Digital Storytelling Reflection

I liked how that it give the steps or criteria that makes a good digital story. Which are:
1. a point of view
2. a dramatic question
3. emotional content
4. economy
5. pacing
6. the gift of your voice
7. an accompanying soundtrack
or
1. Live Inside Your Story
2. Unfold Lessons Learned
3. Develop Creative Tension
4. Economize the Story Told
5. Show, Don’t Tell
6. Develop Craftsmanship

You can use these as a check list to see if what you have is what you need. This will make it so that your students will feel connected and feel the meaning behind the information instead of just getting the data off the surface. Students should be able to make their own digital story so that they can see and get a deeper understanding of how the topic actually affects them. It makes them get a personal connection with the material, and when we get emotion involved in learning students can learn a lot more effectively. I liked how they talked about still having the content the focus and not the technology. That the technology is a tool that is used in the background to better share you ideas, and what you have learned.
I watched a few digital stories from DigiTales and also the one about Where the Wild Things Are. It was interesting going through the book in that way. It was enjoy able and the music went well with it. One of the other movies I watched Patience, My Dear Man, Patience the sound and pictures were completely off which made it boring and I couldn't focus because the picture were so far behind. Another one I watched was Insurance of Life this was a good one that really had a personal experience and view to it. It seemed to flow well and to get the point across.

Site Refletion

I thought that it was pretty cool that Google search can be used as a calculator. I am a math major. The students probably won't be doing a lot of research but they could use the techniques to find activities, games or help on math subjects. The video talks about how versatile digital text is. At first I was thinking of the experiences I have had dealing with math in the digital format and it wasn't a pleasant experiences. It was cumbersome and non-user friendly. It is hard to take notes or do computation digitally. But things are and will be getting better. They are talked about in the video or article but it made me think of Tablet PCs. Where you can write fluidly in a digital format. they can take the hand written notes and type them up. These are the things that I see as being helpful in a mathematics classroom.

Looking at Google for Educators I didn't find a lot of things that i would use in my class room. None of the activities were for math and could really be used for it. I was a little disappointed in Google for not having any. The posters I thought were a good thing to have around so that the students would be able to see how to really get the most out of the site.

One of the things that I learned about designing a website that I had never really thought about was how it would look in different browsers, and at different resolutions. I liked the tip about doing it to the min and then the high resolution usually automatically re-size it. Or to use tables where it will stay at a fixed size.

INEQUALITIES

I would start out by asking the students the students some of the applications of math in the real world. I would then use this video to show one of the practical applications of the math we are using in class. I would then have them figure out a scenario where the student and a friend both have to get to a certain destination. They have the same amount of money to get their but one has a hybrid car and one has a regular one. They will have to figure out a route that would get them both to the place. In the city they get so many mpgs and on the freeway the get so many.

Thoughts On UEN

The UEN site was quite interesting. I can't really say if I liked it or not. There are a lot of great resources. UEN tools is something I will use. I will really like referring to the Rubric Tool for my own assignments. I think it will be very helpful. The other tools are pretty cool too and I will refer to those as well.

I like a lot of the sources you can find on the UEN site. I think the UEN K-12 section will be a great resource to use. I like that there are Lesson Plans and other resources I find on there. I will surely refer to this part of the UEN site often.

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I really enjoyed the Pioneer Online Library. I enjoyed the CultureGram section. It is very helpful and I can see students of all ages enjoying using it for their assignments and projects. There is a lot of great information on there.


Also as I was looking through all of the different resources, I thought the SIRSKnowledge section was pretty cool. There is a lot of really great information on there. I especially think that students would like this not only for school assignments but for their own use. They can find a lot of information on politics, different views on controversial subjects and much more.

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MyUEN web page was my least favorite part of UEN. It is very cumbersome and not user friendly at all. I found it very frustrating that you could be working on something and have it close out on you in the middle of typing. It also very slow. I don't think I will have a site for myself as a teacher but I will use the whole UEN site as a reference in my teaching.

Recent Life Events

The things that I have been doing with my life lately cover a wide range of things. I have been married for over a year now and my wife and I are both studying at UVU to become teachers. She is planning on teaching elementary school. I am studying to teach math and psychology in high school. This is my first semester in the education program and so far it has been pretty good even though it has been a lot more work than I had planned on.

As well as going to school I work in Finance. I really enjoy this job a lot. My wife and I also both work part time here at the school. We have a lot of fun being able to work in the same place and with our busy schedules it is nice to be able to see each other every once in a while.

Something that is pretty recent is that my wife gave me a haircut. She does a really good job and is a lot more confident in herself now than she was when we were first married. Some other things we have both learned how to do are gardening. We really had a fun summer making our yard look good and planting a garden. It is a lot of work but very worth it. We grew Watermelon, Cantaloupe, red and green Peppers, Corn, and a few other vegetables. We also planted flowers in our flower beds. Our house is really old and has a lot of character and we love where we live. I also got to celebrate my one year anniversary with my wife. It was great. I surprised my wife with a great date at the Chef's Table and we then went to a play at the Hale Center Theater. We had a lot of fun.



We have really enjoyed the fall and are pretty excited to dress up has hill billies for Halloween. My wife and I found some pretty hilarious wigs and we are pretty thrilled with how our costumes are going to turn out. Life is good for me. I have a great wife who makes my life so much fun and so many other things that I really didn't imagine I'd have at this point in my life. I am really looking forward to all that life holds for me and my family.

This weekend

I am going to do homework this weekend.