IN PURSUIT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Ever "googled" yourself? I know I have...so I was surprised when this time the results were NOT what I expected. I suspect this was due to a couple "instructional" factors. When I have googled myself in the past, I don't think I've used quotation marks and I think I've started with my maiden name included. The instructions for this assignment said to "enter your name in quotes" - and to use that as a starting point. Putting "Sharon Howard" into Google resulted in thousands of hits - but a quick scroll through the first SIX pages revealed not a single "Sharon Howard" that was ME! Even when I added the geographic identifier of  "Texas" after my name (quotes here only - not for the search), still NOTHING that was me! There is no shortage of Sharon Howards in the world, that is for sure! (Quite a few obituaries - that was a little disturbing to see!) However, when I switched the search to "images", about ha...

CREATIVITY TOOLS This week's "Tech Play" assignment was to look at creativity tools  - and there are quite a few options out there. It seemed to me that many of them were versions of the same thing: a platform to upload pictures and or sound (narration or music) and then DO SOMETHING with them - a movie, a slideshow, a trailer, a poster, etc. These are the programs I played around with (or tried to, at any rate!): MERGE Cube, SonicPics, PuppetPals, Animoto, Glogster, ToonDoo, & iMovie. Below is a brief description along with my opinion of each. MERGE Cube - I didn't actually play with this one at this time as I don’t have one on hand but I DID play with one earlier this year. It's a pretty nifty little gadget. I knew it had the capability to show objects in a 3D capacity (solar system, human anatomy, etc.) but I discovered that it also has the capability to view objects the students have created into 3D visuals. This would be pretty neat for the students...

Gotta admit. My feelings about ePortfolios have run the gamut. When I first read the term, I thought "What the heck? I have never heard of such a thing. I wonder if it's what it sounds like?" In reading about them through the different assignments, I became intrigued and thought they sounded really cool -  a great tool to showcase projects and to give evidence that learning actually occurred and the student isn't just repeating information on a test. And now that I've had to research and play around with them, although I still think they're a fantastic idea, I'm intimidated at the thought of this process! From confusion to curiousity to delight to dread, this ePortfolio business is stressing me out!! But no matter, it's still a sensible tool in this technological age and I think the end result will be worth it! FOLIO THINKING AS ASSESSMENT I love this idea. Assessing students based on more than just test grades has always seems more like what teache...

So I think I've landed on Blogger. I typed in "free blog sites" in Google as suggested and was given approximately a gazillion responses. The first "hit" was an article titled something like "The top 9 free blog sites". Alrighty. So - let's check that out. This author gave the choices of WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Medium, Ghost, Blogger, Tumblr, Joomla, and Jimdo (in that order). She wrote about the pros & cons of each platform and kept pushing WordPress as the top pick - with there being two options within that platform - .org & .com. I viewed & played with several of these and decided that given all the options and what I ultimately want to gain out of this blog assignment (a blog that can possibly morph from an assignment to something that I can continue and use successfully) that BLOGGER was the winner. It seemed simple enough and gave me just enough freedom to be challenging but not so much that I was going to get overwhelmed and dis...