On Atomic Learning:
How would you use this with a classroom? How could you use this as staff development?
There's no doubt Atomic Learning would be immensely helpful to the staff at my high school. Nimitz HS affords each teacher and student a state-of-the-art laptop and the district also provides free wif-fi around the city. So these tutorials are excellent tools that are sorely under-utilized. I'm not sure Irving ISD is willing to foot the bill for access codes, though. Just this past year, IISD cut costs in the tech department by removing Microsoft Office and adding OpenOffice, a free desktop publishing software package that pales in comparison to Microsoft Office. I'm not complaining but... ok, yes, I'm complaining. Let's do a fund-raiser or whatever we have to do to get Microsoft Office back. And then we'll figure out a way to pay for Atomic Learning.
I'm not sure my students would be savvy enough to use Atomic Learning. I could present tutorials with my projector, but I don't think that's a viable option. These tutorials are only helpful when you can skoot back and forth throughout the video, and that's not possible in a classroom full of students, each with their own questions. So the tutorials would best serve me and my co-workers. Unfortunately, I can assure you that many teachers at my school are unfamiliar with the most basic functions of the word processors and spread sheets.
Would you adapt, change or modify the lesson in anyway?
I wouldn't change the tutorials, no. They've been produced and edited pretty well. However, I would make the site more user-friendly, easier to navigate. Some of these pages are too spangled with data and hyperlinks and info and options and... you understand. Overall, though, I'm pleased with this site. It would contribute to the overall tech proficiency of me and my co-workers. Especially the PowerPoint and Word tutorials, as those are the most popular programs in the package.
And that's me! This screenshot was my very first using Jing. I was skeptical about this program at first. How good could it be if it's free? Well, that was a stupid approach because this program seems legitimately useful. There's an added bonus - the tutorials included in the free download are narrated by English-speaking person with a heavy German accent. Isn't that wunderbar?
