More Than Just SlideShows

What: This week I explored Microsoft PowerPoint and the book 50 Quick and Easy PowerPoint Activities by Tammy Worcester.
Now What: PowerPoint is by far my favorite Microsoft products. I’ve been a fan for many years now. With the exception of Microsoft Word it is the one computer program I have used the most in my college career. I have made my share of slideshows and taught many different subjects using the wonderful program. I have also used PowerPoint to help my son make both a book report and a Spanish Mi familia slideshows. I was getting bored with, you guess it slideshows.
So What: Until now I have never utilized PowerPoint for any but slideshows. Again with the slideshows, I guess I could not think outside the box. Thankfully I found Tammy Worcester’s book 50 Quick and Easy Power Point Activities. In the book the author gives new and different ideas for use with PowerPoint. Some of my favorite ideas were the accordion books, bookmarks and flash card made from the printed slide notes. I can see implementing many of these ideas in my classroom. The book helped me go beyond the normal and explore the unexpected.
Video: “I Believe in Me”
The little boy in the video just wants his school teachers to believe he can grow-up be something great. Teachers should believe that every child has the capability to do and be their best. They just need to guide them, love them, care and teach them. This can be overwhelming in a day and age of overcrowded schools and budget cuts. I guess that why they say you need to have enthusiasm, drive passion, eagerness, patience to become a teacher. I hope I have what it takes.

Picassa 3.0 Part 2

What: This week I will go over more uses for Google's Picassa 3.0. When I'm done I will have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities of photo editing with Picassa.

Now What: The first time I heard about Picassa was when friend of mine took professional like photo of my daughter for her Baptism. She used the program to edit the picture before she gave them to me. The pictures were beautiful and not just because they were of my little girl. My friend had turned some black and white, other were sepia toned. She also tinted a few and made a collage that she framed as a special gift. She was able to high light the most important parts of the photo, all using the free, Picassa 3.0.

In the last week I found so many more uses for the digital photo editing program. My son and daughter needed to make books for a literature fair. We used Picassa to edit photos for illustrate the books. My son book was a picture book about a buffalo, so we went and took picture of buffalo that live near our house. Then we took them and were able to write on one to make the title page for the book. The ability to write on my photos is one of my favorite features of Picassa 3.0. We also use the Saturate Effects in Picassa to add color to the photos. This green-up the dead grass under the Buffalos and added interest and texture to the pictures. I was also about to Soft Focus a picture of my son. This was the eye would be drawn only to him and not the busy background. With all of the effects and coloring tools the possibilities are endless.

So what: As I said last week the program is free. And free is a very good thing for a poor student or teacher. The more useful items I can get for free or cheaply the better. With Picassa it isn’t a matter of getting what you pay for. Picassa 3.0 is a wonderful, user friendly program that I will use in my future classroom. Another thing I can use Picassa for is to send Picture to Blogger of use in my 4^th Grade Rush blog. The ability to store and retrieve my photos online is something that will come in handy when I become a teacher.

For all the nice things I’ve said about the program you would think that it is perfect. There were however a few problems with it. Such as, it downloaded every picture from my computer’s hard drive including those for the game Zuma. I don’t think I need to edit pictures of a cartoon, stone frog. Picassa also load duplicate photos even though I told it not to. This might just be me getting use to the program. All in all I would recommend Picassa to anyone who owns a digital camera.

Video: I understand what they are saying. We as future teachers need to think globally. We need to implement new technology into our classroom to complete with an ever changing world. Children today are use to instantly getting ever thing they want. How can teachers keep up the Ipods, Iphones, Ipads, Itv and all the other gadgets Apple has invented. Maybe we should have them teach the children. Oh wait they are trying with Podcasts. Maybe if we can't beat we could use some of the technology in the classroom. By thinking creatively we can bring our classroom into the twenty-first century.

Picassa

What: Google has many products, my opinions of them runs from excellent their search engine, maps, and images, to needs improvement, Google Docs and Presentations. This week I downloaded Google's Picassa. It is by far their best product. Picassa is a digital picture editing program. It is kind of like a scaled down, free version of Photo Shop. Did I mention it is free? There are two sides of the program one stores pictures on a computer hard drive and the other stores pictures on the internet. I have not worked with the web side much.

Now What? The uses for Google Picassa are limitless. I downloaded all my photos into the program. I was amazed at all the different effects I could do. I also used Picassa to email the digitals pictures we took in class to the other students on my 4^th Grade Rush team. With just the click of a button the picture were emailed. I did not have to attach and wait twenty minutes for an overloaded email to be sent. I also used the program to resize my photos, so they would fit in to our Google Presentation. As a student I am sure I will use this program a lot.

Another feature of Picassa I love was the photo collages. I could see this feature being used for so many different assignments. Like a photo scavenger hunt. Not to take pictures, but to find the item around school. Or use it to make a “what or where is this” quiz? When studying a state or country. The uses are innumerable for just this one feature.

Now What: There are many other features on Picassa and hundreds ways I could use them in a classroom. The program gives me the ability to write on my photos. I could use this for memorization. When the class needs to remember a poem, I would take a picture that goes along with it. Then write the poem on the photo. This could help the more visual learns. Also it will help the student understand the meaning of the poem.

Picassa did this strange thing, all by itself, that I could use in so many ways. It took all of my pictures and gave me head only shots of everyone. This would be great for first day of school. I could take pictures of all the students and use the close–ups for name tags. This would help me and the children learn everyone’s names. Picassa has so many uses I could go on for days, but I know I will be using it in the future in my home and school life.

Video: Death by Power Point it is called. Doing too much or too little can make you look silly and stupid in front of a large group. Too many slides and the audience will get bored and start throwing things at you. Too few and you won’t get you point across. I have made and seen many a Power Point in my days as a student. I think people assume they look smart just because they have put their information onto a slide show. This is only true if you know how to correctly use the program.