Ask a Scientist

After visiting Ask a Scientist I must say I am disappointed. I thought that it would have been a little easier for elementary students to use. I teach first grade and this would not be something I would suggest to my students. If I was teaching middle or high school, then I might have my students use it. However, I submitted my question because it was not answered already. Well, I am still waiting for a response. I figured that I would have had something by now. I did submit my question as a teacher though and not a student. I wonder if they answer faster if they know it is for a student.

I submitted the same question I posted on the discussion board, and was more pleased with the answers I received from that than what I am receiving from the scientist. I do not know if I have just gained the patience of my first graders, but if I were doing a major project on this and gave them 2 weeks to answer the question I do not think my project would do very well.

However, after looking through some of the questions that they did answer they seem to give a very through answer.

Resources

Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (2010). Ask a scientist. Retrieved September 26 from http://www.askascientist.org

Web Tools Eval

I never realized how many presentation tools are out there for people to use. I tried to spend some time this week looking at each one that was under the resources tab. I found some to be just too confusing to even deal with. For example, I was looking at Vuvox and I could not find any directions on how to create a page. I am the type of person who needs to have step by step directions if I do not know what is going on otherwise I just get overwhelmed and I shut down.

There were two programs though that I liked above all others. They were Prezentit and Prezi. While I was searching for a program to use, if it said it cost money I said forget it I am not paying. I am currently having money problems and well, with a wedding being about 10 months away I am not going to pay. I think that is why I like Prezi so much. It has an educators feature that allows students and teachers to create programs for free. It is also seems like it is an easy to use program after watching the demo and trying to mess around after creating an account. It also allows the user to do things which could not be done in PowerPoint.

The program Prezentit seems to be very similar to PowerPoint. This is very comforting for someone like me who tends to "spaz out" with new concepts. This program is also free which is a great feature in my mind. With both programs they are accessible anywhere. All I would have to do is log in from a computer and I would have the ability to work on my project.

However, after looking into both programs I think that Prezi is a little bit better because it seems to be able to hold more data, and it is capable of using various multi-media in the presentation. I know that if I wanted to be safe and keep my composure I would go with Prezentit. However, I think that Prezi would give me enough assistance and it would allow me to create a stronger presentation.