Prezi Presentations and Garage Band

We had some pretty awesome Prezi presentations in class today. Some humorous some serious. After that we started working with garage band. I'm excited to learn how to use it, but I am lost! I have no idea how to do anything on it. I tried to make a song and couldn't get the instrument to work. I tried making a podcast and I couldn' t figure out how to record. I'm gonna need a lot of help with this one, but it's also going to be a fun challenge. :)

1/10/13 Learning

I didn't learn to much today. But I got to explore more on Prezi and started creating one of the Cell Phone. Prezi is a lot more complicated than it looks. It should be interesting to see how it turns out as I am making it from scratch.

Ed Tech Project Ideas

After everyone gave their pitches I hear quite a few ideas I liked and thought would be fun to do in ed tech such as youtubing, using garage band, using presentations in different ways, etc. I am especially excited for youtube, since I love to go on it, but haven't ever made videos for it. Next semester should be pretty fun if we can do the ideas pitched :)

Prezi

After presenting my pitch for a class project, Mr.A suggested that I check out Prezi, which is another website to make slideshows. I found this site to be incredibly cool! There are many slideshows and they also have 3D onces which bouce all around. The animations and side tranitions are pretty crazy . There are somethings I still have to learn, but I am excited to continue checking out this awesome site.

Happy New Years!

Happy new years to everyone! I can't believe it's 2013! One of my new years resolutions is to learn about technology to the fullest so that I can use it efficiently.  What are your new years resolutions?

Youtubing in Ed tech!

So I think, so far, I have posted on absolutely everything I know about slideshows. However, Something I am excited to do in ed tech is youtube videos! I've always wanted to make youtube videos but don't know how to! Really excited to do this! :)

Compare and Contrast Word and Pages App

For my second slideshow, which I made on Google Slides, I compared and contrasted Microsoft Word and the Pages App. Over all my presentation told the facts about both of the products, and I tried not to make it biased so that the audience viewing it could decide. Overall, however, Microsoft Word has more options than the pages app and has better photo editing tools than pages has. On the other hand, Pages is an app and and it has a variety of options and does almost everything that Microsoft word does in different ways.
Microsoft Word or Pages? You decide.

Slideshow Learning

I've done quite a few slideshows before, but I have learned now how to organize my slideshows in a better way, have effective transitions, and how to not over or under write on a presentation. In addition, I have for the first time used google slides which I have found similar to word, but it is easier to share with other people and you can comment on each others slides.

What should we learn about in Ed Tech?

There are so many things we could do with technology! Here are somethings I think would be fun to do!

- Youtube Channel
- Make a textbook on Ipad
- Screen Videos
- Selling things online
- Make a class website ( Divide a page of the site to each person to work on and then put it together into a site!)
- Photo shop stuff
- Music Videos

Google Slides

Last class, we started working on google slides to make presentations on comparing different word processors. I have learned that google slides is quite similar to powerpoint and some more. It has different templates than powerpoint and some cool transitions, however, I feel like google slides lacks variety. It has only 5 transitions, though different than Powerpoint's, and there are only a few slide layouts, where as Powerpoint has many. In my opinion, Google slides is a good alternative but if you want to maximum amount of options, Powerpoint is the way to go.

Learning Reflection

I have learned so much in Ed Tech so far. I really thought that I knew that everything that there was to word processing, but I clearly didn't! Now that we have done word processing it has helped me in doing our slideshows. For example: Keeping my slideshow organized, and using tables to hold pictures and information. Some things that I will have to work on is presenting. Having more eye contact and maybe having the slideshow timed, so I don't have to bend down for every animation. Since I am taking speech and debate, it should help me. Also, maybe I could try making it on my iPad? That might let me hold my ipad in my hand while I am presenting, rather than bending down at a computer.

PDF Splicer

I was having trouble with random page breaks forming in my documents, and if I deleted them the formatting of my document would get messed up. I also had trouble making my magazine one document, as I made a new document for every page. To make the documents into one, I found PDF Splicer. PDF Splicer is an app for iPad that allows you to delete seperate pages, move, and rearrange documents that have been saved as a PDF. This allowed me to make my seperate documents into 1 and it allowed me to take out the unwanted page breaks in my planner. The only downfall is that they insert a 1 page ad at the beginning of your document. However, if you are printing it shouldn't be a problem, and if you don't want the ads at all, you can pay a fairly low price to get them off.

Update on Ed Tech Learning

So I haven't posted in a while, since we have had so many breaks in school, but here are things I have learned since the last time I posted.

November 5-8: I worked on my planner, which is part of the word processing challenge artifacts. I found this to be incredibly tedious and time consuming. Though it wasn't very hard, I did a weekly planner for the entire year (November - November). In the process I had to copy and paste my planner on 52 seperate pages, and change the dates to go in order. I also had to change the week heading. This took me about 4 hours total. Next time, I think I will go with a monthly planner. :)

November 9-14: I worked on my report on the pages app of my iPad! I found the report fun to do by adding many pictures, charts and small explanations throughout. Pages has many cool picture formatting options which I enjoyed playing with.

In class, we all made forms so we can evaluate each others blogs. Here I found that you cannot make a hyperlink in forms, and that its difficult to organize an evaluation for so many artifacts. However, there are at least two ways :)

At home I have been working on finishing evaluations.

Making a Magazine with Pages!

I have learned two things since last class.... Don't leave half of you magazine to be done the night before class, and that making a magazine on the Pages app for iPad is super cool. I learned a bunch of new pages that I never even knew about. The most I had ever used the app for was typing an essay. Now I have learned how to make pictures transparent and set backgrounds on documents. I also learned how to set page numbers and how to insert textboxes that I can move around as I need. I don't think my magazine could look as cool as it does without the Pages app. :)

Singularity Project!

So, I taught my sister how to start a blog! Since she didn't know anything about blogs to start with it was really easy to double her knowledge. I asked her to put a post on her blog on what she has learned. She has a picture and two posts and a gadget up. I also helped her with privacy settings. Here is a link to her cat blog. www.calleyscatblog.blogspot.com