The takeaway message from Tony Vincent presentation Project Based Learning in Hand shows the ease in mobile learning. Mobile phones are everywhere and easily accessible. The video talked about ways students can use mobile devices as a learning tool. There are a few learning techniques listed in the presentation for example, Driving Questions are answered with a video presentation. Mobile learning can be used to plan, research/investigate, and present projects.

I use my cell phone everyday for several different things. It has all my social and professional contacts, videos, music, appointments, games, I use it to access the web, mapping device, etc. Most importantly I use it to stay on top of my daily assignments by sending emails, setting reminders, and saving documents. Using my cell phone as a learning device demonstrated in the presentation by making videos to explain certain topics would come in handy. It reminds me of the flip scavenger hunt we just completed. This same activity could have been done using a cell phone. This is a helpful and fun option for students.

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The idea of using a mobile phone for learning is a great idea for students. I will be teaching high school students after I graduate and I am sure this is something I can use in the classroom. They are always texting and talking during break on their phones, so giving them the opportunity to use them for something relating to school would grab their attention. It would also motivate them to learn more because they would be having fun while learning about a certain topic. They can make little videos for their classmates about whatever subject we are going over.
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I used my screencast assignment to discuss some fun things about scratch. My video is called Scratch edu. Scratch is a great program created by MIT as a learning tool for children and adults. We didn’t have much time to go over a lot of things, so I talked about the most important and fun things about the program. I included how to change the stages (background), changing sprits, spirit sizes, and the gliding motion. My project was basically a little ballerina gliding to the front of the stage. It went slightly over 3 minutes, just because I over estimated with the coordinates. I kept it in there to show the ease in correcting errors while working in the scratch program.   

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Our group participation in the Flip Video Camera Scavenger Hunt was completed during T4T class session earlier today by my group of three. We walked around the UCO campus, asking a few people certain questions according to the list we received from Mr. Fryer. We made a total of five videos that were later uploaded to our class youtube website. Our videos include subjects over UCO employees talking about their job here on campus, students dealing with stress, recycling, and safety.

Our first video includes a student helping at the information center in the Nigh University. She tells us what her job responsibilities include. She was very nice and I’m sure does an excellent job!  The next video is also someone discussing their job. We were able to talk to a nice guy from Print Central also in the Nigh University. He was cool and gave us a great video. We asked him what was the best part of working here at UCO and his response was the great students. Our third video is about the way we, as students deal with stress coming directly from an UCO student. Asia was a little shy, but very informative about personal stress she deals with trying to balance school and everything else. The next video included one of our group members demonstrating and informing the importance of recycling at UCO. We used a regular trash bin, which she explains we do not throw paper in there, but a designated recycling bin. Our last video is our safety video. It is a short video about taking responsibility to clean up our campus. We actually staged this one, but it is very important. One of our group member poured a small amount of water on the floor and discusses how this could be a safety hazard. She uses a towel to clean up the water.

We noticed after shooting all our videos we had a theme going on, which centered around UCO. GO BRONCHOS!!

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A pecha Kucha presentation is an oral presentation, including 20 power point slides. Each slides should be on a timer of 20 seconds each. The images on the slides should take up the entire slide, they should be bright and capturing the theme you are describing. A pecha Kucha presentation can be over anything which gives you the opportunity to select an interesting, current topic, while using the power point as a visual aide. Anything less wouldn’t make is a horrible presentation, but average because of the length and image background there’s no way it could be bad.

Before I presented I was worried about my topic. While year round education is interesting to me, current in our community, and directly affects everyone in the class, I didn’t think my visual would be as outstanding as some of the others I seen. I could have changed my topic, but I thought it was very important to talk about. I also included a little joke or two, along with some cleaver images to liven up the subject. The 20 seconds for each slide was a bit of a challenge, but to overcome this I inserted two or more similar images so I could talk about a particular subject longer. What stands out the most about this assignment is the public speaking. I was so nervous before I presented, but during and afterwards I had this since of relief and I wanted to do it again.

I plan to teach high school science, so it would be difficult to incorporate a pecha kucha assignment into that subject. If anything I could have the students just do one over a relevant topic in science, explain the guidelines, and let ‘em have at it. The public speaking part of the assignment would break the ice for more participation in the class as well as getting them familiar with a certain science topic, so it may be a good idea to attempt after all.

My favorite slide of my pecha kucha presentation was the lost brain flyer. It was an argument introduced by the National Association of Year Round Education, saying that children forget important information during their long summer vacations and teachers spend a lot of time refreshing at the beginning of the year.

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My final scratch project is called Bully fish (final project). It is an extension of my very first project Bully fish. It is about rainbow fish bullying a little clam. The clam goes to get all his brothers and they bully rainbow fish a little bit. Rainbow fish realizes he is wrong and apologizes to rainbow fish, then disappears. In my final project rainbow fish comes back and asks the clams to party in the city with him. They all agree and go to the city to party around in the city sea.

It was difficult to get the timing right. I had to resize them and move them to the sea, which is a lower part of the screen. The most difficult part was to get them all to do this at the same time. I learned how to switch screens from doing my second project, Not prepared for class. This project was about a girl that wasn’t prepared for class. She thought she could remember what she needed to do in her science class, but she ended up trying to use a banana and a few other random items. She went home, found her notes, and the next day was all prepared for class. This one was fun, but I struggled again with the timing of everything.

The scratch projects were so much fun. The end product doesn’t look like much, but I worked very hard on it. It took longer than I thought and it was a lot more complicated than I would image. Thank you, Mr. Fryer for giving us the opportunity to work with this program.

My daughter found a book in her school library about a rainbow fish and she told her teacher the story we came up with of our rainbow fish.

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