ThingLink

ThingLink is so cool! You get to upload an image and then put little buttons on it and when you scroll over the button, a bubble pops up with text, a picture, or a video. The one I created was pretty basic. I did a long division practice sheet and had the tags as the answer, so students could practice their long division and check their work. I also provided two tags at the top of the page: a video to re-teach long division, and a picture with the acronym DMSCB (divide, multiply, subtract, check, bring down) to help struggling students. There are just so many possibilities for ThingLink! You can create one when learning about new science or social studies topics, and students who may be struggling to understand can look at them from home to get some extra help. This tool is such a simple little idea, but the possibilities for its use are endless and I just think it's so cool!

Prezi

I had used Prezi before, but wasn't terribly familiar with it. This is another great presentation tool. I love the wide variety of templates they have, some are quite unique to a specific idea, they seem like a lot of fun, and I just love the look of so many of the templates. I also like the zooming transitions between nodes. It's a basic idea, but I think it looks neat.

For this presentation, I again used the same topic and information from my Google Slides assignment, to allow me to focus on Prezi's tools. I like that you can edit pictures in Prezi; you can add a frame, filters, change brightness and such. One thing I couldn't find was the option to create a text link, instead of having the huge ugly URL pasted onto the presentation. So, I was a little bothered by that. Overall, I think Prezi is great, easy to use, and would be a good option for elementary students to use. 

After having used PowerPoint, Google Slides, eMaze, and Prezi, I honestly can't pick one. When having students do a presentation project for class, I would likely let them choose which one they want to use. Or perhaps teach them each option separately for little assignments throughout the year, and then on a bigger project let them pick their favorite. They all have their perks!

Here is my Prezi:

eMaze

eMaze is another cool presentation program. I liked it because it didn't take a lot of work. I picked a theme and then there were lots of slide options with different layouts ready and there was already transitions between slides. One small thing I really liked was the "highlight" graphic that you could put behind text to make those words stand out. I don't know why, and it could very well be available on other presentation tools, but I just thought that was so cool. Totally random, I know!!
With this presentation, I used the same content as I did for my Google Slides assignment. I had a lot of stress over putting in the right information to that presentation, so I decided to just keep it generally the same. Another cool thing I noticed was the eMaze has an option to "emazify" your PowerPoint, meaning you upload your PowerPoint file and it will turn it into and eMaze presentation instead! The simplicity of eMaze, like Google Slides, makes me think it would be good for elementary students to use. It will especially make the presentations a little more exciting because all they have to do is select a theme and then add their content, they don't have to worry about adding in animation, transitions, or backgrounds, because it's all there once you've picked a theme! eMaze is a simple and great presentation tool. Here is the presentation I made:

StoryBird

When I started this book, I didn't have any idea of what I wanted my story to be. I just decided to look through the artwork and see what I liked. I found a cute little mad scientist illustration that I loved and then built my story around that. It was really fun! It was really basic, and personally I would've enjoyed options on fonts and text alignment and such, but for an elementary classroom, it's great! It's simple and would be really easy for students use to create their own stories. I would have so much fun reading student's stories! And I love that you can buy a printed copy of the books you write, or even a digital download. I read a publicly shared story for Father's Day written from a son to his dad, and realized these stories would be a cool gift. I really like StoryBird and will probably play with it quite a bit on my own.
Here's the story I wrote for this assignment, James the Not-so-Normal. Thanks to the artist for the cool illustrations I used in this book!

Photo Editing

When I started to edit my first picture, I got really frustrated really fast. I've never really used photo editing and the few times I have for school, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. With this, I got frustrated because the smudge tool wouldn't move smoothly like I wanted it to, I didn't understand what the different tools were!, I knew what I wanted my edit to look like but couldn't figure out how to get it there, and then I couldn't figure out how to save the picture, later discovering that I wasn't signed in to Pixlr when I thought I was. But I did it! I figured out the bare minimum basics of the program and finally edited a few pictures. I don't love them. But I did not have enough patience to make them become masterpieces.

• First, I took this picture of a bunch of panda bears

               and edited it into this

{I used the smudge tool, burn tool, and pinch and bloat tools to blur the outside pandas. And I used the dodge tool to brighten the spot on the single panda.}

• Then, I edited this firework

                    

                    into this

{I used the pinch and bloat tools to make the firework look distorted and wiggly, then I took the brush tool with a blue color at a low opacity to tint it blue, as well as adding dabs of white and yellow spots at an even lower opacity. I had to use a black brush to clean up the edges from my tinting, as well.}

• Finally, I went very basic with this cupcake drawing I found

                   turning it into this

 {I used the brush tool a lot, to remove the cherry and rebuild the top of the cupcake, to add the confetti dots around it, and to round to bottom corners of the wrapper out. I used the line tool to create the creases in the cupcake wrapper, to straighten the bottom of the wrapper, and for the sprinkles. I also used the color picker tool to make sure I used the same brown for the frosting and when I added the creases I just darkened the pink of the wrapper.}

Photo editing is kind of fun once you know what you're doing. After getting over the initial frustration and gaining a simple understanding of what the different tools abilities were I had a lot more fun with this assignment. It would be cool to let students use photo editing to illustrate their creativity. It can be hard to think up something unique to draw or create on your own, but letting students take some ordinary picture and change it to something new, seems like a good way to exercise their imaginations!

Google Slides

I made a slideshow for the fifth grade social studies standard about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I liked making it, the program was easy to use. I think I prefer Microsoft PowerPoint over this, just for personal stylistic taste. PowerPoint has so many more transition options, which is probably my favorite things about slideshows. Other than that, I like Google Slides just fine! I would totally use it again, and it would be really easy for students to use to put together a presentation for class. Again, there's always that bonus of having it automatically save to your Google Drive that can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection.
With this specific slideshow, I wouldn't use it exactly as it is to teach a lesson. It would probably need some changes in the content, but I figure for the purposes of this assignment it will do okay.
Here's my presentation!:

Answer Garden

I made an Answer Garden with the question "What is the best super power?" and sent it to my family to contribute. So all the weird answers are not my fault. Though, I should have known better than to send it to certain family members...
I like this tool! I think it's really fun. It would be interesting to use in class as part of a discussion. Or it could be used as a "self-starter" when the kids come in at the beginning of the day, or after recess. I could have the garden projected at the front of the class with a question related to our lesson. Then as they each come in and sit down, students can answer the question and watch the garden grow and see everyone's answers. Since I've only ever used Answer Garden with adults, it will be fun to try with elementary kids in a classroom!