PB16_2009104_Comment 3

This is a response to the following post by Gerald Buss

BP10_2009102_Flickr

This is what I had to say:

PB17_2009104_Final Project Video

This is my Final Video Project titled:

ACCESS. WHY NOT?
Click here to watch it in Viddler for better quality.

PB15_2009103_Comment 2

Response to Brenda M. Soto's post on

BP13_2009103_ReflectiveAsset2

This is a picture of her video. To view it, please click on the picture and you will be redirected to her post and will be able to watch it.

ZOHO by Brenda M. Soto

This is her written description of this tool:

PB14_2009102_Comment 1

In response to Lina Valery's 

PB12_2009103_Masher

My mission over the last few weeks has been to continue searching for free, easy to use tools, which can assist homeschool parents and children in creating digital stories. Another one of these great Web 2.0 tools that I’ve been able to successfully incorporate onto the Action Research library of work is www.masher.com.

To begin working on the masher.com site, all that is required for a new user to begin making movies, is creating a login. There is nothing to download and users can even select from a variety of videos, already available from the masher library. Once a project is completed, the user can then take the embedded code, straight from the masher site and place the newly created video on a blog, email, social network, or their own personal website.

The library of media already available in masher is pretty extensive. The audio tracks, text, skins, videos, and effects they provide make creating a media project simple enough for a younger student to do on their own. Simple drag and drop features and one click video “mashing” make this tool a good resource for presentations. So, a student can focus the majority of time and effort on the actual project topic, research, content, and message; rather than spending a lot of time learning new software that commonly has an existing learning curve.

The video below was completed using masher.com. So, if you enjoy the following movie, just log in take your own quick tour of masher’s features, and simple begin mashing a video of your own.

If you are interested in more information, the above blog entry has an introductory video of the masher site.

Comment by: Taylor-Roman Saray

Hi Lina,

I really enjoyed watching your video and learning more about MASHER. It seems like a great educational tool. I really like the fact that there is no need to download anything. I was also drawn to its user-friendly interface that you showed in your 1 minute video of why you chose MASHER as the Best Web 2.0 tool.

I look forward to playing with it once I have a chance. Hopefully, this too will be a tool that I can apply to my Spanish courses.

PB13_2009103_Reflective Media Asset 2

My favorite Web 2.0 tool of this week was Google Calendar.
I was losing my voice around this time. I apologize if it's hard to understand.
Thanks!

PB12_2009103_YouTube

After debating whether or not I should include Youtube as one of my Web 2.0 tools I decided to go ahead. While there are several implementation issues to using Youtube. I think this a tool that has lots of potential in my Spanish 2 Honors class.

One of the main reasons is accessibility. Let me tell you how it all started. Last year, when I got married my husband and I decided to change our last names. That did not happen until January 2009 after a costly visit to the Knoxville Court House. Then, we became the Taylor-Romans. I submitted my name change to all required institutions but it was not until late August 2009 that my e-mail at school changed. With it, everything related to computers and internet access at school also changed leaving me without access to e-mail and many other things for over a month.

Of course, I cannot put a halt to student projects. So, I asked students to save their movies, word documents, and audio files to my secure drive at school. My new drive did not work. So, we tried the old one and it did. However, when it was time to view and grade them I could not access them because I had a new drive ID that was not compatible. It was quite frustrating.

So, I decided to open an account with the gmail account I created for my Spanish classes. Once I was able to access the videos, I uploaded them to this account. Which is a private account. Only people with whom I share the private link can see and access the videos.  But most importantly, I can access the videos even from my phone and so, on the way back from picking up my husband from work I can be watching the videos and assigning grades while my husband drives back home (about 30 minutes).

Another great benefit of using YouTube to store my students videos is that there is no limit to storage, which was another issue I encountered when we tried to upload the second video project and we could not fit them in my drive anymore.

This quick video shows you my youtube video library.



Finally, the greatest benefit is that YouTube is a PRICELESS tool in the same way that my google tools are! What more could I ask for?

PB11_2009103_Twitter

Me lo dijo un pajarito... (A little birdie told me...)

Here's a picture of our Twitter

Twitter is another Web 2.0 tool that I have used this academic year. It was until this week, however, that my students started using it fully. And while not all students see its advantages, these are some of the things that my students and I love about it:

1. Use of Spanish beyond the classroom setting
2. Increased teacher-student and student-student communication
3. Homework friendly reminders
4. Quick way to ask teacher or a classmate a question
5. Great way to stay in touch even when absent