects, and how along the way we are already making some discoveries that are probably not part of the scope of our ideas. I think that's a good thing, don't you? Anyway, enjoy Mr. Benjamin's illustration!

PE6 - This Is It!

My final Personal Experience video! No talking from me on this one, just my final Flash animation. I did not give a 'blow-by-blow' description of what I did on this video, I just show my final result of my two weeks worth of studying Flash. This turned out cute, but I would like to have done more. Time was not on my side. Anyway, I learned a lot, and next time I use Flash, I think I will be able to improve my animations and make them look a little less 'haphazard!' It was definitely worth me looking into Flash, because I really forgot more than I ever think I knew. Anyway, below is my final video which shows how my animation came out in the end.

PE5 - Upward and Onward with Flash

The next installment in my journey to remember how to use Flash animation program!

FV - AR Infomercial

This has a few glitchy moments in it where I am talking on the green screen part. I had to do a lot of 'cutting and carving' - so a lot hit the cutting room floor, as it were! Anyway, I enjoyed most of what I did with this, I tried several different things all at the same time! I think I learned a lot from mixing up all these different video techniques. I will definitely strive to get better as time goes on and I get more experience making these videos! Enjoy my 'infomercial.'

PE4 - Flipped Over Flash

Here is my latest adventure in Flash CS5!

W4 - Reading

What I am reading this week:

This week I found another Taiwanese study about the effects of e-learning on Junior High school students who were tested on their technology learning attitudes and outcomes. It turned out positively for the students’ learning outcomes. Taiwan is doing a lot of study about e-learning.

I also found an interesting British study about e-book learning with 4th and 5th graders who used books on computers to learn vocabulary. Some did well and others didn’t, it was an interesting study that I plan to research further on, especially since my e-book centers on younger students.

An interesting study of Taiwanese Junior High students in a science e-program is the subject of this next paper. The study included a live satellite simulation where students interpreted images and data. The study revealed a more positive attitude toward science especially in males.

I found an excellent article by John Warren on the innovation and future of e-books. This is of complete relevance to my AR projects, since I have written an e-book, and his discussion about the acceptance of e-books is fascinating. A must read article!

The next article I started reading is about environmental education in Chinese elementary schools, which centers around a local pond environment. This is quite interesting to me as my e-book also centers on a local pond.

PE3 - Flash - My Beginnings

Okay, I experimented with Flash a little bit yesterday and some more today, and I have learned how to import graphics to the 'stage' and how to make something move across it.  In my case, I used Little Boat, the character from my children's book I have just completed for my AR project.  I would love to have this little animation done as kind of an 'advertisement' for my book.  That would be so cute if I can pull it off!  Here's what I have so far, pretty bare-bones, but quite functional.  I'm looking forward to adding things to this until it's really what I want.  See my video below:

PE2 - Flash

I am very rusty in Flash, like I said, I used it in my undergrad degree, but I haven’t really touched it since, so it is like starting from scratch again!  The first thing I did was go to Lynda.com where there are many tutorials to look at for Adobe Creative Suite 5.  I chose the Flash introductory videos and started watching.  Things did look very familiar to me, and I was able to remember a few things by watching the videos.  The first video I watched after the introduction was the ‘setting up the workspace’ video.  This helped me because it has changed a little from CS2’s version of Flash.  The new version, or CS5 Flash, allows you more latitude with how you set up your workspace, and, it offers several premade size templates that you can choose from to create an animation space that is dimensionally correct for what you want to do.  This is great, and later on I will create something simple and post that for my part 3 of this three-part Practical Experience Post.  I have created a very quick movie of what I did to start out with Flash again, and you can see that below:

BP12 - OMM - Xtranormal Web 2.0 Tool

W3 - Reading

What I am reading this week:


First, I found a great article about Gardner’s MI theory as related to young children learning in different ways.  The author Gonca Eksi, from Turkey, discusses the use of MI theory in planning language lessons which appeal to a variety of intelligences in young children learning English, and how it can greatly increase the likelihood that the child will learn.  This is right in line with my thinking about environmental education as well.

Next, I found an article about the uses of MI Theory in Africa and, “suggests specific ways in which educators worldwide could incorporate the different intelligences in their teaching and learning activities.”  This is exactly where I am going with my AR book that I am just about finished writing.

