FIFTH OF FIVE WORKSHOPS

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So far we have had three workshops pertaining to various online tech tools and last week you created a wiki to house your projects and hyperlinks to your sties.  Well today you're going to start an assignment involving a blend of tools or a combination of tech tools.  When using tech tools, don't just settle on one.  Try to think how a few of them together could  more actively engage the students as well as create a more interesting and informative project.  This assignment will include:

STEP ONE:

The following video is of Adora Svitak, the youngest speaker at TED.  It's only eight minutes long. As she talks, write down a list of words that you would use to describe her - there should be lots of them!  Underline those words that you consider to be the most important.

STEP TWO:

Go to Wordle.net and import your list of words into a word cloud.  Decide which words in your list are more important and type them two or three times.  This will make them larger.  Don't spend much time deciding upon fonts and color schemes.  Do this as quickly as possible.

STEP THREE:

For our next step, we need to save this word cloud as a .jpeg.  You'll find out why later.  This can be done very easily using our PrintScreen key and PowerPoint.  With the word cloud on your screen, search your keyboard and press the PrtSc key.  You have just took a photo of whatever is on your computer screen.  In this case, it is your word cloud.

Now open up a blank slide in PowerPoint.  Click on the screen, then right click, Paste.  Voila, there is your word cloud. 

Under Picture Tools, click on Format.  Then click on Crop.  Now you will be able to trim off any excess that you don't need and the photo will fit more snugly on the slide.

 But we're not finished yet.  Now we have to save it as a .jpeg.  This can be done very easily.  Click on File, Save As.  Give it  a name and instead of saving it as a PowerPoint Presentation, save it as a JPEG File Interchange Format.  Be sure to note which directory you put it In, such as Documents.  Finally click on Save.  Next click on Every Slide and finally on OK.  That's it.  My word cloud is now a .Jpeg and is stored in My Documents.
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If your computer happens not to have PowerPoint, try using Paint.  Click HERE to see how.

STEP FOUR:

Have you guessed why we needed our word cloud saved as a .Jpeg?  We need it as a .Jpeg in order to import it into ThingLink.  So let's do that now.  If you need directions for uploading a photo to ThingLink go to the following YouTube tutorials..  Once uploaded, start tagging the words in your word cloud.  Elaborate on various, especially those that you enlarged.  Elaboration can be in the form of comments or hyperlinks to Youtube videos.

 

STEP FIVE:

Now you need to copy the URL for your ThingLink, but where do you find it?  It's in the address bar of course.  Copy this link.  It will be sent to your lead teacher.



Next week we will complete our blended project.  So what's for homework this week?  If you didn't have a chance to complete the five steps above, do so.  These steps have to be completed in order to finish the blended project next week.  Please email the URL for your ThingLink assignment, Step Four, to your lead teacher.  That's it.