This past week we have done the touch ups to our digital story. We chose the topic of poverty and decided to divide it into three parts. First we wanted to attract our audience by showing them the luxeries of our lives and then move into what poverty looks like and the lack of every day necesseities that we take for granted. The hardest part about this was finding music that could flow together and then fit each of the pictures that we are trying to display.

I still believe that a digital story would be a good way to get the students interested in a subject and change their way of thinking. By touching a person's emotions you can draw them into almost anything if it's powerful enough. To be powerful it has to fit together, with music, voice, pictures and through words. Hopefully I can find enough digital stories on youtube that will be able to support my ideas, but if not I can always use the digital story to introduce the topic I feel important and want my students to find important as well.

In my life I use digital stories all the time to connect me closer to a topic that I'm concerned about or that I would like to know more about. Sometimes they are happy and help me to be more ambition, and other times they are sad and make me want to somehow find a way to make a difference in our world. I think digital stories can go anyway depending on what you really want to make clear. They can strike fear, happiness, anger, sadness or even leave you questioning what it meant so you are willing to do further research on the idea. In my life right now I feel as though it's important to start putting together a folder that can hold all of these, so when I come to that subject in school I'll already have options of digital stories to pick from.

I liked this video because it had a meaning that is really close to me. It talked about applying yourself and going for your dreams no matter what your situation is. She says make the best of yourself. Only you have the power to change your life! I find this inspirational and I hope that somehow I can teach my students that they can do anything they put their minds to! When they believe in themselves and they apply themselves they can accomplish anything that they want to conquer. Positive attitude towards your dreams will bring you your dreams.
The girl in this video seems to have it hard, but she seems as though she knows what she wants out of life and understands that it's up to her to change her future! It's up to ourselves to live the lives that we want. We can't depend on others if we can't depend on ourselves first.

This past week I have been working on my digital story and finializing my decisions on it. I have found that digital stories aren't as easy as they look to make. You have to really put thought into them to be able to really allow your audience to connect with what you're trying to put across. One of the hardest things that I've found with it is finding the right music for the background. Music makes a huge difference in the way the video will make you feel.

As a teacher I want to give my students different options on music that they could use. If I were to have my students make a digital story I would give them choices of topics to pick from and have music prepared for them so they can see how the music makes a difference. Then in the future when they make another digital story I'd allow them to go find their own music.
I would also make the first digital story very specific and give them alot of guided direction when making it the first round.

I plan on using digital stories to bring importance issues alive to my students. History will be something that bores us all, but if I can make a digital story and really allow my students to connect with what has happened in the past then I feel as though they might grow a greater appreciation as to what our ancestors went through to give us our freedoms. I believe that digital stories have the power to change a student's schema and allow them to really think about life and learn to be grateful for what we have.
I did my digital story on poverty and finding music to help other's feel a sense of gratitude and find a need to help those less fortunate has been a struggle. I do believe with practice that I could get better at this tool and one day be able to use digital stories all the time to address a concern or allow my students to connect to a deeper emotion.

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=138518&title=Sweet_Dreams__of_Technology_
This video was cute. I liked how it was all kids in the video telling about how technology is beneficial in their education. The line I liked is that each student can be good at something different regarding technology. They showed how you can use computers and internet to communicate with the world, learn how to do anything and see different parts of the world. Another line that stuck out in my head was when they said technololgy learning and sharing. Isn't that what it's all about, to learn and then what you learn share that knowledge with others. The world of technology will just keep expanding because of people working together to expand it.

At the beginning the boy talks about how he can acheive his dreams and that is by getting an education! I strongly believe in this. Dreams are thing that we have to wrok towards, and to work hard you usually means you're becoming more educated. I am a strong believer in giving it your all when it's something you really want. If you don't have that mind set then I don't believe that it really is a dream that you're shooting for!
Often times we may look at people and say "WOW! They really have it all, they are so lucky" That is true they may have it all, or they may have something that looks ideal to us, but that is because they worked hard to get that!
As a teacher I want my students to understand the importance of hard work and shooting for your dreams through determination and through sacrifice! They need to understand things aren't always going to just be handed to them, and the things in life they will appreciate most will be through their hard work in their education.

This week we learned how to use photo story. With this program you can upload pictures and create a presentation that has music, text, and recordings that will enhance what you're trying to display to your students.

This tool is awesome and will allow me as a teacher to really be able to connect with my students on a deeper level through visuals and through the power of music. By using this tool I can create a video that will help the students connect to an emotion that will leave a lasting effect on them. I plan on using this to help my students connect with real life issues and help them to feel a deeper concern about their surroundings and learning how to be proactive in their own lives. I feel as though I can use this as a tool to promote students to be drug free or violence free and use it to promote it to their own peers as well. If I allow the students to use this tool to create a digital story about a world concern themselves, then they will be able to gain their own passion for the issue.

Right now in my life as a student I can prepare digital stories that can reflect my own feelings and start finding issues that I would like my students to connect with when I'm able to teach them. I hope that I can gain a stronger knowledge on digital stories and find the most effective ways to connect with my audience.

In this video I liked how it explained how technology touches the minds of all types of learners. If this is true then why aren't all teachers using technology to their advantage. I believe it's because they aren't educated on how to do so. The students talked about how they teach the teacher more than she teaches them. This is how learning works. We all learn from each other, and as a teacher we need to be willing to open our minds and learn from the students. The students might have a greater knowledge on how to use a computer program or how to download something from the internet. If I am willing to accept my student's teaching, then I will be able to touch the minds of many more students.

This past week I spent most of my time teaching. I once again used the smart board and the internet as my source of technology. I first taught a math lesson by using the smart board to demonstrate examples to the students. After I was through teaching the lesson I decided to allow the students to use the smart board to practice their skills. We then played a game of bingo as a class. To show what problems I wanted the students to solve I used google presentations. This had all the questions on it so all the students could see clearly up in front of the room what they were trying to solve. I found this to be a clean and quick method, rather than taking the time in class to write it up on the board.
I also used the smart board to play a game during one of my Language Arts lessons. Two students competed against each other to see who could ring the bell first and answer the question. A lot of the questions required the students to spell one of their spelling words by writing it out on the smart board. I absolutely love the smart board and what it can bring into the classroom. One day as a teacher I hope that these are part of the classroom every where I go.
The students also had homework to do on the computer. I had them use a word document to write a short essay and on their computers they have language arts files that they can pull up and find their homework assignment for the day. This takes away from loads of paper and allows students to always know exactly where they are required to go to find their assignments.

After observing this class I have realized the small uses of technology make a huge difference within the classroom. Students are able to do greater things because of their computer. They have access to so much information and so many tools that allow them to create projects and organize and save important information. They all have the ability to type and have learned how to take care of nice equipment. I not only believe it has helped the students excel academically but I believe the students have learned more responsibility from taking care of nice equipment and responsibility in learning how to use an important form of technology.
As a teacher I looked forward to building classroom websites and helping my students learn through technology!

This was my spring break