Reflections and Status Report for Practicum and Action Research

At this time I have over 200 hours logged in and reflections written on my practicum.  I have probably another 75 hours I have completed the tasks that I just need to write the reflections on.  I am hoping that to finish my current course early and use the time in between this course and the next one to finish as many reflection tasks that I can complete.  I feel that this time spent will help me to be on track with my practicum tasks.  I have learned so much from each of the required tasks and they have enabled me to gain insight into areas that I otherwise would not have explored.

Concerning my Action Research, I have gathered the last of the data from the EOY MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) scores and have compared those with the scores from the MOY and BOY previous testing segments.  I am excited to see the scores and the improvement that the students have made.  Especially with the implementation of the technology devices on the campus and the utilization of these devices with these student groups it was great to see the strides the students have made.  I am ready to write the abstract, findings and conclusions of my research paper.

Assignment 2 Video Reflection

I decided to do my video tutorial on Google Story Builder.  At first I was going to use screencastify to record the video but it would leave a watermark.  So I decided to use the free version of Camtasia2 to record the screen part of my video.  I used Canva to create a title page, intro and resources page to insert.  I used Free Music Archive recommended by Movie Maker to find a song to use.  I really learned alot more about Movie Maker when I used it. I learned that I could change to volume of the music and the narration.  I learned that I could change the time a photo would show in the video.  I also was able to use the split tool, trim tool and to add a theme.  I also decided to create a logo that I could use to produce several videos on project topics.

Assignment 1 - Digital Storytelling Reflection

I had an idea for my story to connect with the technology that my father experienced in his life as an educator with mine.  At first my script was 693 words that I felt really told his story.  Not only was it hard to cut it down it felt like I was taking part of his meaningful story away.  With only 150 words, I felt like the story was very flat.  So I had to work with more of the images to tell his story and convey the meaning of his connection to what I am now doing.  I wanted the pictures to really flow, have music and the audio that was mentioned in the rubric.  It was a bit confusing, as the assignment seemed to say that you could choose to have audio or music.  I am going with what the rubric states as that part is worth 15 points.  So I thought I would use iMovie with a separate audio file to have the narration.  Once I got into using iMovie the audio files were not working well with the music audio so I decided to look for another tool.   I ended up using a free online tool, spark.adobe.com  This tool allowed me to use the images, have music, and record audio.  I was able to publish it in a format to post to youtube.  I posted the link to my Google site, posted the video to youtube and put the link in the course assignment document.