AHA'sI have learned so much this semester in this class. I am really glad that the work is “hands on” assignments. I learn most by doing and this class really emphasized the designing of projects not just paper assignments. Some of the AHA’s this semester includes desktop publishing, blogs, wikis, podcasting, and social bookmarking.
Desktop publishing is the mechanical process that the designer and the non-designer use to turn their ideas for newsletters, brochures, ads, posters, greeting cards, and other projects into digital files for desktop or commercial printing. While desktop publishing does require a certain amount of creativity, it is more production-oriented than design-oriented. I learned how to use desktop publishing in projects of all types. I made a banner in class for my little girl’s softball teams. I had learned how to group and ungroup images to make them the way I want them to be. I love changing images and making my creation, this is so much fun to do!
A blog is a website that is maintained by an individual that includes journal entries of events, information, video, and images. Blogs can be used for many different purposes in the school and outside the school. I maintain a blog for my personal use to keep family that live out of state up to date on what is going on in the Turney household. My blog address is www.theturneys.blogspot.com. I also have a blog that I made for this class. When this class is over I am going to change the blog to reflect only book reviews and book talks. I will also include links for teachers to use as resources. The name of my blog is Mrs. Turney’s Library www.turneyc.blogspot.com. Educators and students for assignments, book reviews, discussions, journal entries and commentaries can use blogs. I loved making the blog this semester and learned so much about them. I had heard of blogs before this semester, but I had never seen one or expected to actually use one. This is by far my favorite AHA moment.
Wikis are a way to use real time collaboration in a web page format. Real time means that all users are able to collaborate, edit, and create documents at the same time together. Some of the free programs that have wikis are wetpaint, peanut butter, and wikispaces. Students and educators can both use wikis. Students can collaborate on projects together from different computers, but at the same time. Discussions and chats can be done with many users at the same time. Wikis are a great way to communicate and collaborate with other people using real time. The JAPD group that I was in decided they wanted to do their discussion in a wiki. I was very skeptical at first because I had never made or used a wiki before. However, by the end of the assignment I was glad that my group chose to do a wiki instead of the regular class response groups. I learned how to really use a wiki and how to make one. I don’t know how much I will use wikis, but I see great potential for them.
Podcasting are media files that are broadcasted over the Internet to be used by portable media players such as ipods, and computers. I can see this being used in the library for audio books. It can be used in classrooms for many uses. Classroom teachers can record their lessons and discussions for the day and then put them on media players. The students that were absent could then check out the media player to get caught up on the assignments. Also, classroom teachers can use podcasts for students that need modifications or accommodations in the class. Podcasts can be used for many different reasons and the more creative an educator gets the more purposes they can find for podcasts. We didn’t work with podcasting much, but there was a lot of talk about them in group discussions.
Social bookmarking is a way to bookmark sites in one place and other users can share them. Del.icio.us is the account that we used to social bookmark our sites. I really enjoyed seeing the other users websites and I was able to use these sites for teacher resources in my school.
Picture Credits: http://vector-images.com/search.php?query=smiley&min=150&atype=clipart&exclude=, en.wikipedia.org, http://www.apple.com/ipod/whichipod/
