Flat+Stanley



 __FLAT STANLEY PROJECT__  __Description of Product:__ In our variation of this collaborative project, each individual in the class will act as a "class that is participating in the project." Flat Stanley will visit with you (and your classroom if you so choose) so Flat Stanley will be able to "see the sights" in the mid-Atlantic area. The collaboration will be the sharing of Flat Stanley's individual visits through a Website. You will need at least three (3) digital pictures of Flat Stanley to use on your wiki page. Take Flat Stanley out and have him pose while he is doing fun and exciting things! Make sure you get in some of the pictures, too. We will collaboratively create the Flat Stanley wiki (next week) with each person responsible for one page of the wiki! The collaborative project is a descriptive writing assignment, but in our case, it is also used to teach how to work with a wiki, manipulate photographic images, insert images in a wiki, insert audio (and possibly video) in a wiki, and miraculously, create a fairly sophisticated Website using a wiki!

Flat Stanley Project Page: http://wuflatstanley.wikispaces.com/ __ My Flat Stanley Link : __  Melanie Day

__ Skills Learned or Expanded Upon: __

I feel that this project really helped me strengthen skills that I already had. I have done quite a bit with digital photography and usually edited my photos using Picasa. I found the Piknic site for online digital photography manipulation very user friendly and although it may not have all of the editing options as Picasa, it does have the basics and I will use it in the future. I am excited to have learned how to create podcasts using Audacity. I have lots to learn about the capabilites of the program but I think I understand about recording a basic podcast with a music intro with some editing. This is something I will be able to use right away as my school has an iPod lab and we currently aren't able to upload teacher made podcasts so that everyone has access to them. At this point, if a teacher wants to create a podcast about a specific topic or book, she has to record it onto individual ipods using the manual recorder. This is very time consuming and does not allow for inserting music or sounds that enhance a podcast. Creating the wiki page for Flat Stanley was a challenge in itself. I don't feel that I had a very good understanding of how my wikispace was supposed to be set up and therefore navigating the site was very awkward for me. After this class I feel much more comfortable with the wikispace and how to move around on the site.

__Reflection:__ The Flat Stanley project was fun! I really didn’t have a hard time deciding about his adventure but the weather turned on me making things a little more difficult. My husband helped me take some of the pictures and as the ground was covered with snow, I didn’t get as many outside as I had wanted to. Technically speaking I had a little trouble navigating the options on the Wikispace. It is a bit more difficult than using word so I did find it helpful to type my text portions in word and then copy and paste. I had a huge computer fiasco during the creation of my audio and that also complicated matters. My “old” computer that had the programs I needed on it was giving me error messages and wouldn’t open certain programs. I ran every virus and malware program I had but found nothing. After hours of trying to fix the old gal, I gave in and bought a new computer. While it’s much faster and has lots of bells and whistles, it doesn’t have the files or programs I need so I have to do a lot of things over again. Just reinstalling the printer drivers, setting up my e-mail and installing a trial version of Microsoft Office have been a challenge. Add this to the fact that we are house bound as we ride out not just “Blizzard 2010” but the “Blizzard 2010: The Sequel” as well. All in all I realized that I have indeed learned a lot in class and it felt really great being able to work through all of the glitches and produce something that I was okay with.