Movie Maker edited pics

Curriculum Project Reflection

I created my final project about the 1980s. This is a unit I teach in my US History classes, and I thought this would be a good way to look at some of the major events of the decade. I chose to do pictures and narration with background music because I think it would be an interesting way to understand the information for students, and would be fun and interesting for parents to view as well.
The three pictures I edited in Picnik were slide # 1, 2 and 4. In the first picture (the title page) I added heart stickers and also brightened the coloring of the image. The second picture was of the US hockey team, and to that I added several stickers (#1 hand, heart, pom pon and a little green guy). The last picture I edited was the MTV image. I sharpened the image and added heart stickers, music notes, and a sticker that said "new."
I was nervous about uploading my video to YouTube because I had never done it. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it actually was! I just created an account, linked it to my Google account and clicked. :) I really feel like this was a great learning experience for me and I know I will be able to use this is my classroom. I am often intimidated by technology and doing things I have never done, but this assignment (and other assignments throughout the course) have shown me that I can do these things and can use them to really enhance my teaching!

Curriculum Project

Podcasts

I chose two podcasts about the current situation in Japan from Discovery News. I thought it was interesting to hear about the specifics of a nuclear disaster, and how the severity of a nuclear disaster is determined. I liked these podcasts because they weren't too long, but had a lot of information. I think this could be used in the classroom to teach students about current events. Students could access a variety of current topics and hear from many different people and sources. This would be a great way to connect them to the world.

World War I

Animoto Project

I have to admit that I did not know what Animoto was when I first read the directions for the assignment. I was nervous about it, but it ended up being pretty simple and even fun. I loved seeing how my video turned out, and putting the music with it really added the perfect touch. I thought the music and images together set the perfect tone for the topic. I will definitely be using this program again for other topics I teach!

I used Picnik for editing and fixing the lighting on a few photos in the presentation. I also used text on the picture of Buzz Aldrin and stickers on that picture as well as the picture of JFK. I thought the Picnik site was pretty neat. I can see me using it on presentations and even outside of the classroom, like on pictures of my family! I learned quite a bit from this assignment and thought it was very worthwhile.