So many options...

This week in class I played with two new programs, Audacity and Photo Story 3. I'm not sure how often I will use Audacity in the classroom, but it is nice to be familiar with the program in case I ever want to use it. Photo Story 3, on the other hand, was a lot of fun to use and was a nice alternative to PowerPoint. I could imagine quite a few situations where I could use it in the classroom for presenting information or students could use it to create a presentation as a unit assessment. Here's the video I made with Photo Story 3:


I also watched a pretty interesting video about experiencing high school virtually. It gives the experience from both the teacher's and the students' perspectives.

Here's a link to the video: http://www.edutopia.org/online-learning-florida-virtual-school-video

There were quite a few things in the video that stood out to me. The first was when the online teacher shared that she typically has 200 students, but she often only sees 10 during each class session. That really surprised me! She shared that she enjoyed meeting her students, but she felt that she maintained strong relationships virtually with each of her students due to the one-on-one attention given through email and discussion. I can't imagine creating really strong bonds with students that way, but I'm sure it works out just fine. She shared she relates better with students this way, but I think I would miss the one-on-one time seeing reactions, sharing stories, and things spontaneously shared in a traditional classroom. The video points out the many benefits for students. For example, if students are working, they can complete their homework and classes around their work schedule rather than clash. Also, students can still participate in sports and other extra curricular school activities, they just don't have a "home school;" they need to join the activities through other traditional schools near by. One student did share that the online classes are not for procrastinators, which is something I expected to be true, but was surprised at how animate this particular student was in sharing. He said that procrastinators will fall behind quickly, so they shouldn't take classes online. A parent shared that students who find themselves embarrassed by the speed they work, slow or fast, don't need to worry about those things in online classrooms. I thought that was a good and valid point. Overall, this video really opened my eyes to different perspectives sharing the benefits of online learning.