Next article I found was about 7^th grade students in Taiwan who were tested using web-based learning and found that web-based learning did enhance student achievement.  No surprise there!

This next article I found is a fascinating comparison between a web-based environmental education program and a traditional environmental education program with Junior High school students. This study was apparently conducted in Greece, and showed significantly higher scores from the students who took the computer-aided instruction over the traditional instruction group.

A fascinating study in e-learning in collaboration by another Turkish researcher Cemal Ardil, discusses a global collaborative circle and a resulting e-book and DVD (exactly what I am creating for my AR project).  Students develop skills in global culture and understanding in this study.

PE1 - Adobe Flash

For my practical experience assignment I have chosen to study Adobe Flash.  I have been using Adobe Image Ready for the last couple of years, which I feel is the 'lazy' way to make animations.  It worked well for the applications I used it for, but I really want to get better at Flash.  I have used Flash before, but it has been over two years, and truly I have probably forgotten more than I ever knew.   I created some simple animations in the program, but I would like to learn more about the scripting end of things, and learn how to create more sophisticated animations.  This would be a big help to me, especially in relation to my Action Research project.  It would be nice to have an animation that went along with my book and website I have created for “The Adventures of Little Boat.” Flash will also be an asset for when I start teaching graphic design in the future.  I feel that this would be the best use of my time since I have learned the other programs suggested for this assignment recently, so they are still fresh in my mind.  Flash, on the other hand, is not fresh in my mind at all, and I think I have been away from it so long that I really feel like I am starting over.  Hopefully it will come back to me as I use it, and perhaps I will be able to make very good progress and take my skills up a notch or two from where I was before!

BP11 - Comment to Marty Denson

Marty created something REALLY impressive!  Read my comment to Marty by clicking here.

BP10 - Comment to Patricia Ort

Pat created a fun movie using Movie Maker on a PC.  Click here to read my comment to Pat.

BP9 - Web 2.0 Tool - Xtranormal

This week I found a really cute program called Xtranormal, which is basically a ‘do it yourself’ animation program.  You have to create a free account, then you can create a movie using their templates and characters.  If you want to come up with something more exotic, you have to pay.  However, the characters and movie templates that they have for free are really nice and quite fun to use.  I thought this program would be really fun to share with my graphic design students in the future.  The dialog or script is all made up by you, the user.  The characters then say the lines you have created for them to speak.  This can be really funny.  I did a somewhat plain script, just a few lines for each character to speak about Full Sail University!  I chose the template where two teddy-bear types of characters were speaking.  I thought it would be fun to try this out.  I certainly can see that there would be many uses for this.  I saw a template that was for characters out of history.  It would be fun for students to create a Benjamin Franklin character or something similar, and have the character talk about when they lived and what was going on in history at that time.  Ben Franklin’s character could talk about the many inventions he came up with as well.  This would also be fun for students to use to create a little animated movie about some design problem they might be having, or use to describe a design procedure or program feature.  The uses that one could come up with for using Xtranormal are just boundless.  I know that I will use this Web 2.0 application, and definitely will teach it to my students as well.  You should try it out just for fun!

Here is a picture of my Xtranormal movie page:

Below is a quick and simple movie I created within minutes of signing up for a free account at Xtranormal.com

I did try to embed the code, but for some reason it does not appear to be compatible with blogger.  Here instead is a link to my Xtranormal movie site (which is similar to a Viddler site):

Zoe's Xtranormal Movie Site

W2 - Reading

These fascinating articles are what I am reading this week:

Amy Brualdi’s paper on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. This paper discusses something I am interested in correlating to my naturalist intelligence that is tapped in my children’s e-book. Although Ms. Brualdi’s paper is a little bit older (1998), and Gardner’s Naturalist intelligence has not been added to the intelligences at this point. Her discussion is still valid regarding how Gardner’s theory provides a theoretical foundation that recognizes different abilities of students.

This next article by Chinese authors is an interesting topic about interactive online testing. Apparently there is some correlation between students taking interactive tests and scoring better than on pencil and paper tests. Even though the author’s test group was for fifth grade students in the area of Social Studies, I believe this could carry over to other subjects, and be very useful in the technology in school arena. This is quite relevant to where I am going with my interactive e-book, and I feel it warrants further study.

