I'm in love with ViewPure

Someone on a Facebook group for ELA teachers mentioned using this site the other day, so I tried it out. Basically, I love it. What it does is let you watch youtube videos without ads, comments with possible bad language, side views of potentially inappropriate videos, and automatic restarting of the next video. I highly recommend checking it out.

On Technology

This is my scribble from the CUWP advanced institute on digital writing:

One technology memory is associated with Word Perfect. Word Perfect came into being when I was a BYU student. I worked in the Business Office of the Wilkinson Center, and we used a rudimentary, beta version of Word Perfect in our office. As someone who was majoring in English and writing very long papers on a manual typewriter, Word Perfect seemed like such an amazing thing. I really, really liked it. I graduated, and we moved to Palo Alto where my husband got his masters in computer science. While we were there I went to a technology conference with him, and who did I see there? Young enthusiastic presenters from BYU pushing Word Perfect. Wow. I was excited. Word Perfect was going to be big. Over the next few years I didn’t do much with computers, but then my husband and I bought our first computer--333 MG of storage--if I remember correctly. It was a windows computer, but it came with Word Perfect. Of course we quickly ran out of space on that computer, and the next one we bought came with MS Word. Oh my. I did not like Word, and I talked my husband into putting Word Perfect on in. Two or three years later, we got another new computer, once again carrying Word. I asked my husband to put Word Perfect on it, and he said, "Honey, I think you’d better just learn to use Word, as I think Word Perfect’s days are numbered." I fought the idea, but eventually I gave in, and within two or three years, Word had completely taken over, and my beloved WP was no more. Thus I feel I lived through the whole lifespan of that company.

Science Fiction . . . or Fact?

Wow. I've got to try this with my science oriented kids -- Lab Lit: Writing Fiction Based on Real Science.

Back to School Night, Take 2

Here's my new Animoto for back to school night, reflecting my new changed up curriculum for the year.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Animoto - Civil Disobedience

Okay, this is my second try at Animoto. I am going to use this as part of my unit on American Transcendentalism - Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. This is obviously what I'm going to use to introduce Thoreau.

In the past I've just had the kids listen to the song while I showed the lyrics. I'm hoping that the combination of selected lyrics, pictures, and quotes in the movie with the music will make it a more meaningful experience.

Animoto-My First Try

The EC Ning has been buzzing about Animoto in the last few weeks. Many teachers used the free online video creator to make "trailers" about their class for the first day of school. I didn't get my Animoto teacher membership in time to create one for the first day of school, but I did make one for Back to School Night. Here is the sneak peek the parents got of our upcoming semester:

A word of warning: Animoto is addicting.