UDL lesson builder

Creating my UDL lesson plan, was a revealing experience for me. It reminded me of how effective lesson design is a scientific process. It is an exercise in careful planning that starts with the end in mind. What are the students to learn? how are they going to practice it? and how am I going to know when they learned it?
To reach the desired objectives, I had to carefully craft activities that address every learning style in the classroom, and every learning ability, while accommodating students with disabilities and offering each student recurring opportunities for practicing the skills and knowledge learned and providing them with prompt feedback as they navigate through the lesson activities.
The template provided by CAST makes it relatively easy to plan a lesson that complies with UDL principles.
In addition, the CAST website is a valuable resource for teachers who are new to UDL. It features model lessons, a UDL check tool and many resources in different digital formats that I found useful to complete my assignment.
UDL is similar to other educational theories that address effective learning and teaching based on rigorous research in the fields of education, sociology, and the human brain. However, it does have the specificity of focusing on technology use as the main tool to achieve effective differentiation in the classroom and promote higher engagement in order to challenge students at the appropriate level.

Cyber Camp PSA- post production blog post

To ensure success in our endeavor, we focused our initial efforts on creating a strong and constant communication between members. So we got things started with a mail merge list for group members. As a second step we created a Wiki for our project at: http://lamar-group-5363.wikispaces.com, to focus our collaboration and monitor our progress.

Those steps set the foundation for our pre-production, production, and post- production process. So, with clear expectations and good communication via email and Wiki, we started our brainstorming sessions using email and the Wiki. Then, I suggested that we have a live brainstorming session using Oovoo free video conferencing software. This step proved to be most important in team building, for it allowed us to meet our team members face to face, and it cut down tremendously on our brainstorming time by allowing for multi-tasking during those sessions (discussing, typing, and editing).

Throughout weeks 3,4, and 5 we constantly communicated via email, Wiki posts, and video conferencing. We exchanged 32 emails, posted 27 wiki posts and edits, uploaded 18 different files to the Wiki, had 4 video conferences, and collaborated on editing the proposal as a Google doc.

The interaction between members was very professional yet relaxed, everyone was fulfilling their part of the assignment on time and contributing to the steady progress of our work and monitoring of its progression. The productive contribution and effective collaboration were illustrated through every phase of our assignment.

Pre-production phase: during this phase of the project, we set up a “week” page in our group Wiki. We used this page to brainstorm ideas about the content of the PSA. After discussing the merits of each idea we agreed on the cyber camp PSA suggestion. Then, we held two video conferences. The first one allowed to meet each other and discuss our ideas, and in the second conference we decided on the individual roles, script, shot list, narration, and the video format that will be most suited to upload the video to youtube and to the wiki, and we created a pre-production document on google docs.

Production phase: We created a “week 4”page to host this week's work. Felicia and Shantay filmed their children acting the shots agreed upon and intuitively added more shots that they believed could add value to our video, Brooke recorded the narration, and I searched for the required footage and music. Each one uploaded their material to the wiki and we shared feedback on the wiki, by email, and discussed it further during our weekly video conference. Necessary changes, such as narration, were made, and we updated the production document accordingly.

Post-production phase: We created a “week 5” page to host this week's work. I continued editing the video, adding SFX, as well as transitions, and posted the audio file and the video file separately for review and feedback from team members. Members posted their feedback on the wiki and I re-edited the video accordingly. Then, I posted the first complete version of the PSA. I received further feedback from the group and made the requested the change. At that point the video needed only an end slide that Felicia made and posted on the wiki. I converted the slide into an image file and made one last change to the video. Mission accomplished, I encoded the video in .WMV format and uploaded it to the wiki using, then sent emails to everyone in the group to inform them.

Since, I volunteered to direct and edit the project, I also, undertook the task of finding additional footage and soundtrack music for the video on the Internet. I limited my search to creative commons licensed materials only. That search yielded a perfectly fitting soundtrack titled “The Final hours” (Hollidayrain, 2009), and great footage from “Coombs Intermediate School Computer Class” video (Banning Unified SD, 2009).

I also downloaded images of the copyrighted logos of the different programs that are mentioned in the PSA, because they will be taught in the school cyber camp. Those logos were used for informational and identification purposes only, in compliance with fair use under United States copyright law.

