Monday, August 12, 2013

Mattawan Tech Camp 2013

Woot, woot! It's that time again! I love invading visiting Mattawan for the annual tech camp. The opportunity to attend high quality professional development and network with colleagues, especially right before the school year kicks off, is wonderful. This year, I am honored to be presenting on film production in the elementary classroom. This hands-on session will be fast-paced. We will follow a very condensed model of how I present film production to my students: through deconstruction and construction using iMovie on the iPad. (I love it when we get to play during professional development!!).


Below are links to some of my favorite resources for teaching ad implementing film production in the classroom. I come from a media literacy perspective, so many of these are tools that help students learn about the tools and techniques in the film industry. These tools and techniques serve as important building blocks, just as allegory, sentence structure, and personification are foundations in writing. Students who receive instruction in film basics will be able to produce higher quality films that better address the content (the real reason we are making videos with students!).

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Best of MACUL 2013

I am thrilled to be presenting at the Best of MACUL conference tomorrow at Calhoun ISD. I will be presenting two hands-sessions: iPad Primer and Bulletin Boards 2.0. In Bulletin Boards 2,0, we will be exploring different free technologies that let us augment our classrooms and schools with digital content. Augmented reality is free and accessible technology and can come in the form of QR codes, augmented reality apps such as Aurasma, and geo-tagged tools such as Google Field Trips and ARIS.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

More Useful MACUL 13 Handouts

Here comes more fun! If you can't get enough of comic turorials for technology integration, I urge you to check out Gwyneth Jones, the Daring Librarian's (@gwynethjones) work. I owe my inspiration to her, for she has used ComicLife for some time now to create some a-mazing comic tutorials. In keeping with my message that the iPad is a powerful creation tool, mine are created exclusively on the iPad. (Never mind that I have a sneaking suspicion that the processor in our family iPad is indeed faster than the MacBook's ...) I feel that creating my handouts on the iPad boils down to "putting my money where my mouth is" and demonstrating how very powerful this tool can be, and how very easy it can be to use.

Useful MACUL Handouts Round 1

Another great MACUL Conference! I am still wheeling from all of the great resources, the vast expertise, and the simply amazing people that filled the halls of Cobo just a few short days ago. We had representatives from Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and California, not to mention the Michigan educators and administrators who came from far reaches in Michigan, from Cadillac to Coloma, Monroe to Mt. Pleasant. I know I walked away with a renewed vision, refreshed passion, and a drive to continue to serve children through thoughtful technology integration.