Things We Are Excited About
Monday, April 30, 2007
MovieMaker with 5th Graders..to be continued…
PowerToys HTML Slide Show Wizard
This program has been around for a while, and I ran across a link to it on the internet the other day, but did not save it, because we keep it on our servers, it is such an integral part of our elementary images.
If I run across it on the internet again, I will include the address, and if any of you come across it, please post it.
It’s a wizard, so once it’s installed it’s quick and easy to use. It will only import jpgs, and be sure your numbers are 01,02, 03, etc. otherwise your first jpgs will come in after 10, 11,12, etc.
When you open it you can name your slide show, give it an author then browse where to save it to. I suggest your desktop (then copy and paste it from there). It doesn’t seem to like saving to servers.
We use it because we can get very large numbers of slides into slide shows that don’t crash the server or take forever to open from home. School events like Open House, Splash Mania, 4th Grade Field trips to the coast, etc. run well on these. The wizard loops the slide show continuously.
The downside, for you extra creative types, is very limited options. You can’t determine slide timing or transitions. But it’s free, easy, and fast.
Another added attraction! Any slide you create in PPT can be saved as a jpg then imported into PowerToys HTML Slide Show wizard. (I’ll go into more detail on that on another day)
For some samples of these slide shows visit our GT Teacher’s website.
This link is to her menu page for each grade level’s activities. Just select a grade level, then scroll down and look for links to slide shows of their activities.
http://bce.eanes.k12.tx.us/mgreulic/studentpages.htm
Sunday, April 29, 2007
As a result of community support for a bond election last spring, technology in the district is receiving some much needed upgrades.
Mounted Projectors!
One of these is mounted projectors in every classroom. These projectors are connected to teacher’s computers and document cameras. The projectors allow teachers to project many interactive websites, their assignment notebooks, and the always wonderful United Streaming videos.
Airliners!
We have several teachers using the Airliner Wireless Slate from Smart Technologies. These wonderful little tools, which communicate with the computer by bluetooth, enable the teachers to project all of their visuals through the computer, then through the projector, to the large screen. Because they are wirless, teachers have the ability to move around the classroom as they teach. They work with a variety of formats, including interactive websites, powerpoints, templates, and modeling steps in math problems, letter formations, etc. I’ll post some photos later.
Document Cameras!
The installation of our Samsung Doc Cameras has caused an explosion in tech excitement on both campuses. In addition to daily use for any kind of visual modelling, teachers continue to find new and different ways to use these. I have a first grade teacher who just discovered the video capablilites of these. Her first graders have created story problems which she put into movie maker, then had the student narrate the problem. I’ll post these as soon as I can figure out how to post video clips to a blog…