Another great article, which is just fascinating and also correlates exactly to what I have been working on with my AR with respect to environmental studies. This study that was conducted in Singapore, concerns ‘mobile technology,’ and asserts that conventional teaching materials may not help students to learn about inquiry and become more self-directed learners. Using mobile technology in education seems to be an exciting possibility!

A 2009 article about the increase in the number of multiple intelligences studies being conducted in Turkey. This is an interesting article because I am quite excited about Gardner’s MI Theory. It is fascinating to me that so many foreign studies exist. This particular article discusses the need for educators to start the dialog about using MI theory in schools.

I am very interested in this next article, which is from South Korea, which discusses what they call ‘substantive evidence’ that many students involved in Multiple Intelligences instruction showed better achievement in certain subject areas, and low achievers became better learners, and had higher self-esteem. This is such important research to study for my own purposes as I am using Gardner’s MI theory (Naturalist) in my e-book for children.

Finally, this week I found a terrific article on Gardner’s MI Theory by Gardner (and others) that really helps me to better understand what Gardner intended the MI theory to be used for in classrooms. This really is a great, defining article which will be very useful to me as I explore a bit more in the MI area for my AR project.

BP8 - OMM - Web 2.0 Tool - Fotobabble

BP7 - Comment to Thomas Meringolo

Thomas thought of something really creative to use his Web2.0 tool for.  Check out my comment to him.

BP6 - Comment To Holly Loganbill

Holly found a great Web2.0 design tool.  Please go to her blog and read my comment at this link:

BP5 - Web 2.0 Tool - Wordle

Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/

I realize that probably everyone knows about this program by now, but I actually never saw a Wordle creation until I started here at Full Sail, so I decided to give it a go, and I love it!  Wordle is so unique, it does something that you could only do in Illustrator or Photoshop previously.  This program allows you to drop a bunch of words into a box, and it then ‘shuffles’ those words around for you and generates a really fascinating piece of text-driven art.  It reminds me of a project I had in my Advanced Typography course while doing my undergraduate degree in Graphic Design.  The instructor had us create a poster using only type, of course.  This Wordle program is so much faster than creating text-based or text-driven designs from scratch in another program.  This is just too easy, and is really fun.  I enjoyed putting in the words that relate to my Action Research Project just to try it out.  It would be great to have a classroom full of graphic design students who are using their computers to create interesting designs using text use this program to describe something they are interested in or want to create a design about.  I think students would learn about the creativeness of using text as the basis of a design.  I personally enjoyed typography when I was in school, and I think my future students would love this.  I think Wordle changes the whole idea of text-based design and is a great channel for creativity that I might not have though of if I had not come across it.  On my Wordle, (pictured below), I changed the color, the typeface, and the overall layout of my text art just by pressing a button! 

BP4 - Web 2.0 Tool - Fotobabble

Fotobabble
http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=Fotobabble

I found the neatest application at the Web 2.0 tools site.  It is called Fotobabble.  What's awesome about this tool is that it allows one to upload a picture, in my case it was a photo that I had manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.  After uploading the photo, I recorded a brief description of what I did to obtain the effect I achieved in my photo using Photoshop.  I chose a selectively colored image and described that in the audio portion that I was able to record using the online software.  It then allowed me to save the file and embed the link here so that you can see it!

I loved this application because it would work superbly for me being a graphic design teacher someday.  I could use it as a teaching tool for my students, by giving them tips and tricks, and sending it to them via email or posted on my blog.  I could also have my students create their own Fotobabble!  Students could create an assignment for class where they record a message to a family member or a friend, or even record a special advertisement for their design.  This software gives me SO many great ideas for using it.  I will use this over and over, I'm sure of it!

Here is the link to the brief Fotobabble I made for this assignment.  I hope you enjoy this and try it out for yourselves.  I can think of several of my teammates who could put this to great use in their technology programs!

