Course Reflection

I'm not so sure that there is enough space available on this site to record all the impressions I have from this course right now. Suffice it to say that I have probably learned more in this course than I have in courses for a long time. That is not to say that the other courses have not been useful or were too easy, but this course has presented new territory for me and that is exciting. I have found the Treasure Hunt sites to be valuable in providing some new and interesting resources and student activities that I will begin using this fall. And learning about blog sites and how they can enhance my teaching was excellent. Utilizing the blog in class and the interactiveness it provided with fellow students gave an excellent trial run for possible uses. Having a class WIKI was also a good learning experience for the same reasons and I will explore this aspect further for classroom and parental communication. Learning how to do a flip book on Powerpoint and how to do the iMovie was the highlight of the course. I am proud of both projects. The Powerpoint ended up being long, but that was necessary to have the action flow in the cartoon I made. The iMovie is my favorite though and I feel as if it is something I can use for students, but I can also use it to prepare with my professional development presentations in my Literacy Coaching with colleagues and at departmental meetings. Thanks so much for your patience and guidance, Liz. And thanks to fellow students for suggestions when things were getting glitchy.

I stayed in the lab after class today, finishing the burning of my DVD because I had lots of delays with downloading today. I thought it would go without a problem...After checking it, some of the narration was off due to the importing of a new slide at the beginning of the show. At that point, I had no other DVD to record after I fixed the problems. I will return to the lab tomorrow morning to burn again because I am determined to learn this so I can do it on my own and to be able to do it well on my next projects. All throughout the course, it has been a learning process, so these glitches are fine tuning me to produce better iMovies in the future. I truly wish this course were longer so I could learn more. It feels that we have only scratched the surface.

A post script: I did return to the computer lab and had problems burning the project in the mode we used in class. The computer was not switching on to burn mode. As an alternative, the lab assistant and I created a CD using the IDVD-One Step Movie. The final storybook project plays like a slide presentation on film and loops back to the beginning to repeat play after it is finished with the story. That would be beneficial to use for a display table or for back to school night/open house for parents. I like the format of it and will be able to present it in class on Friday. For a while, I was doubting that it would get burned, but I also got to learn another aspect of iMovie-making in the process.