Kristen's Blog

Well, I didn’t quite make it to this class.  The food gods of the island of Mallorca had their own plans for me on this day.  I heard that I missed a great last day, though!  To my classmates and professor who may one day read this blog, know that I am forever saddened to know that I lost one final day with all of you.  I can’t get it back, but I hope that we stay in touch and share out interesting Internet finds and successes with each other. 

One final reflection on the course . . .

Thank you, Craig, for making this one of the most enjoyable courses I’ve had in Mallorca.  I found it most beneficial and practical to my current professional role as teacher, and to my future professional role as administrator (of some kind).  I only hope the class blog remains available so that I can refer back to the tutorials should I have any technical questions, which undoubtedly I will have!  There are so many resources available to educators, things that I had no idea even existed.  The real challenge lies in being able to find ways to use them all in the classroom.  I guess due to a number of outside factors, i.e., time, money, curriculum, etc., we must pick and choose those we feel most relevant, useful, practical, and beneficial to our students.  We can only hope that our students will feel as drawn to the world of technology and Web 2.0 as we have become in taking part in this course.  Thank you again, Craig, for helping us to see the value and purpose in classroom technology integration on a multitude of levels.  Best to everyone!

During this class we did a couple of things. 

First, we talked about Internet sites that would be useful resources when writing our final papers. 

Second, we discussed how teachers can use Internet resources in the classroom without being accused of plagiarism.  Interestingly enough, the four guidelines with which Craig provided us differ slightly from anything I’ve ever been told previously.  I was always told that when it comes to teachers, as long as they are utilizing resources in the classroom, the world is their oyster, so to speak.  Now I come to learn that although that may be a general rule of thumb, there actually are some specific guidelines we, as teachers, should follow. 

Third, we discussed Internet sites that could be used for creating student portfolios.  This is something that has always intrigued me, and given the time (yes, it’s always a matter of time for us teachers!) I think I could make it extremely useful to my students.  Whether it is having some concrete work to take with them to the next level of Spanish or creating a file of their own work for the sake of college admittance, students who can keep and show a record of their work through an online portfolio in this day and age have the advantage of marketing themselves as “tech-savvy” young people.

Another outstanding graduation video by Craig . . .

Paradise!

We started class by going up on the roof to take pictures.  We each took around 20 shots from all angles, except of Marivent.  With the King coming into town, the police are out in full force.  It might have looked a bit suspicious had we all been aiming our cameras at the royal summer home.  So we avoided that angle and focused on the Mediterranean and mountain views.  We then took the images we captured and uploaded them to one of the computers in the Bellver lab in the hopes of creating a 360 degree rooftop view.  Apparently it takes a long time to work its magic, so we have to wait until Class #8 to see the final product.

After that we learned about Jing and movie making.  Both concepts seems pretty easy to use, Jing even moreso, and I look forward to incorporating them into the classroom.  I think Jing would be an interesting way of providing tutorials for students when I ask them to use a language-oriented website for the first time.  I stayed around the lab to try to work on Jing some more, but the six computers that had the program were all occupied.  So I came home thinking I could download it, but again, had a really difficult time.  I don’t know if it was Jing, or the hotel system, but the downloading took forever, and then never really worked properly.  Thank goodness I posted a Jing demo to my blog at the end of class to cover the assignment, but it wasn’t what I really wanted.  I am hoping that today we get another chance to work on both Jing and movie making, but I know we have a lot to still cover.  Guess we’ll wait and see.

Click here to view my Jing video.

After a minor health mishap in the early morning portion of the class, we spent the rest of the time focusing on what I like to call the magic of Photoshop.  It really is quite amazing what you can do with Photoshop.  As you can see from the images posted below, one of my favorites is the LIQUIFY technique.  The layering aspect is also quite unique.  As long as you specify the layer on which you want to work, you can do just about anything to an image on that specified layer without affecting other aspects of your final product.  Given the time constraints of the course, I’ll have to perfect my expertise of Photoshop when I return to the United States.  Looking forward to tomorrow’s class . . . and hoping we can try the 360 degree digital imaging technique!  Craig, if you read this, should we bring cameras to class?

Maybe our perspective on beauty would change if we showed this to our students . . .