Limitations:  As far as I can tell at this point, Fotobabble on the Internet only allows you a very short time period for recording what you want to say about the picture.  This could be a problem if you have a lengthy discussion or description.  The point of it is to keep the recording as brief as possible and try to get to the point quickly so the recorder doesn’t click off while you are still talking! Below is a screen shot of the Fotobabble website, but first there is the link to my Fotobabble I created:

http://www.fotobabble.com/m/SWR0MGNGWERqT2c9

Below is a screen shot of the Fotobabble website:

W1 - Week 1 Reading

W1 – Week 1 Reading

As I foray a little deeper into brain-based learning, and multiple intelligences theories, which both have some basis in my Action Research project of getting younger students engaged and interested in environmental education through the reading of my e-book, and interactive website, several articles and reports have caught my eye in our library databases.  I will briefly discuss five of them on this blog post. 

The first article is an interesting report about 5^th and 6^th grade students in Cyprus being tested about their problem-solving, and decision-making skills by giving them a system thinking skills experiment revolving around a marsh ecosystem.  This is very relevant to what I would like my book to help foster in children, especially with interest to wildlife and the natural environment.  It was interesting to read about this study, and how it showed strong positive results toward the children being able to understand complex systems, and basically how the whole functions successfully based on the presence and function of its parts.  The study results showed that elementary school children were indeed able to develop the potential for system thinking skills.  I am still reading this fascinating article, so I will definitely have a lot more of a factual discussion about it for my literature review shortly.  A screen shot of the article title is below:

The second article I am reading gives the results of a survey about student’s environmental attitudes and knowledge, at elementary schools in Turkey.  I found this article to be fascinating in that after surveying 18 randomly selected elementary schools in Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, the findings indicated that elementary school children’s knowledge of environmental studies was low, but their attitudes about the environment were positive and favorable.  The study also showed that female students’ attitudes were significantly more positive than male students, and also showed that the environmental knowledge level of the children’s fathers also made a difference.  This is a good study for me to read about because I am interested in finding out about elementary school children’s knowledge about their natural environment.  This article will definitely be a helpful piece in my literature review.  Screen shot of the article title is below:

The third article in my cadre of information that I’m currently studying is a fascinating piece of research that was conducted in Taiwan on whether using technology, in this case web-based or e-learning, in elementary school classrooms was more effective than traditional instruction.  In this case, the study results did show that indeed the e-learning was more effective than the traditional instruction.  This is of importance to me, because I have created an e-book with a companion website for elementary school aged children, and it is very good to read about studies where it is shown that students do well, or prefer the e-learning to traditional reading instruction.  A screen shot of the article title page is below:

The fourth article I am reading is absolutely fascinating.  A study (named Project Zero) was conducted by Harvard University about whether or not elementary school children could grasp deeper concepts of underlying causal structures of ecosystems.  The study states that students have difficulty understanding ecosystem concepts because they do not understand the underlying causality that structures the concepts.  This study included three different test groups where the teacher taught different ecosystem activities.  The students who participated in the infused activities lessons showed significantly deeper understanding of the connectedness within ecosystems than those students who did not participate in the ecosystem activities lessons.  This further confirms my thoughts that elementary school aged children need more priming and instruction in environmental education. A screen shot of the title of this article is below:

The fifth article I am currently reading is very relevant to my area of study regarding environmental education (EE).  Joe Heimlich has written a marvelous paper about better understanding the needs of environmental education related to technology!  This paper explores web-using teachers and their levels of comfort with it when comes to searching for environmental education lessons for their students.  I think this article will be of great use for me and be a great addition to my literature review.  I want to get all teachers out there using the Internet to find rich resources to help them teach students about the natural environment.  A screen shot of the article title is below:

BP3 - Diigo Groups

This is a screen shot of my Diigo group "Digital Minds" that I created today.  Team Digital Horizoners, please come and join as soon as you can...thank you!!

BP2 - iGoogle Screen Shots

Hi everyone!  I had nearly too much fun creating my Personal Learning Environment on iGoogle.  I added a few extra things as well as the required.  I am looking forward to using this home page every day while I am at Full Sail!

Here is Screen Shot 1 - My Home page Tab, which I just love, at iGoogle:

Next, my FSO Tab, to which I added some extras as well:

And, of course, my always handy AR/CBL Tab:

Finally, perhaps the most exciting Tab...ETC:

Now I have an awesome Personal Learning spot, and I think I may have to add tabs for all the other courses I have taken so far at FSO.  I think this is one of the most fantastic, significant creations we are required to do!