Hi everyone!
How was your summer? Mine was AWESOME, the best EVER, in so many ways it’s not even funny! I spent the last ten weeks with my family doing fun summer stuff AND working too, teaching and learning, at conferences and workshops were I got to teach AND learn, what a deal! It was also the BUSIEST summer I’ve ever had, but it has prepared me for the new year with lots of new and exciting ideas, technologies and brainstorms about the things we can do in school this year.
Before I go any further, I want to explain an important change here at NCS-Tech. As of today, I’m officially writing for a much larger and crucial audience – my students, their parents and members of my community. I want to bring these members of my real-life community into this virtual one, because I am convinced everyone will benefit! I was inspired by many educators and bloggers this year, but none more than Mrs. Amber Coggin, whose classroom website led me to the realization that I needed to expand my operations here in a very big way. Thanks Mrs. Coggin!
So, I’ve added links across the top expressly for what I hope will be many new visitors and participants in this online community. I’ll be adding details about my lesson plans every week. I’ve included photos and other information about our computer lab facilities & infrastucture. I will continue to share excellent websites, free software and commentary every day. I’m broadening my audience but keeping the focus the same. I just want the folks I serve – the students and parents of my community – to be a bigger part of what we have here: hundreds of visitors every day, great websites and services everyone can benefit from, and more.
I’ll close with this Animoto movie I just put together … my Summer of 2008 in pictures and music. I’m very excited about this new school year and hope you are too!
All the best,
-kj- (aka Mr. Jarrett)
Wow Kevin – Really nice job with the Animoto!
I’m glad to see, knowing how busy your summer was, that it was 80% family fun.
:)
Lisa
Thanks Lisa, you are too kind. I have a love/hate relationship with Animoto; I love, love, LOVE how easy it is to use. It drives me insane however when I remix, choosing to emphasize different photos in different ways, and worse, sometimes not even including photos I’ve selected. Need to find out why that happens. Invariably I take a few minutes to create the first version, then sometimes hours remixing it until it’s ‘just right.’ What you saw was, to me, just acceptable. I continued to remix it (manually, not ‘one-click’) several times afterward, only to finally decide on keeping the one shown. Animoto ROCKS, I just wish I had more capability to get “under the hood!” -kj-