Session 6

In the beginning of the class we got some info for our Culture Quest project. We needed content for our website. I had some information for various recipes, so i put it into paragraph form. I also collected some pictures from the internet for my website.
We used a nice program by google to create websites. At first i could not sign up for a Gmail account, but eventually i got it to work. It is very easy, and i was able to create a website quickly. I put some pictures of the different recipes, and my information on how to make them. After this class, we have a two week break. During this time i'll have to go somewhere for the fieldwork. I'll also work on my digital story board, and the webquest.

Session 5

Session 5 began with the professor giving out some folders for our papers. It's a little easier now to find stuff, now that i have 3 folders for the class. We spent some time going over our Culture Quest projects. Some people did their Power point presentations as well. the main part of the class was about a new assignment we will be doing. It's called a digital storyboard.
Using our one page story we had to write, we now have to create a story using only pictures. We will be able to record a narration over it as well. The example the teacher showed in the class about the father growing up, was very well done. My story is about a guitar, so I'm not sure it will have the same emotional impact. Never the less, i will see how it turns out. I'm thinking of putting some comedic elements into the story to jazz things up. I know I'll be able to find a lot of pictures for the project itself.

Session 4

Session 4 began with the class going over some of the Power Point presentations. I thought the three people that went did really well. The music Power Point was solid and had some good information. The presentation about using technology was also good. I was especially intrigued by the program "smart board." I've never seen it before but it sounds really nice. Seems like a very interactive program, and has a huge number of features.
The next part of the class was about our Culture Quest project. At first we had planned to do some general topics about Norway. Eventually the professor told us the topics were too broad. After much discussion and confusion, we finally arrived at some kind of sports related project. We couldn't finalize anything for that either, so we asked for some help. Eventually we settled upon food in Norway. The separate topics are traditional dishes, food production, recipes, and holiday foods. I will be handling the recipes part of the project. Hopefully by the end of this project I'll be able to cook some kind of Norwegian dish.

Session 3

After what seemed like a really long time, session 3 arrived. I had some trouble with the digital drop box but i believe i have it under control now. The first part of the class we talked about our webquests that we made. Unfortunately i saved it as a word processor doc, so i wasn't able to view it at school. When i was browsing Webquests i stumbled upon alot of good ones, but couldn't find a way to make them my own. I finally got to one that i could work with a bit. The second part to the class was working with a program called 'Inspiration.' It's a neat little program that helps with graphic organizers. You can customize them any way you want, and you can import little graphics to make it look better. Another nice feature, was transferring your product to a word processor and coming up with a list of your ideas. You can also import what you make in inspiration to powerpoint. It can be a good learning tool for teachers trying to explain timelines or main ideas (for social studies). We then attempted to do the same thing in the word processor which was a bit harder, and wasn't as easy.
The end of the class we formed our groups to do our cultural project. The country that my group will be doing is Norway, and i will be taking care of the music aspect. This sounds like fun, and making a website should be a good learning experience. I need to start looking up information on the net about music from Norway in the past 50 years.