Week 4

My presentation Windows Movie Maker is postponed till this week. For demo purpose I use a lot of screen shots. This is different from other classmates’ presentations. By doing so I don’t need to open the application, click here and there, and perhaps try to find the feature that I forget how to get to. I believe this will improve the flow of my presentation. After I reviewed all slides I found the order of the screen shots is not quite right. I spent some time to revise the presentation so it should make more sense to our classmates. Hopefully everthing will be going just fine.

This week we didn’t do much for our project. I sent an email to Limei asking her to get the student demographic information. I also told her to ask the school to install Photo Story 3 for Windows in the computer lab. I will then prepare the directions/tutorial for the students. Next week we shall start planning our lesson.

Week 3

Yesterday (9/12) I met the Chinese language instructor Limei. We have dicussed about the project. I demonstrated the tools described in my week 2 blog – Moodle, Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story 3 for Windows. She really likes the idea of having students creating video book using Photo Story 3 for Windows. So we decided to go for it.

We will be starting collecting students’ demographic information, investigating their knowledeg about Chinese language and how well they know computer, asking school’s permission (help) to install necessary software in their computers, revising lesson plan to accommodate the proejct, and finally, we shall meet at least once a week (either face to face, via IM or phone). It will be fun!

Week 2

Access to a K12 classroom:  

l            I don’t have access to a classroom. However, I would like to work with an instructor who is teaching a synchronize online Chinese language course to middle school students. The class meets online everyday. There are 19 8th grade students in the class. The tool used for dayily online meeting is Elluminate Live http://www.elluminate.com.

l            If the online Chinese course does not fit in the course project. I will need help getting matched up with a classroom.

Suggestions to teachers who would be willing to participate in a classmate’s field project:

l            Willing to meet after work or during weekend.

l            Providing project recommendation and feedback.

Brainstorming:

l            One project topic I have in mind is to help the instructor use course mangemnt system to create an online learning community. Some widely used tools are available in the market.Among which I choose Moodle http://moodle.org. Moodle is a free, open source software. Instructors can use it to post resources, assignmant, grades, and manage participants. Students can use it to communicate with others, get help after class, and submit homework, just name a few.

l            The other idea I have is to help the instructor to design/create multimedia for online synchronize instructions. Elluminate Live is a great tool for instructions. However, there will be distrcations during the class time when students are only 13-14 years old. Using well designed multimediate instructions will attract student’s attention and help them learn.

l            The last but not least idea is that I would like to help the instructor to teach students to use either Windows Movie Maker or Photo Story to create a video book (or podcast) to show case their language learning outcome.