This week, I have found myself sprinting to keep up with the coursework in hopes of completing it all before leaving for my bachelor party this Thursday, and haven't taken much time to further my G.A.M.E. plan. Last week I realized that I would not have the luxury of help in learning the intricacies of new (to me) Windows software and would have to take it upon myself to explore these programs, and only had a small amount of time to devote to Microsoft Excel and Windows Movie Maker. In Excel, I figured out some basic computation formulas and quick links to find averages in any given row or column. I still have to learn how to use more advanced formulas, but I worry that I wont be able to figure them out on my own. To that end, do I simply quit? I think I will search YouTube for tutorial videos for Excel usage. I was able to employ this learning technique before when I was learning the basics of Photo Shop. I was also able to begin working with Movie Maker, and have found it fairly easy. The final product of my exploration was elementary at best, but with more work I think that I could fine tune the program and create a simple "How To" guide to aid students in the quick, step-by-step usage of the program to produce fantastic products. To help direct me in creating ideas for the usage of this software by students in self-directed, authentic learning situations Dr. Ertmer has given good pointers on what Problem Based Learning should look like, and what components it should entail. I will use this list as a reference to make sure that what I create will pass as PBL. At this point, my G.A.M.E. plan does not need to be modified, unless modification can include the addition of several hours to each day!
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology Parts I &II. Baltimore: Author.
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Craig
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the bachelor party & getting married!!
As far as Windows Movie Maker, I have fooled around with it too for personal use, and have found that the best bet is to add photos first, then add transitions/captions, and lastly music. I have also found that if you have music in iTunes, it is not compatible with movie maker. You will need to upload it to Windows media player in order to import into movie maker.
Hope this helps
Christine
Thats great! Thanks for the tips! They will save me tons of tinkering time!
ReplyDeleteCraig,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the wedding! Great idea about searching for information through youtube. I hadn't considered that path until I had a Walden course that used a posting on teacher tube as a resource. Now I use it all the time and find it is fairly simple to find what I need. If it's a tech resource, it probably is on youtube somewhere.
I think it would relieve some stress if you looked at your GAME plan as something that can be accomplished over an extended period of time. Unfortunately, the set up of this course has us cramming what would probably be a year or two of gradual change into eight weeks. There simply isn't enough time in the work day to accomplish everything while continuously making improvements.