happy easter!

So its pretty late and I'm trying to get all my work done before I leave tomorrow for Easter weekend. Bare with me, it might not make too much sense.

I am all about accomodating for people's special needs, especially if its for children in a classroom setting. But with what we have done this semester, its hard to try to think of accomodations in technology, especially without looking at one specific disability and solving accessibility problems with that. One big problem with the technology we have used is that it all is visually based. Powerpoints, websites, digital stories, SMARTboards, word documents, Inspiration charts, everything is geared to teach visually. So trying to think of a way to use other senses to access this is quite limited, and all I could think of was to add an auditory component to it (this might sound really familiar to my assignment...). I had a hard time thinking of adjustments to make, besides saying that we should just leave all of that out if possible. I dont know. I just dont have any ideas for anything. So in a nutshell, this assignment was a bit tricky near the end, and thats about it!

happy easter!

Im getting sucked in

This whole digital story thing is amazing. Im having a lot of fun doing it, really I am. But it's kind of difficult for a few reasons. First of all I have such a story to tell. My first recording with all my pictures definitley went over 4 minutes, and that is clearly too long. Im trying to reduce the length of my video but its really hard. And then besides deleting unnecessary scenes, I re-recorded some of the parts of it and I try to talk as fast as I can clearly. So I dont know how its all going to turn out with my music, and my soft voice (is there a problem with the microphones, or am I just talking quietly? because it seems like I'm whispering when I dont think I was...) and the length. And the music thing is also hard because I cant edit music on photostory 3.
But the thing is, I love it and I want to do my best on it. So even though I am spending several hours in the curry computer lab and keep getting kicked out by the guy in the office and "reminded" that I am not supposed to have a water bottle in the lab, I am kind of addicted to meticulously editing it. I swear I spent 2 hours the other day searching for images of crashed green bronco's for an image for the "this is the story of my accident" part of the movie. Its a bit ridiculous.
Since we didnt have any reading, this is really all I can post on. This is the update on my digital movie, and thats that. I hope I can get my story down to the time limit. I hope my music turns out ok. I hope I can hear my own voice over the music. And thats that :)

We dont have any reading to do this week. And last week I posted on lesson planning, which is our assignment this week. So I really dont know what to post about. Except maybe how tired I am, and how I cant wait to get in bed. Its gotten pretty bade, and I realize that I am getting old. I used to stay up till all hours of the night and do homework or hang out or whatever. Now it gets to be 10 and I want to start getting ready for bed. Midnight is right around bedtime instead. AND, if that werent bad enough, I'm waking up at like, 7:30 every morning. I AM getting old, and thats not so much fun. I have a feeling my 5th year student teaching will be kinda rough. I need to recognize that next year is my last year to really sleep in, and so I need to embrace it. Everything is going by fast, and I can hardly believe I have been here for 3 years. Crazy.

Like I said, Im exhausted. So I'm going to bed! Goodnight!

so i ran a half marathon this morning...

I can't describe how excited I am we are going to learn about lesson plans. I think that, besides messing something up while teaching my students how to read and having my year with them be detrimental, lesson planning is what i am most nervous about. I know i'm only in my third year, but in just 2 short years I will have my very own class. Nobody else teaching but me. And I run everything, and need creative ways to help my kids learn every second of every day. I feel so unprepared right now, especially looking over the SOL requirements.

But thank goodness for EDLF 345 :) I know I will learn more about lesson planning later (I hope anyways) but it was nice to see not only that we are learning about it in class but that there are resources on the web to help me make my lesson plans. So yeah. I'm excited and that's that.

Im also excited because I ran a half marathon this morning. it was my first race (besides 5k's) and I loved it. So i decided to do my digital story on this because training has been a little rough and it was a long road to make it to today. and i did it. thats 13.1 miles of pure unbridled energy and perseverance. before anyone in this class woke up, probably.

And im also tired so Im going to bed. so good night!

Happy last hour of spring break!

It's still spring break and I'm trying to savor it as long as I can. Or maybe I'm not doing it on purpose, but my brain just wont come back to charlottesville. I'm having such a hard time here...its a little detrimental to my homework-catching-up-on process.

But this copyright assignment. I have to admit I havent done any of the readings on copyrights, but my guess is that I am going to read some of the rules and become aware that I have violated a lot more than I ever would have known without taking this class. I wonder how many people actually read these laws, or are aware, or even care? And how many get caught? We talked about it in class, like if we put more than 30 seconds of a song on our digital story then the chances that the artist will be listening to our story and sue are slim to none. But then I think about those people who decided to download music and got caught- those 10 (maybe around that number?) who probably thought "it will never happen to me!" and then got sued for a lot of money just to make a point. I dont want to be one of those. So I need to brush up on my copyright laws!

And it really would be easy to put in a whole song and not just 30 seconds. But I've also been learning a lot about integrity lately, and my conscience has become a lot more sensitive to it. I know I can't just break the rule now that I'm aware of it. Oh man. This could easily become a sermon topic if someone wanted to preach on romans. (I dont think many people read this. So talking about preaching shouldnt offend anyone). Anyways, its time for bed because Im used to going to bed at 10 from break. Im officialy 1 hour and 25 minutes late!

good night!

My first before-sunday post

I went to the lab to work on my digital collage today, and let me tell you, that is not a good way to spend 4 hours on a friday, especially with the flu.
I actually enjoyed doing it because it was a really neat concept, and the subject I picked (though I'm not sure if this was a legitimate option) was Jesus, and christianity around the world. I found a lot of really cool looking churches and cross and put them together, and the colors were really quite vibrant. But I think that was gone over in class the day I was recovering from my accident, so I didnt know how to do it. And I'm not really one for explorative learning, which sounds really bad. I just get really frustrated when I cant figure out how to do something, and for some reason the "click and drag" to get the picture over to the canvas wasnt working. So I pouted, and almost cried.
I will admit, thats not the best response. But I did eventually figure it out. Without the help of the tutorials in adobe photoshop. There is nothing worse than a bad tutorial I decided. The check wasnt showing up on the options bar, so I had to search "options bar" and see how to use it. Oh man.
But anyways, that's about all. All in all, I did enjoy it, and mine did come out pretty nicely.
Have a great weekend!

Course requirements needed

With all these recent assigments being so personal- with the digital story and the webpage and even this blogger- I feel as if there needs to be a course requirement that includes having an exciting life that people want to know about. I mean, I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate my own life, because, believe you me, I love it. But if I am going to make a whole webpage than I should probably have something to say that people want to hear.

And this digital story, it's a lot of pressure. I don't think it needs to be, necessarily, but I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what to tell a story about. I've even considered making something up, but then I read the guidelines for digital story telling and was told to "live my story." I guess that rules out embellishment too.

So here are some topics I could tell about in one of the many opportunities I have through this class:
- the half/full marathon training process I've been going through since October
-my spring break backpacking trip (though I'm afraid of planning and acting based on what elements I want to be in my story...)
-my recent near-death experience with the car accident. But I dont really have any pictures, and this story can't be told with at least one good shot of me in a neck brace.
-the adventure that will be going in and cleaning out a frat house with Chi Alpha, my Christian Fellowship.

I don't really feel like I love any of these topics. But I'm sure it will end up ok. I'll just be on the lookout for exciting things to involve myself in.