However, the final PSA could have been further enhanced had our group done certain things differently. One of those things was the way the group was formed. We were put together by a person who actually had requested team members, but ended up joining another group and connecting the students who contacted her with each other. So, we did not have a chance to evaluate each other's skills before we became a group. We could have had a more balanced group in our skills and thinking preferences had we had a chance to evaluate our individual strengths and weaknesses before hand. Another issue was the distribution of responsibilities. I took the responsibility of editing the video, directing it, and finding the soundtrack for it. But eventually ended up being in charge of finding creative commons video footage, finding creative commons images, and updating the production document as well.
If we had more members who are knowledgeable in video editing, and are willing to spend the time to search for material on the internet, we could have distributed the roles between us in a more equitable way that would have given one person more time to focus on editing, and another person would have focused on finding video footage and images, while a third person would have done the document updates for the group. As a result, each member would have had more time to improve the quality of their respective parts, contributing in enhancing the overall quality of our PSA.

Chronicles of a Group project: Cyber Camp PSA

Week 3:
My being overseas while the rest of the group is in Texas didn't make the slightest difference in our ability to work together on this project. It actually gave a new dimension to the meaning of distance education.
This experience is one more proof that distance education is not distant at all, technology has annihilated physical and mental boundaries that were traditionally attributed or caused by the geographical distance between teacher and student or students collaborating together.
That said, I was concerned at the beginning of this project, because of the 6 hour time difference between the location where I am spending my vacation and Texas. But, as a group we were able to coordinate our efforts and overcome this challenge.
First, we used email to initiate contact between team members that had not worked with each other before, and got things started.
Second, we set up a wiki for our project at: http://lamar-group-5363.wikispaces.com, and started collaborating.
Then, I suggested that we have brainstorming sessions via video conferencing using Oovoo which is a free video calling software that allows for up to 6 people to video conference at the same time.
There was an initial apprehension from some group members about installing a new software in their pc, but after the first conference everyone was excited about video conferencing, for it allowed us to meet our team members for the first time, "put a face to the name".
In the second conference members of the group one interacted productively with other members in real time, brainstorming, typing and editing our proposal and script while getting to know each other a little more.
Throughout week 3 we constantly communicated via email and Wiki, everyone was looking forward to the third video conference.
Our third video conference of the week was even more productive, as everyone got comfortable with video conferencing, we managed to assess our progress, discuss our work, while collaborating in the wiki and editing the google doc all in the same session.

The Singing Dancer

In order to edit a 58 second video I spent two days trying 5 different video editing programs, and 5 different video converting softwares.

After different trials, I settled for download helper to download and convert web clips, and windows movie maker to edit my video.

I tried Wax 2.0 but it wasn't able to read the video files that I converted from flash to avi, and neither could Jashaka. I also, gave up on using Avid FreeDV after a few trials, because it was too complicated, and I could not work with Adobe elements since my computer did not have a strong enough processor to handle its needs.

So, I settled for movie maker which is the least attractive of the bunch, but it proved to be the most useful and, to the exception of a few crashes, it was solid enough to perform the task at hand and produce a decent looking video.

Digital Storytelling

My new post is about digital story telling. Of all the web 2.0 tools that I have used or learned about, it has to be the most powerful given the fact that it requires no costly software or hardware. All that a digital storyteller needs is access to the internet to download the free software to use and to search for pictures to use for the story.
The program itself is very intuitive and is the easiest software I have used so far, because it makes it fun to build a story even for even for the most computer-phobic among us.
The hardest part about creating a digital story is finding a story and following the steps and requirements detailed in Lambert's "Digital Storytelling Cookbook". the technical part of putting together is the easier part of the project.
The collaborative aspect of this educational tool and the effort it takes to create a coherent and captivating story provides teachers with a powerful educational tool to engage and challenge students to sue higher level thinking skills and collaborate with their peers in constructing knowledge that is relevant and rigorous.

Journal of Educational Technology & Society

This website can be accessed at: http://www.ifets.info/

Description:
Journal of Educational Technology & Society is a quarterly journal published in January, April, July and October. The academic articles that it features focus on issues affecting developers of educational systems and educators who implement and manage such systems.

Positives:
Educational Technology & Society website is visually appealing, easily navigable, and it offers a searchable database of current, past and special issues.
The editorial body is composed of a diverse group of experts from Europe and Canada.
Executive peer review of articles is provided by a group of diverse experts from around the world.
Author’s guidelines are clearly stated along with submission guidelines.
Articles investigate a variety of pertinent issues, such as Leadership for Technology Integration, and Interactive Learning Environments.

Negatives:
Website does not have a blog feature that subscribers can use to interact with the editors.

The Bottom Line:
A valuable resource for educators and administrators, for the wealth of information and insights the articles offer the reader. Districts and/or schools would benefit from investing in a subscription to the journal for their teachers and administrators to help them understand and navigate the challenging road to the integration of technology in education in a way that meets the needs of digital native learners.

Recommendations:
The featured articles are a great resource that administrators and instructional leaders can integrate in their school’s professional development curriculum to provide educators with the skills and knowledge needed to migrate into the new Interactive Learning Era.