Technology Journey: Animation and audio

During the last two weeks, my technology journey has taken me down the road of using animation and audio to enhance student experiences. Prior to this journey, my experience with animation was limited and I had no exposure to creating/using audio. As a result, the beginning of this journey was filled with a small amount of apprehension and a large amount of excitement.

The text book readings provided an introduction to the technical aspects, capabilities, and the positive and negative ways to use audio and animation in web pages. In addition to establishing a base to ultimately complete the required assignments, the readings spurred creative thought for using these tools to enhance lessons, differentiate instruction, and student assessments. The tutorials from Atomic Learning were pragmatic and assisted me in acquiring tools to create animations in PowerPoint and create an audio file using Audacity.

The balance sheet is a critical financial statement for businesses. An understanding of the balance sheet requires students to understand the basic accounting equations. To bring interest and depth to this concept, I used several animation functions in PowerPoint. The PowerPoint animation functions were easy to navigate. After a short period of time I was able to use motion and colors to capture the meaning of the accounting equation.

While there are many ways to communicate with students and their families, and I intend to use several different communication tools, a class website offers a convenient and efficient way to connect with students and families. I plan to create and use websites for each of my future classes. A section of the website will allow families to see and hear me.

I used a digital camera to take a photo of me and created an audio file using audacity. The audio file contained my educational, career, and personal background. The audio file also contained my vision for the class, expectations for me and the students, and ways for parents to participate in their children’s learning community. The audacity user interface made it easy to compile an audio file.

The original file was created without using a headset. Due to the quality of the recording, I used a headset. The quality of the second recording was significantly better. The recording process made me realize that talking for two continuous minutes with no physical audience is difficult both in terms of quality and staying focused.

In addition to learning the technical skills to produce animation and audio, I have compiled several ideas for incorporating technology into my future classroom instruction.