Audio Reflection

This unit required me to become familiar with a variety of new tools and techniques, in particular Audacity.  I enjoyed using Audicity to record my podcast and then import and add music to it.  It was fairly simple and straightforward.  In the future this is a program that I think my students can easily use to make podcasts.   I enjoyed the process of making the podcast, and felt pretty good about it. 

I struggled mightily with this unit.  Figuring out how to access the files once they were uploaded to my comp account and then the coding in my blog.  With both of the issues I solved with persistence, or as my wife says banging my head against a wall until I see progress.  With practice, I think that I will become much more proficient with these problems, and frankly I doubt that they will continue to be problems.

Podcast

Word Accesibility Project

As someone who is computer literate I feel pretty comfortable with Word.  I know how to use it's basic features, and even some of the advanced ones.  I had never used or heard of the accesibility features.  I had always found the heading options an obnoxious accessorie that often messed up my formating.  I learned though that they play a vital role in allowing people with dissabilities to use documents. 

To complete this project I created an install manual for a piece of software called ActivInspire.  It is interactive whiteboard software that my district uses and the install (and frankly the operation) can be fairly clunky.  In creating my manual I struggled with the images.  I used a ton, to help illustrate the directions, and for each I needed to have alt text.  The problem?  My main computer, a Mac, didn't have the option of adding alt text in Word.  I worked around this by using my school computer.  I'm very pleased with my result.  I've created a document that will be used across my district for the next few years to help install a vital piece of software.  I created something, that before starting this project I had no idea existed, let alone was capable of creating.  I also created something that people with disabilites will be able to use and access.

In my classroom I am striving to be as paperless as possible.  As I reach towards that goal, accessibility becomes a big issue.  These lessons will allow me to create documents that I use in class that are accessible, and will be able to be used by all of my students.