Picasa

I have to admit that I love Picasa. I have so much fun working with it. I loved working with Lisa on this photo slideshow story. It was nice to have a different person to work with. It was a lot of fun to go on this scavanger hunt with her. We had a lot of fun getting the pictures of the different places and objects ( you will be able to see it in the slideshow). Lisa and I have very similar ideas of what we wanted for the pictures.
I think that picasa is a great program and it is so easy to use. I know that it will come in handy for my students to use for class presentations. Even though it will be an English class, I can have my students use this program to manipulate pictures for presentations or projects (like a digital story). It will be a great way for them to have some fun with a project. It will also come in handy for the later in life when they are creating things for work and/or their personal life. It will be a great way for them to add some spice to a power point presentation or any presentation for their job or college project. It will also be great for them to use to create digital scrap books and to help them preserve their memories for themselves as well as others.
I am in the process of doing that exact thing. I am taking pictures that I have of my family and using picasa to enhance them and play with them to create a digital scrap book for my family members. It is so awesome to be able to do this. I am taking the redeye out of the pictures and I am able to fix some of the pictures that are a little blurry or fuzzy and make them look so spankin spectacular.
I am glad that I learned how to use this program and that I can share it with others.

Didital Stories

I am liking this group work. I feel like we are getting a lot done and doing it together. We all decide on what pictures we want to use. We each search on the sites for about ten to fifteen pictures and then put them in a folder. Then we go through and decide which picture works or doesn't work for the parts of the the poem that we used in our story board. We still haven't decided on who is going to do the narration or what music we will be using. That is still to come.
I am having a lot of fun working with Brannen and Trevor. They both offer great insights and give good feedback on these group assignments. They are very helpful and keep things very intertaining. We are all treating each other with respect and value the other's opinions on the project.
I hope that when I turn around and show my students how to create this type of project, they will have the same experiences that I am having with this project. I know that I will probably have to assign students to a particular group, but then again I may be able to let them choose their groups. I like the idea of having my students learn about the different areas of copyright and everything that has been tied into this project. I think that I will create a webquest for my students to do to cover the copyright informaiton and how to do the publishing of their digital stories. I know that We are going to have to spend a few days in the lab, but this is such a great idea and so much fun (not to mention essential 21st century learning) that it is soooooo worth it to spend time in the lab. The students will be learning a whole new genre of book project and skill that it is too hard to pass this opportunity by and I know that if I share this level of enthusiasm with my students, they will pick up on it and want to do it and enjoy doing it to.
Thanks Doc Waters, you rock for teaching us this project!