Data Visualization Lab

I really enjoyed browsing and looking at the resources on Karl Gude’s wikispace.  This is definitely a website that is worth bookmarking because I know that it will continue to grow! I thought that it was set up really nice and was organized well by specific categories. It was nice that he was able to make such specific categories and give some of the capabilities many of the tools. I was able to look at sharing tools such as Cincopa, Portfolio tools such as Wix and Dropmocks and other tools such as Celtx, Dipity and Tagxedo. It was good to be able to explore more sharing tools because we are currently sharing everything on the internet with the push of a button. I also liked to be able to explore different portfolio tools because there was a group in my 811 class that did their presentation about online portfolios. I especially liked Wix because I felt that there were many templates for students to use so they did not have to spend time editing the colors and fonts on their portfolio, but were still able to keep part of themselves on the site. I thought that Celtx was a great website for creating storyboard and being able to create scripts and edit them. The site was very information and provided a lot of background about the use of the tool, its “story” as well an embedded feed of people who tweet about them. I think that it is more appealing because it has cloud features. I also liked Taxgedo. I have seen Wordle used before in a few classrooms for things such as a vocabulary wall or the names of all the students, but I have not seen Tagxedo before or heard of it.  I thought it was really cool that you would be able to put your world cloud on items such as t-shirts and mugs. Many of the tools that he had on the lab were ones that I have used or seen before such as Prezi, Glogster, Jing, Flickr and Picasa.  It was comforting to see that there were many tools and apps on the Wikispace that we have talked about in the certificate classes because this allows me to see that the content and tools that we are learning about is relevant since I do not have my own classroom.

For the lab I created a visualization using Dipity. I created a timeline for the main events of the Spanish War of Independence. This is something that is relevant to my content area because it is the war that gave Spain its independence from Napoleon and the French and it is depicted in many paintings by Spanish artists such as Goya.  

I wish that I would have had known about this when I was student teaching! I created a timeline for the 6^th grade students in relation of the ancient civilizations that we learned about in our Spanish with the ones they were learning about in their World Cultures class. This really helped the students to compare the time periods and it helped them to see the overlaps in the empires. I really liked how you are about to add things such as photos and because it was help the students to better visualize the events.  I think that this is a fantastic tool for creating timelines. When I think of timelines, I am easily bored and I think of really old pictures in a textbook. My ah-ha moment was when I was able to create a meaningful connection between the growing up online reading and digital nation videos and Dipity. We need to cater to our students and the way that they are currently learning. When I saw the teacher drawing the triangle on the board and the students being bored, it reminded me of looking at boring timelines in history textbooks. The interactive timelines allow the students to become more engaged with the material and the supplemental things such as pictures, videos and documents. 
Here is the link to my timeline: http://www.dipity.com/sslifer/Spanish-War-of-Independence/?s=t