Day 4 of Emerging Instructional Technologies Class

Today is day four of a five week on campus class. Yikes, I can't believe the class is almost completed. Today we learned how to make and edit movies using iMovie on Macs. I am amazed by how detailed the average person can get. By average, I simply mean non paid thousands of dollars to edit commercials and moives. I mean, Wow! Kids could use this program to get a sense of the profession. They could also capture class trips through film. I fear that I do not have a Mac and may not ever again get to play with iMovie (unless I go on campus and play with their computers). Our professor, Dr. Z, also gave us instrctions for a Windows version called Movie Maker. I am anxious to try it out and see if my students could use it with ease. Otherwise, it may have to be used by staff as an end of the year video or a video of the school to show at Meet the Teachers that occurs before the start of the school year.

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Last night, after I did my lovely blogs with video embedded, I was reading some fellow classmates' blogs. I had mentioned in an earlier blog about Steve Hagardon, creator of classroom 2.0 ning, and Chris Eller, a classmate of mine, also had posted about Steve Hagardon. He was talking about Steve's description of why social networking like nings are more valuable than a blogging. Chris wrote, "Blogging, according to Hargadon, has its limits. For one, it places the owner of the blog in the “expert” seat while commenters are in a secondary position. Second, blogging takes months to develop a readership. It takes a committed person to invest the time necessary to create valuable content and wait for the readers to discover you. "

I really liked Chris' comment about why blogs don't always work. To read more of Chris' blog you can link to it here: CENotebook