Prezi Slideshow

I decided to use this program to make a slideshow of caterpillar and butterfly pictures. I teach second grade and we are currently studying insects. We will be receiving caterpillars soon and we will obsereve their life cycle and watch them turn into butterflies within a couple weeks. I thought showing a bunch of pictures in this really cool format would be a catching way to kick-off our butterfly unit. The students will have fun looking at how the pictures rotate and the page moves around.

Butterfly Prezi

Stock Market Exchange

Stock Market Game

I could definitely see how this activiy would be useful in high school and college. I am a second grade teacher and I would never do an activity like this with my class. I enjoyed it personally because I learned a little bit about the stock market. If I ever want to start learning about stocks I will definitely use this website to practice and get good at it first.

YouTube Video Clips

I don't think I would really do a project like this in my classroom. I would, however, use what I learned about converting YouTube videos. There are a lot of really great videos on YouTube that could be used for educational purposes. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked at school. Now I know how to convert YouTube files into .wmv files so that I can show purposeful videos in class.

YouTube
Video converter
My Finished Video

Wunderground Spreadsheet

Spreadsheet and graph link

wunderground Las Vegas history

I could use Wunderground with my students to make graphs about temperatures in seasons. We would go through the website as a class and find the dates when the seasons started and ended. We would then make a bar graph showing the temperatures for each month in the year and look at how the temperature compares in each season. I would then ask question such as: Which season has the biggest change in temperature? Can you tell which months are summer months just by looking at the graph? I think I would have the students do the graph on paper, not in Excel. I would probably do a master graph on Excel for the students to see the visual.

Mapping America Activity

Student Worksheet

Link to Map
I think I could only use this activity in the computer lab with the whole class at the same time. I would bring up the website on the Smartboard and have each student type in the link on their computers. First I would model how to navigate the map using the zoom in and out features. I would also show students how to hold the mouse button and move it to move around the map. I would then pass out the worksheet and do the first couple of questions together as a class. Then I would let the students work in pairs to finish the worksheet. I would probably use the map that shows percentages of college graduates. I could do this activity during college awareness week to show students how many people have college degrees. Then we could pull up the map about income levels and see how it compares to college degrees.

Photo Editing

I could see using this activity at the beginning of the year with my class. I usually make a bulletin board with a picture of each student on it. I could use this program to make the bulletin board more fun by changing each student's picture with a different effect.

Befunky
Web Resizer

Wikipedia Comparison

       I decided to try to compare the new head coach for the San Francisco 49ers. I first looked on Wikipedia and found some information that appeared very accurate. I tried to find the same coach on Britannica and I had no results from the search. From this experience I found that Wikipedia has a larger database and access to more information.
       I like how Wikipedia is easily edited because new information shows up quickly. For example, this coach, Jim Harbaugh, was just named head coach yesterday and the Wikipedia article has already been updated. However, having information that can be changed so quickly and easily will affect the authenticity of the facts. I don't think I would use this as a source for factual information but I would use it just for my own interest in information.


My contributions- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Omlier
My changes- http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Omlier