Self Reflection and Project Evaluation

Here is a link to my MMP: https://ashbinder06.wixsite.com/website

           In my MMP proposal, my stated objections were:

•               Helping students feel comfortable with online learning is one goal.  
•               Another will be to get them more comfortable with assignments that are not traditional papers, but instead learn how to use multimedia programs.  
•               There will also be a resource section for teachers to help them feel comfortable using multimedia themselves.

I believe that I was able to achieve success on all of my intended objectives.  For my first objective,  I  tried to make students feel comfortable with online learning by incorporating multiple forums for each specific media type as well as general questions and general troubleshooting.   This allows for students to communicate with one another and work through their problems together instead of working independently to find a solution.  This pushes the concept of collaborative working which is another important skill for students to master in order to be successful in higher education.  For the second objective, the reviews are there with the sole purpose of making students feel comfortable using new media tools. The reviews are a quick walk through of these tools so students, and teachers if they are unfamiliar with the programs as well, can get an understanding of how they work and which one to use.  In the forum section, I included a specific forum for teachers titled "Teacher Talk". This is a place where teachers can share and/or collaborate on project ideas that involve multimedia tools.

           Technology is everywhere so it only makes sense to include it in the classroom.  Technology allows students creativity to really blossom in ways that essays and multiple choice exams do not.  Throughout this course, we have learned that incorporating technology into the classroom is beneficial for students.  Literacy no longer just means the ability to read and write.  Employers want to see applicants who are computer literate as well and those skills should be taught in the classroom to better prepare students for life after high school.

          By creating this project, I believe I have created a valuable resource for both students and teachers.  It is a medium where both groups can interact with their peers and work on new ideas.  It is also a place where students and teachers can learn about different tools available to them for the purpose of presentations or lectures.  I really wanted to keep the site clean and easy to navigate.  I tried to view my site as spectator to see if it was cohesive and easy to understand.  I did not use distracting backgrounds and made the font one that is legible.

          I intend to share my website with various teachers and students that I know.  I want to ask them if this is a resource that they find useful.  I hope to explain to teachers that having students complete projects using these tools rather than compose an essay may help encourage creativity and help students learn about tools they made need to use later in life.  I will explain to students that multimedia tools are often used for presentations or projects in higher education and if that is something that they are interested in attending, this site is a great resource.  It offers brief reviews of many multimedia tools that they will likely come across in a college classroom.  

Blog Post #8

Hi everyone!

First of all, thank you Shawn for finding Pearltrees! I experienced the same issue as everyone else and saw his post and checked out the site and decided to use it as well.  It was extremely easy to navigate and would definitely recommend using it.  Here is my technology toolkit:

Here is a breakdown of everything I chose to include:

• Drawling with Carl:  This is a great art app that allows students to create projects using a variety of tools including pencils, markers, and stamps.  Students can upload a photo and write and draw on top of it.  It can be useful as a way to create a visual to accompany a book report.
• Super Duper Story Maker: This is a super fun app that allows students to create stories and draw accompanying visuals.   Students can also choose to record audio to narrate pictures in their story.  The app allows stories to be printed so that they can be shared offline as well.  The app also claims that students can work together and create different projects like comic books and greeting cards.
• TeacherKit: This is a great app for any teacher to have in their toolkit. This app monitors pretty much every part of the day to day routine for a teacher including seating plans and grades.  It keeps your data safe by taking automatic backups on Dropbox.  It is basically a personal assistant in the classroom.
• Storia School: This is a great app for reading teachers.  This app is a fun and interactive way for students to read on their devices.  Story sets up personalized book shelves for each student to create their own library of books they are interested in.  The app provides pronunciation tools and vocabulary assessments along the way to ensure students are understanding what they are reading.  Students can also highlight text to come back to later.
• Socrative: This allows for teachers to asses students understanding of classroom material.  Teachers can ask students multiple forms of questions including short answer and multiple choice and have the grades sent to them.  Teachers can get a better understanding is students grasped the material.
• Evernote: Students can organize their notes efficiently on Evernote.  They can even take pictures with their smart phones and upload their notes to one place, a "notebook", that they can always refer back to.  Students are also able to create notes on PDF files.  
• Instructables: This an awesome guide on almost any project that you can think of.  You can find hands-on projects that students can do to get a better understanding.  They have everything from a potato alarm clock to magnet trampolines.
• iMovie: iMovie is one of the most user-friendly video media programs.  There are a lot of different options to create any type of moving media project. Students can work together or individually.
• Slack:  This is a great app for collaborative learning.  It is a great way for everyone to meet up without having to be in the same place.  
• Google Drive: This encompasses everything that Google offers including Docs, Sheets, and many more.  Students can do almost anything with Google apps and it is a greta way for you to monitor the progress of students and who contributed what to a project.

MMP Update #2

Hi everyone! Unfortunately, I will not be uploading a screencast to accompany my post because I have laryngitis at the moment.  I will include screen shots of the progress of my site along with notes explaining what I still want to work on and what I have changed since my last update.

Here is a look at the home page of my site.  I haven't changed much from the first update.

