When I first went to start this project, I had no clue where to begin! I decided I really wanted to use Toondoo and PowToon, but when I tried to open the websites neither of them worked. I quickly had to reassess the assignment and was thankfully able to settle on activities for the three remaining tools that were available.
I had never used any of the tools before, so the entire thing was a fresh experience. It was fun to get to try new things and branch out away from Google Docs and YouTube, but it also meant that I had to first figure out how to work each of the applications! Luckily I found them to be pretty straightforward, and once I got the hang of them they proved to be very conducive to the type of activities I wanted to create.
With Glogster, I was a little fuzzy as to what my activity should be at first. However, the templates offered included a book report, which was perfect for my theme! I chose Chrysanthemum to write the book report about, and the rest was pretty simple. It wasn't terribly detailed, but the finished product would have simply been a supplement to the body of the activity I had in mind, which would extend into a bit of a discussion regarding the merits of book reports. Glogster was an incredibly easy app to get used to, and it served me well for that part of the assignment.
Next, I decided to focus on creating a Prezi. Again, I was unsure of what type of activity I could design using presentation software, since it's more often used for Social Studies and Science to present information. A few minutes of brainstorming yielded me the idea to focus on the author, because that's something I've neglected to do thus far! Prezi was likewise very simple to use and straightforward, as well as exciting because it was so different from Microsoft PowerPoint!
Finally, I turned to Jing to create my final activity. I used Jing in conjunction with my own artwork to develop an activity where students would be able to watch a video and interact with it. This activity was sort of like hide-and-seek, and it related to my personal favorite mouse book, Owen. In the book, Owen's mother cuts up his favorite blanket into handkerchiefs so that he can always have one with him while the others are in the wash. So, for my activity, I used Photoshop to draw Owen's bedroom with 10 handkerchiefs scattered around. I was then able to use Photoshop's layer capability to draw various objects--like overalls, a skateboard, and a blanket--over the handkerchiefs to hide them. Then, I typed up an introduction to the activity, which was to find all 10 handkerchiefs so that Owen's mom could wash them, and used Jing to film the intro before minimizing it and making each layer with an object that hid a handkerchief invisible one by one. Jing captured the whole activity, even the movement of my mouse, which I used to circle each object before I made it disappear in order to draw the viewers' attention to it.
Overall, I had a great time completing this project because it allowed me the opportunity to branch out and learn a little bit more about Web 2.0 tools that I may not have tried otherwise.
Image credit
I had never used any of the tools before, so the entire thing was a fresh experience. It was fun to get to try new things and branch out away from Google Docs and YouTube, but it also meant that I had to first figure out how to work each of the applications! Luckily I found them to be pretty straightforward, and once I got the hang of them they proved to be very conducive to the type of activities I wanted to create.
With Glogster, I was a little fuzzy as to what my activity should be at first. However, the templates offered included a book report, which was perfect for my theme! I chose Chrysanthemum to write the book report about, and the rest was pretty simple. It wasn't terribly detailed, but the finished product would have simply been a supplement to the body of the activity I had in mind, which would extend into a bit of a discussion regarding the merits of book reports. Glogster was an incredibly easy app to get used to, and it served me well for that part of the assignment.
Next, I decided to focus on creating a Prezi. Again, I was unsure of what type of activity I could design using presentation software, since it's more often used for Social Studies and Science to present information. A few minutes of brainstorming yielded me the idea to focus on the author, because that's something I've neglected to do thus far! Prezi was likewise very simple to use and straightforward, as well as exciting because it was so different from Microsoft PowerPoint!
Finally, I turned to Jing to create my final activity. I used Jing in conjunction with my own artwork to develop an activity where students would be able to watch a video and interact with it. This activity was sort of like hide-and-seek, and it related to my personal favorite mouse book, Owen. In the book, Owen's mother cuts up his favorite blanket into handkerchiefs so that he can always have one with him while the others are in the wash. So, for my activity, I used Photoshop to draw Owen's bedroom with 10 handkerchiefs scattered around. I was then able to use Photoshop's layer capability to draw various objects--like overalls, a skateboard, and a blanket--over the handkerchiefs to hide them. Then, I typed up an introduction to the activity, which was to find all 10 handkerchiefs so that Owen's mom could wash them, and used Jing to film the intro before minimizing it and making each layer with an object that hid a handkerchief invisible one by one. Jing captured the whole activity, even the movement of my mouse, which I used to circle each object before I made it disappear in order to draw the viewers' attention to it.
Overall, I had a great time completing this project because it allowed me the opportunity to branch out and learn a little bit more about Web 2.0 tools that I may not have tried otherwise.
Image credit