My Website

Below is a link to my website but first I would like to comment on some parts of my creation. I think my website is well-formatted and organized but several problems could exist. First of all I did not make a student or teacher section. I left it all out in the open. I do not know how this will affect my classroom but I am hoping parents, teachers, and students feel free to communicate with one another about the website content. Also, I decided to edit out some information from my blog profile in order to protect personal information of others. I feel like this change is warranted and necessary so no qualms there. Lastly, I want to say creating the website from a template is much, much more difficult than starting with a blank slate. All this being said I am very proud of my website and hope to use it in the future!

https://sites.google.com/site/mrhoskinsclass/

Storm

Yesterday a violent storm tore through Knoxville taking out power and trees everywhere. Several people I know had damaged cars including Alex Dunbar. I loved the boxcar but I am glad she is ok! Anyways I am working on my website and should be finished by the end of the week. The semester is almost over but not without a little excitement destruction.

Digital Story

Check it out! My first YouTube video!

I enjoyed making this digital story using iMovie because I was familiar with the program. Not to say I did not have any difficulties. I had trouble formatting the labels for animal names and getting properly sized pictures. Unfortunately I could not completely remedy the latter and it shows on my YouTube video. Overall, I think I will use a few digital stories in my classroom because the production time is great but the motivation and interest are as well.

Digital Story- What Do I Want to Say?

I enjoy listening to stories as well as telling them but I have little experience doing this digitally. How should I compose my story? How long should it be? What should it be about? I love creative activities but I can see how a student might get overwhelmed with all the choices. I will try to give my students some guidance with projects such as these using examples. Hopefully I will find and develop my own idea soon! Fingers crossed!

Response to Wikis and Inspiration

Smilebox, voicethread, google forms, and animoto. Quite a list but these are the wikis I have not posted about yet. First, let me say that all could be used in my classroom, but google forms is hands-down the winner as far as practicality. Google forms allows anyone with a google account to make forms and these forms can come in all shapes and styles. Surveys, online quizzes, making exams. It can do it all! Animoto was also an interesting tool for use in classrooms because it allows almost anyone to form 30-sec videos from images, clips, and music. There are many limitations but a short activity would suffice using this web 2.0 tool. Voicethread is the tool I remember least about but it seems to be a complex blog post with drawings and voice recordings so I will have to pass. Smilebox gives users the ability to create designs for certificates, photos, invites, etc. I think this tool would be extremely useful for elementary or middle school teachers but my class could also use some smilebox functions for projects and to build a sense of community. Also, Inspiration is a neat way to design one of my favorite organizational tools- the concept map! However, I would like to know if an online or free option is available. If there is anything I have learned in this class then I am sure it exists. 

Science Scavenger Hunt

Here is my digital science scavenger hunt.






This project was not as easy as anticipated but wonderful Mr. Beard helped me figure out where my last album went wrong (to my surprise). I was easily able to embed my Picasa slideshow as well as a neat glogster post. See above!