Journal 6a Inspiration

I really like this program because it is visually appealing and easy to use. It is a great way to organize your thoughts and ideas in a way that stays neat and clean. The program is user friendly and has all the basic tools needed already displayed across the top of the screen so your not searching through the different tabs looking for rapid fire or links. There are many visual icons to find something that fits your subject. I'm sure there is much more to the program that can be learned, but as far as what I would use it for, it was very easy. I was surprised by the fact that Inspiration allows a one month trail for users to test it out and decide if they want it.
There are so many ways I could this in my classroom. I could have my students brainstorm their essay highlights. The starting point could be their essay topic, then sprouts off into paragraph topics. From those icons, the students can put their three points for each topic under the corresponding paragraph. I could also have my students use Inspiration to gather ideas on how to do step by step processes for a given task. I plan on teaching special education, so it would depend on the level of functioning of my students as to the usefulness of this program will be.
Although I did not use Atomic Learning for this program, I did view it and think it is a great program for computer users. I will certainly use it for other programs I am unfamiliar with. I learned how to use Inspiration in another computer class at SDSU. But because it is so easy to use, I think anybody with some computer skills could start clicking buttons and figure out how to create a simple graphic layout.

Journal 7 Collaborative Documents

Collaborative documents are online applications that allow users to share and collaborate on the same document online. Collaborative documents share the same document with different users and each of the users can contribute to the document from anywhere they can get access to the internet instead of having to be in the same room or email and paste a document together. Some popular collaborative document applications are Googledocs, Yourdraft, Writewith, Zoho Writer and Whiteboard. All these applications share similarities and have their differences. In the discussion, the favorite application is Googledocs for its ease and usefulness of working away from work. Following the threads posted, most people seem to prefer Googledocs, especially since it has been recently updated with better features for organization. There is also a new application that stirred up much talk called Youfig.com. It is also a collaborative document that is ideal for student-student collaboration in class projects. However, from the discussions it requires an invite, which the person who introduced Youfig.com had extras of to send out to anyone that wanted one. Youfig.com has more to it than does Googledocs. Youfig.com appears in two screen: one is the actual document and the other is where you hold a discussion with those you are collaborating with. The editing abilities of collaborators are locked when someone if currently editing which can be unideal. But still the overall feeling of the discussion leads to favoring Googledocs.

Journal 6b

imovie is a great program that can be a lot of fun too. This a program with so many features that you could spend days or weeks creating a short clip. Once you get the hang of the software, it is easier. Getting started and learning all the different areas can take a long time and even be quite frustrating at times. Once the basics are learned, playing with the different controls and settings are fun. I would suggest to others to make sure they give themselves a great amount of time to plan and try out different setting until they find the perfect one to make their imovie incredible.
I don't think I would have a use for this program unfortunately because of teaching special education. But I do think I could make my own movies of the students or other relevant topics that I can show to my students. Maybe if we had a class field trip and someone filmed part of the trip and what we learned, I could make a review movie that they students could see.
I learned how to do the basics of imovie in another computer class I took at SDSU. However, I learned even more through EDUC 422b. I didn't know about all the different settings that were available to chose from. I didn't use Atomic Learning, but I know of the program and would use it for other programs I don't know how to work.