Presenting Picnik with my Partner (Anne)

How many Ps can one fit into a title?  (If only Anne started with a P instead of an A!)

In our presentation of Picnik, we were able to navigate to the site directly from our wiki specifically built for Web 2.0 tools.  I was able to come up with the steps to working our tool, and Anne was able to work with making our page presentable (among other things, too, like editing my steps and brainstorm with me on usages of the tool.) 

I was a little nervous about the presentation, since we hadn't rehearsed it.  (Anne and I have been in many ensembles together--we ALWAYS rehearse!)  However, it went off without a hitch.  We built our own sample picture for a photo album and edited it in different ways, and we even had information still on the site from a previous Picnik user on the teaching computer.  (This was very helpful.)  I wished we had prepared a little more, but overall, I enjoyed the project.  We didn't have many questions from the class, but I believe that was probably due to it being late in the day on a Monday!  After all, our class IS known for its Monday madness.

Webmastering Webquests

In doing my WebQuest research, I realized how much learning has changed since I was in elementary school--even high school, which ended a mere five years ago.  We had floppy discs, two-dimensional games, eventually these super-disc things in which to learn on in the 6th grade, special CD-Roms, etc.  The kids now can use WebQuests.  Even better than that, teachers probably don't have to use half of their school budget on new technology that doesn't already exist.  All they have to do is find a WebQuest or create one for free. 

In my WebQuest experience--looking for them, judging them--I was completely blown away by the immensity of information accessible to a child on a simple instructional website.  A child as young as age 5 could use one of these WebQuests.  A website could be up-to-par with high schoolers as well, proving that the range of learning is deep as it is wide. 

Our group research was less complicated than I expected.  I was the group-analysis member of our team, and I enjoyed seeing how different WebQuests operated.  I couldn't agree with how wonderful or awful WebQuests were with my teammates because they all had different viewpoints, but we eventually settled on the best and worst WQs we could find.  Surprisingly, our best was about construction sites.  How, exactly, can construction work be interesting to a middle-schooler?  (Our group focused in on grades 6-8.)  Well, a WebQuest certainly made it into a group project that promoted higher thinking, good technological usage of programming, etc.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how a topic that is un-interesting to me can become interesting through a simple interactive activity website...the WEBQUEST.

Instrument Inventions: Inside Edition

I found a WebQuest called Musical Invention WebQuest that guides students to create a musical instrument with ordinary materials found in everyday life.  It has instructions that are short and sweet, but more instructions to guide students more specifically could have been useful.  However, the assignment is broad enough to instigate creativity in the students' instrument inventions.  Links are useful and insightful and are much more visually stimulating than the WebQuest.  Those links give suggestions, instructions, and even information on how instruments make sounds through sound waves.

In my class, I would love to use this WebQuest.  However, I would probably give more instructions to accompany the assignment so the students would not feel overwhelmed and lost.  They need to know what to do, especially for a first attempt at making their own instruments.  I would probably give the students specific supplies, such as something that uses a suspended rubber band to make a type of banjo, harp, or guitar.  Further activities could be more broad.  Students could actually use the WebQuest in its entirety by the time they had already made something similar to what the WebQuest asks for.

Picnik is a Picnic

When Anne Buckle and I began our Picnik endeavors, I was skeptical.  I thought, "Someone misspelled picnic."  I had no idea that Picnik would be a...well, picnic to do.  It is basically a tool that creates online photo albums that you can edit.  Editing can be simple and useful, or it can be hilarious.  Useful/normal editing includes things like erasing red-eye and cropping, but the hysterical portions add neat frames or strange facial expressions applicable to photos.

The website is extremely usable and easy to navigate.  It is efficient and quick, and it even has cute phrases to indicate "please wait," except that instead, its message is something like, "growing grass."  It is free, which is a great thing for the low-budgets implemented in schools during this difficult economic time.  I wished that there were more ways to edit photos, but you have to pay for those extra applications (unfortunately.)

I intend to use this website to aide parents in seeing what their child does in class and on field trips by displaying pictures for them on-line.  I can also use the website for class activities, especially in creative slide shows.