Personal Technology Project Ideas

As I prepare to begin my Personal Technology Project, I am interested in several options. My top three are Webquests, Powerpoint games, and Digital XPress. I think the Webquests would be a useful introduction to researching and writing research papers. Powerpoint games could be a fun way to review vocabulary and grammar concepts in Spanish. But my preferred project is probably the Digital XPress. I think it would encourage writing and collaborating in my English classes. The virtual tour was pretty impressive. My concern about this is the cost. There is a 30 day free trial, but after that, I don't know what the price is, and I was unsuccessful and finding that information online. I don't want to invest all the time needed to set up if I'm not going to use it beyond the project for class. Call me Crazy (some of you already do!), but I think that anything I do for this class needs to be portable, useful for my career. So far, I've been able to use everything - my geography students are already working on their own iMovies, and they are excited about it. If the price more than I'm willing to pay long-term, I may want to delve deeper into creating a Ning Network for my students' writing. It wouldn't have the same features, but I like Free. Free is good.

SUCCESS!!!

FINALLY!  My video is successfully uploaded to YouTube.  Yay!  It took several tries, but at least each successive trial took less time to load.  The last one was only about 5 minutes.  For now, watch it here from YouTube, but I'm also trying TeacherTube again.  Who knows?  Maybe the umpteenth time is the charm...

iMovie...the Saga Continues

I finally got my video uploaded to TeacherTube, but now it won't actually play.  This is unfortunate, because I'm going to try YouTube now, and it isn't accessible from computers on the Provo School District server.  If I want to show a You Tube video at work, I have to download it at another location first and bring it into class - always hoping that the window doesn't get closed before I want to show the movie.  Since students are often on my laptop, this happens sometimes.

iMovie Frustration!!!

So, my multimedia project is due.  Silly me, I thought it would be easy to upload my movie to Teachertube when I got to work this morning.  I even came in an hour early to get it done.  My computer has other ideas.  It's still trying to convert the file.  A 5-minute movie should only take a few minutes to convert so it can be uploaded.  That is usually the case.  But not today.  I am missing class because it is still working on it.  I closed all the programs that I don't need right now (although, yes, this blog is in an extra open tab, but I'm going stir crazy!) and it still is taking FOREVER!  ...oh wait, wait! -- it's finally done!  
ACKK!  Now it's saying the file is too large!  I want to wring its little neck!  But my movie doesn't have a neck.  More to come...