web Conference 3/31/2013

Today I had a web conference for EDLD 5326 - Community Relations. The main focus of the web conference was to see if we had any questions or concerns about our Week 5 assignment or the program as a whole. Some students had questions about how many reflections we had to write for the weekly assignment and about our Internship. Dr. Abernathy answered the questions and let us know that she was here for us if we needed anything else. This conference was fairly short (It's Easter Sunday), but helpful.

The web conferences throughout this program have been very beneficial. I really like the opportunity to communicate with my professors of my Lamar classes via web conferences. One of my main concerns when I entered the Lamar Academic Partnership Program was that I would not have the interaction I needed since I would not be in a traditional classroom. This has not been the case. The web conferences and discussion boards have given me ample opportunities to communicate with my classmates and my professors.

Thank You Lamar for such a Great Program!

Update on My Action Research Plan

For my Action Research Plan, I have worked to create a computer lab curriculum to improve student behavior in computer class. With the help of my principal, I came up with the idea to see if a more structured computer lab curriculum would increase student behavior and keep students more focused and engaged in computer class; and it has. I have completed the three original activities that I had planned to implement and one other activity; teaching students about virtual tours, learning keyboarding, creating an Animoto video, and viewing and posting on a Wiki. As a teacher, I do not usually attend computer class with my students because we have a computer lab instructor. Though, for my Action Research, it was important that I attend computer class with the students so that I could show them how to do each activity I had planned. This really opened my eyes to how well students “soak up” technology. It is almost as if they “feast” on it. The students were mostly fascinated with creating the Animoto video and I was quite impressed by their ability to create such amazing videos. I feel that as I continue to implement more activities into the computer lab curriculum students’ academic success will increase. We live in a digital world and our students need to be engaged in a way that is conducive to their needs. A few more activities that I plan to implement into my Action Research Plan are having students do more things with Wiki’s and use the internet more often. This Action Research Plan has been a success so far, and I have high hopes for it in the future.  

June 12, 2012 Web Conference

Today, I was going to attend the July 8th web conference at 5:00pm, but I had connection problems and was not able to get on the web conference until 5:20. By that time the conference was already over. Therefore, I am going to reflect on the June 12, 2012 web conference. This conference was about the week 2 podcast assignments. Dr. Abernathy clarified the assignment for everyone. There was some question to whether or not the podcast tutorial had to be over a program that was already being used in the school we teach at or not. Dr. Abernathy informed everyone that it just had to be a podcast on how to get started with the software of your choice. If we wanted to use one that our district already uses that would be fine, or if we wanted to use a free one from open source that would be fine too. This web conference was a reminder to make a "quick start" tutorial and to make sure that you were in a group for weeks 3, 4, and 5.

The web conferences for EDLD 5363 were very helpful in explaining assignments since we are not in an actual classroom setting. I am very thankful for the use of web conferences. Thank God for TECHNOLOGY!!!

Web Conference July 2, 2012

Yesterday I attended my second web conference for EDLD 5363. In this web conference we discussed some of the confusion about the different assignments for week 5. Dr. Abernathy let us know that one of the assignments was wrong in our assignments tab and she had uploaded the correct assignment to our announcements tab. Also, we discussed the different parts of the 5.9 assignment. Dr. Abernathy told us that we are to report on our progress of our internship and the progress of our action research plan. The purpose of this activity is to help us check where we are so far, so that we don't come to the end and try to shove everything into our last few weeks of school.

In this web conference I asked what we were suppose to do on our course embedded assignments. I have had course embedded assignments in other classes and was not sure of what I was suppose to write up about them. Dr. Abernathy clarified this for me. She let me know that I just need to write a reflection about what I already knew about the subject, what I learned about the subject, and how I will apply what I learned to my school or district.

This was a great web conference and I believe that Dr. Abernathy really cleared up some of the confusion/misunderstanding for all of us. A great thank you goes out to Dr. Abernathy! :)

Web Conference July 1, 2012

Yesterday, I attended a web conference for EDLD 5363 at 5:00pm. When I first logged on to the web conference, I was unsure of how to get my camera to work because I was using someone else's computer since my personal computer crashed. I was able to navigate the web conference web page very easily and quickly found the button to turn on my camera.



In this web conference Dr. Abernathy answered questions about our video projects and reminded us to keep working hard. She also gave us lots of words of encouragement and let us know that we did not have to submit our video and audio files until week 5. My team thought that we had to submit everything in week 4, so we already have our video and audio files ready for our week 5 assignments. This conference was very informational about our weekly assignments. Dr. Abernathy let us know that the week 5 assignments are basically the same as the week 4 assignments. We will just need to add any changes that we make to our project and update our Google Document collaboration page with who is doing each part of the assignment.



During the web conference, I somehow lost connection and had to wait on my computer to reconnect. By the time I rejoined the web conference, Dr. Abernathy was telling everyone bye. I hope that I didn't miss anything that I needed to hear, but I have learned that sometimes things like that just happen.  

Please click the link below to listen to my Windows Live Movie Maker Tutorial. When you get on the page, click on the mp3 file at the bottom of the page.

https://sites.google.com/site/mentionsfrommeza/podcast-tutorial

 

Windows Live Movie Maker Quick Start Tutorial by Alicia Meza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Making a Digital Photo Story

For my class EDLD 5363 I had to create a digital photo story. I created a digital story over a time when my whole family plus a couple of friends surprised my sister for her 24th birthday in Chicago, Illinois. I really enjoyed creating this product. I did have a little trouble getting the audio to work correctly, but then I realized I had to narrate each picture individually. This activity was very engaging and I really enjoyed making my first ever movie. I can't wait to show my sister! I think she will be so proud!!!