Check out my GLOGSTER!

Please check out my glogster!

http://www.glogster.com/jenflave1/wishlist-glog-by-jenflave1/g-6lir6ldsjr3hla8gkovnea0

The educational affordance of a GLOGSTER

Features of Glogster	Affordance
The ability to create posters featuring different types of media.	Encourages higher-level thinking and allows to students the ability to be creative.
Ability to add text.	Students can add text to the poster and choose different types of format to display information.
Ability to add video.	Students can personalize their glogster by adding video, sound, or pictures.  .
Ability to collaborate	Students have the ability to work individually or collaboratively on a project.  Each member of the group can log on, at their convenience, and add to the project. Teachers also have the ability to collaborate with their students.
Ability to comment	Students have the ability to add comments on other glogs.
Safe environment	Safe closed environment that the teacher has control of.
Exciting Projects	Students can create poster to highlight information from a book.  They can create interactive poems and have classmates comment on them.  They can create an advertisement of a product.  The possibilities are endless.

My Voice Thread Post:

Hi Everyone,

I think I fixed the access to my voicethread... Please try to view it again and make some comments....

Thank You,

; )

  https://voicethread.com/share/2982638/

Evaluating Pedagogical Affordance of Media Sharing Web 2.o Technologies: A Case Study

                I learned a few things from the article, evaluating pedagogical affordances of media sharing Web 2.0 technologies: A case study, by Kevin Burden and Simion Atkinson.  I am already familiar with voice thread because I just used it to create an assignment for this class.  Voicethread allows the user to create threads or conversations around different types of media.  The media can be images, drawings, video clips, audio files, or documents.  It is extremely user friendly and fun to use.   People can upload comments using their cell phones, microphones, web cams and many other ways.

                I love that student are able to zoom in on a type of media and then post comments asynchronously and on one single page.  This feature is a lot like Facebook and other types of social media. I also like how this can all be done privately, publicly or mixed.  The applicable DiAL-e learning designs posted in the table was fabulous.  I love the ideas that had posted there especially the narrative or story-telling design where students take on a cooperative narrative role as they comment on a video or artifact.

Initial draft for Final Keystone Unit Implementation and Evaluation

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60707866/Initial%20draft%20for%20Final%20Keystone%20Unit%20Implementation%20and%20Evaluation.doc

Digital Storytelling

Hi Everyone!

I created my digital story through voicehthread! I hope you like it!

https://voicethread.com/share/2936367/

Article Review

            In the article, The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students’ Reading Comprehensions and Learning Motivation, by Hui-Yin Hsu and Shiangkwei Wang, was very appealing yet surprising.  The authors conducted a study to evaluate the affect new media and online literacy's had on young adult’s college reading skills and how college professors handle new media integration. They compared the results of 100 students in a developmental reading course.  Of the 100 students, 40 used the blogs and 60 used traditional means of completing their reading assignments. 

The results of the study indicated that blogging had a positive effect on retention rate and student-to-student interaction and surprisingly, no improvement on their reading performance.  It is easy to understand how blogging had a positive effect on students’ interaction with peers, because it gently forces them to interact with each other by posting and responding  to their posts.  I also think it is creates a safe means of networking that might carry to the professional world outside of the classroom.  As far as the retention rate is concerned, perhaps it is because the blogging students had the ability to read each other’s postings and ideas and maybe they were able to getting a better picture from different points of views.

 I was surprised to learn that there was no improvement to their reading performance. I would have thought that there would have been a significant improvement in their reading performances because of the increase of reading and reflecting. Maybe because the instructors were not confident with the technology, the results are skewed.  I think this subject should be studied again but with instructors who are seasoned and confident in this new type of media.