Intel Sites

I had difficulty completing this assignment. I attempted to contact my partner a week before the due date, but as of the due date, I had not receive contact back, so I completed the assignment by myself. I had previously used Intel in a co teaching classroom, but the other teacher set everything up. This time, I had the opportunity to create everything by myself. I'm not sure if I did the assignment itself correctly, but I did enjoy the "refresher" course on Intel. I would like to use Intel in the future, but I'm not sure about the practicality in a first grade classroom.

Photoshop Express

This assignment was very easy as my husband and I both edit photos already. We are currently using Corel software, but have used photoshop express in the past. I enjoyed converting the image to black and white then color filling the collar and eyes of or dog for a differnt type of look. I didn't play around too much with the online software as I already feel comfortable with the applications, but I was impressed to see we could use this for free instead of always purchasing software. To add the image to my post, I simply saved it my jump drive and then used the add image link.

Online Album

Online Album

This again was an assignment I was nervous about. With all the technology that I have heard about preditors using to find people, it makes me nervous to have picture of people viewable online. Because of these fears, I again just used photos of places my husband and I visited. I found the site MyPhotoAlbum that you can create your own name on and it will also give you link to add to many social sites such as blogs, myspace, facebook, etc. I created an account and activated it, then I uploaded the photos and linked the photos directly to the post above. I hope everyone enjoys the photos.

Picasa

I had never used Picasa before. This was neat. I uploaded pictures using the photos link in my gmail. It seemed rather quick and simple. I guess this maybe something I use in the future to share photos with family that does not live nearby, although I am always a little concerned about putting pictures of people, especially children, online on a site that is not password protected. Hope you all enjoy viewing the places I have visited.

Online Graph 2

Again, this was fairly easy. I am still so happy I am finally able to apply the things I've learned to create me nexy post. This module is still easier than the others. I followed the same directions as I did in Online Graph 1, and posted the same way.

Compared to the student population in our neighboring states, I feel that WV has a large number of students who have IEPs, when configured as a percentage of the total number of students enrolled in the state.

Online Graph 1

I had never created a graph using an online tool. In the past I had my students and I myself had used Microsoft Excel. This was interesting and I liked that it was much easier to set up on KidZone than trying to figure out where each lable went on Excel. After I completed the graph, I used the print screen to copy the graph to paint then I cut and pasted it to a new document to get rid of the other "junk". I then saved the file and posted it here with the add image link. I have really learned a lot so far in this module and I'm enjoying applying the things I have learned to other assignments.

When viewing my graph, I noticed that WV scored rose as well as those in the US average. However WV scores did not rise as quickly. There were two years (2003 and 2005)that WV stayed at the same level while the average rose. I think overall WV is competing national, they just need to show continued growth with no periods staying the same.

Image Formats

This assignment was enlightening to me. I had never payed attention to how files saved before. The most typical graphic file format I found was JPEG. Everything I saved, saved to this format automatically. Some other formats include Bitmap, JIF, TIFF, and PNG. To inspect the file properties, I opened the folder I had created on my desk top and change the view to list and then selected details. This showed me everything I needed to know to complete my spreadsheet. The properties that I viewed were file name, file type/format, file size, and date modified. I noticed the file I had saved as a Bitmap had two differnt icons. When I was viewing this information, I found that the JPEG files were smaller and therefore must have been compressed. When I opened the GSD Pups file and saved it using paint as a Bitmap, its size increased by 7x. I didn't really see a difference between the qualities of the images. I think the JPEG images seemed as clear as Bitmaps. I also found that when you saved an image as a 256-color Bitmap it lost quality. I think I will continue to use the format the computer saves to (JPEG) because for file size, quality was definately the best for the least amount of space. My mininum files size was 3 KB and my maximum was 5 KB if you did not include the Bitmap. The average of these was 4KB. If you include the Bitmap, the smallest file remained 3 KB, but the largest grew to 35 KB. The average when computed this way was 9.16.

Graphic 2, Screen Grab

Wow!! I never know what the print screen button did. For some reason, I always thought it would print the pages you were viewing on the printer. This was very interesting to me. I will definately use this in my classroom to copy pitures from the internet and get rid of the "junk" around them that my first grades could care less about. To complete the assignment, I searched online for a picture of leaves since we have been studying fall. I used print screen to copy it and pasted it in paint. Then I cut out the picture to get rid of the rest of the "junk" and used the text book to add my words. After this I saved the file as a .jmp file and uploaded it to my post using the add image link at the top. My picture is 640 x 512 pixels and its size is 90,202 bytes.

Reading/Quiz

This was an interesting asignmetn. I also think that this module is going to be interesting. I'm a little unsure about most of the assignments from looking over them and I am guessing that I will have a lot of questions and need must help to complete some of these. I really didn't know what was meant by quiz, so I copied, then answered the questions that were listed at the beginning. If anyone knows anything more about the assignment, please let me know so I can revise.

Photo Story

This photo story was a little difficult for me to create, not because I was uncomfortable with the software, but because of the content I teach in first grade. Since part of the requirement was for it to meet one of our 21st century CSO's I had some trouble. Most of my first grade day at a Reading First School is spent on reading and literacy with the exception of 60 minutes for math. I have already created presentations for reading instruction, so I wanted to change things. In math we are currently studying counting, so that didn't lend itself to a Photo Story Presentation. I looked at the Science CSOs and determined that this would work. I also realize that I am late posting this, but I got confused by the dates of this and Jeopardy and the order they were in on Vista and completed Jeopardy first then this Photo Story.

Jeopardy

This template is amazing. I wish I would have found it last year when I taught middle school. We played Jeopardy with a pocket chart and index cards. I had a hard time coming up with content for the game with my reading first first grade class. We spend the majority of our day with the exception of our math block (60 mintues) on reading. Questions and content were a bit difficult and I'm not 100% pleased with them, but I think that I will be able to use this as a station during reading, or as a intervention group lesson review. Overall I enjoyed it. Its a bit time consuming, but I think that the students will really enjoy.

Movie Maker

I have tried and tried to complete this. I completed my movie maker assignment on September 30 and have tried every night to upload it to youtube. My husband is an exsisting user and has had successful uploads so I have been trying to use his account. I attemp to upload as soon as I get home from school. I leave to complete my many other responsibilities during the evening and when I return it was still trying to upload. One night I even left it over night and was unsuccessful. So, here is the link to it on my ftp site. I hope everyone enjoys and isn't to offended by the lateness. I have had a busy week and no time to communicate on discussion boards or via email about the class.