When you continue scrolling you start hitting the video critiques of the media programs.  I am still working on adding more videos, but I have already gone over every program that I plan on including.  Below are my notes on each program that I compiled before I record the reviews.  This is pretty much the last step I have to accomplish.  

I added a crucial part to my site, the forum.  There are a total of six different forums for people to chat in.  There are some specific forums like troubleshooting for audio, still, or video media and more general forums like general questions which is a place where students can ask any question not directly related to a specific program.  This would be a great place for students to inquire about time management for online classes.

I did not change the About or Contact me page since the first update.  I like the overall structure of my sight as I finally see it starting to come together.  I think I have figured out exactly how I want it to look and feel.  Any feedback is definitely appreciated!

Week 10 Discussion Post

Option #3 Personal Perspective

My identity has been completely transformed by new media.  As an undergraduate student, I took a class titled "Education and Computers".  The task of the entire course was to start a website and manage it.  Without knowing it, the class completely changed my life. Without that class, I would not have been able to find my passion and hopefully my career.  I started a brand about five years ago that is based solely off of new media, mainly social media and blogging.  Since I started it, my skills have only grown to now include video editing and production.  Clearly, I am a big fan of new media and its capabilities especially in the classroom.

Integrating multimedia programs into the classroom seems like a logical step in today's digital world. Almost every student with access to a computer knows how to use it.  Nothing will ever replace exams and essays in school, however, multimedia allows teachers to add to the learning process.  Nothing is being taken away, but instead teachers can add to the learning process.  Being "literate" in 2017 means more than just being able to read and write printed text.  Why can't a student-produced film convey the same meaning as a written essay?  "It may be the case that the power of digital stories for creators and viewers has to do with a happy melding of old and new genres and media," (Hull and Nelson, 252).  Multimedia allows students to express their thoughts in new ways.  In their findings, Hull and Nelson talk about how simply adding music "adds an important emotional element to digital stories," (253).  Something as simple as background music can elevate a student's project and that should be what all teachers strive for.  Being open to the changes going on in technology can make the difference for students and how they learn.

Blogs and websites can be a great project for students to have to create and maintain.  As seen in Halverson's research study, "Film as Identity Exploration- A Multimodal Analysis of Youth-Produced Films", organization are encouraging young people to document their own life story using multimedia.  "In the case of documentary filmmaking, stories often gain credibility

through their use of original, unplanned footage," (Halverson, 2372).  Journalism and news reporting has taken a huge hit in terms of credibility since the past presidential election.  Teaching adolescents to create original content from their perspective is a great way to fight against the credibility issue.  

Work Cited

Halverson, Erica. "Film as Identity Exploration: A Multimodal Analysis of Youth-Produced Films."      Teachers College Record 112.9 (2010): 2352-378. Web.

Hull, Glynda A., and Mark E. Nelson. "Locating the Semiotic Power of Multimodality." Written Communication 22.2 (2005): 224-61. Web.

Blog Post #7

When I first arrived on the "Five-Minute Film Festival: Copyright and Fair Use for Educators, I was unsure where to click first.  There was so many resources listed which was great to see.  Reading over some of the video descriptions, it was great to see that there were entertaining videos to help students understand copyright.  The videos appear to start with a broad understanding of copyright and have others that are more detailed and informative which shows that it is appropriate for a variety of ages. I think the site itself could be more visually appealing.  The site is quite simple and could maybe include thumbnails from the videos or some type of visual to accompany the text.

I chose to critique the text resource "Understanding Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons, as they apply to Education".  I was always interested how copyright affects teachers so the title of this article immediately caught my attention.  One immediate problem with this resource is that one of the links provided to better explain "Copyright Fair Use in Education" is broken.  The author acknowledges this and provides alternative links, however, it would seem easier to read if the author just removed the link in its entirety.

The article also provides a link to "Creative Commons" which is a great resource to find different types of copyrighted media that can be licensed and allows users to upload their own content.   Users can license original content, donate original content, or donate to the organization.  The EmergingEdTech site does include a brief description of the different types of licenses that one can acquire.  The article also mentions that Creative Commons also allows for people to share music licensed under Creative Commons.

I chose to critique the video resource "Understanding 'Fair Use' in a Digital World". Automatically, this is a great video for middle school students as it shows a middle school teacher explaining to her class what fair use is.  It is a great resource for teachers to follow as a model for how to teach fair use and copyright.  She shares examples that can be used for students to distinguish what applies to fair use. In addition, she explains how to advance their understanding once they have a basic knowledge of fair use and copyright.

It is great to know that these resources do exist because it is a very common misconception that copyright does not apply to educators.  Teachers can benefit from a better understanding of copyright in the classroom because it is such a complicated yet important issue.  The lines seem to blur so much with the internet as everything can be found on it.  To already understand copyright and fair use, it puts students that much further ahead.   Learning about copyright can help students in the future working on different projects.

MMP Update #1

Hi everyone! Here is my MMP Update 1 screencast! I definitely have a lot of work left, but I feel good seeing the project starting to come together.

Blog Entry #6

Here is my video explaining the concepts multimodality!  Hope you like it!