Screen casting

In creating our screen cast we found it difficult to decide whether we wanted our entire group to be a part of the narration of the screen cast or one independent group member. As initially we had thought it would be nice for our entire group to be a part of the screen cast we found our time was limited and we had left his aspect of the task very late and this would not be so easily done.

Sharing The Work Load

Entering into the task we were aware it may be difficult to assign tasks and decide who would be best fit to work on aspects of the task. As there were four pages and four of us it was easily decided that we would each dedicate our time to finish a page although the work was shared through the group one person was assigned to completed a particular page and taking the work done with in the class room and posting it to the web.

HOME:Brennan Gillam

AUTHENTIC:Josephine

LESSON OVERVIEW:Grant Flanigan

TEACHER RESOURCE:Harriet Holton

Challenges during task 3

Unfortunately during the task as we started making great progress as group member (Grant Flanigan) fell sick with appendicitis and also had complications with his surgery causing him to be unable to work on the task for nearly a week and a half. Although this made completing the task difficult what we found most difficult was maintaining communication so as to see how Grant was doing and if he was able to do the assignment whilst in hospital. 

So as to insure we could keep contact we decided it would be beneficial to create a Facebook group for our task and also for later on during other units where we may experience difficulty and may be able to bounce ideas off of one another. Using this facebook group we were able to post our progress onto the page as well as keep in contact with Grant and have him able to view our progress through a simple and often used network. 

Task 3

Task 3, the third and final task of semester one asks us to think about both the uses of resources as a teacher and student. Put into small groups we were asked create an authentic learning task which had uses of technology included in the task and post it onto a wiki space so as it was shareable with other teachers. Our authentic task required us to focus on a specific subject and from this subject creatively build a task that would engage our students and be useful to other teachers who may go onto our wiki to view the task.

    My group consists of Myself, Harriet Holton, Brennan Gillam and Grant Flanigan. Together we brainstormed which subjects we most enjoyed and how we would be able to incorporate this into our authentically learning task. We had decided that both cooking and physical education were of interest to us as most young students enjoyed making food as well as out door activity and as we had a physical education student as part of our group(Brennan Gillam) this became very beneficial to us.

After we had chosen our subject we then brainstormed how we would blend the two subjects so as to make them apart of the same task leading us to the title - Super foods for Super Students. Our title suggest the use of healthy foods that stimulate energy and concentration in the class, make them "super students" both in the class room and in physical activity.

By this stage in the task we had reached around the second or third lesson and not yet created our wiki space nor had we looked into how to use a wiki space. Although we had completed a lot of drafting and developed a good understanding for our goals in the task the wiki space needed to be at least created as soon as possible.

Using and choosing Jing

After exploring a number of screen casting tools i chose to use Jing as it appeared wildly popular among other people and also simple to use. After using screen casting tools such as screenr i found this to be the least frustrating of those i had explored.

Jing was simple and quick to download to my computer and was also simple to understand in terms of use. You were able to choose how much of your desktop screen you wanted to have viewed in the screen capturing and were also able to pause and restart your screen capture recording if needed. 

In the image bellow the small sun in the top right corner is the Jing application, making it easy to find after accessing and also easily available for use so as not to become apart of the screen cast.

After becoming more familiar with the screen casting tool i found it easier to use and also found myself creating my screen cast two or three times so as to ensure it conveyed exactly what i wanted in the screen with out having other applications or pages that had no relation to the task. 

posting my screen cast

I have just recently completed my Screen casting, using Screen casting tool Jing. As i was originally going to use Screenr i chose instead to use jing as this way i would be able to use the help of my other group member whom were also using it. I at this stage am attempting to upload my screen cast to my website but this is proving to be very difficult and also very stressful as i need it to be uploaded and completed ASAP in time for peer reviews and marking. 

So far i have been asking for my group members help so as to see where i am going wrong and hope that soon i will have it uploaded and understand where i was going wrong to begin with. 

Referencing Tool: End Note

After exploring the technology tool box on the LMS i chose to use popular referencing tool EndNote for task two. EndNote is a referencing tool which allows users a free 30 day trial available to download to mac or Microsoft computers. After this 30 day trial users are required to purchase the software online, but fortunately for Murdoch students we are provided with the full software of Endnote accessible from the library upon request.

Using the range of resources myself and my group members used to research our specific subject on the Murdoch Library i was able to develop my knowledge of end note using these resources to transfer into my EndNote referencing library. I found it very simple to use and also think it will be very useful in future assignments.