Teachers-Colleagues

Book study/professional development
Objective:  First grade team will be able to learn to use empressr (web 2.0) tool while studying a book about dual language instruction.
A book study will be conducted once a week every month for 4 months, during this time teachers will be demonstrated how to use web 2.0 tools such as Empressr at the same time they learn more in dept about dual language instruction.

Brief description of tool
Create your empressr 

Impress with Empressr
Empressr is the first free online storytelling tool that allows you to create, manage and share rich media presentations online. Upload your video, images and audio to get started creating cool slideshows. If you have your own website, blog, or social networking page, you can either post a link or embed your Empressr. Empressr also has great charting and table tools to create dynamic business presentations.

Create
You can create an Empressr in minutes. And you don't even need to have experience with Flash in order to use it. Empressr’s intuitive features and tool tips help you select the text, images and multimedia (video and audio) assets you wish to use — making it a snap to create your story or presentation. The all-inclusive media library allows you to upload and manage your media assets and features drag-n-drop, search, filter and keyword support to locate files quickly. You can quickly import images from Flickr, Google, Yahoo and Photobucket. Can't find the right image? Not a problem. Use your built-in webcam to capture images directly into your Empressr media library, shoot a still, or record video and audio such as voice overs or sound tracks.

Store
Every Empressr you create is stored securely on our servers. Only you, and the people you give access to, can view it. During this beta period, there are no restrictions on how many Empressrs you can create for free.

Share
Anything created with Empressr can be shared. You can publish to the Empressr website where people can comment, rate and re-share or you can embed your Empressr into your blog or favorite social network page. Don't have a blog or social network? No problem. Simply send an email with a link to your Empressr, to those you want to share it with. All that is needed is a web browser to view it.

Track
Empressr allows you, the creator, to track who and how many have viewed your Empressr. It even captures how long a viewer interacts with each slide.

Tweet
You now have the ability to incorporate live feedback from your audience or the world during a presentation by using Twitter. The Tweets can be moderated using our custom dashboard or set to automatically push Tweets. This is completely hashtag enabled so you can filter Tweets containing a certain tag. Twitter also allows you to send an Empressr via a Tweet.

Have a great time and IMPRESS us with your presentations.
Empressr is a web 2.0 tool that is friendly user to create presentations. It allows to save the information in the internet.  It is easy to create an account that will let you access your presentations anywhere.  You can also control the privacy of your information: you can publish on the web, or simply keep it under your account.


Example of Empresser
At the end of this page there is the example presentation that will be used for the book study
Password: is bookstudy10


Uses in the classroom

Teacher appraisal system
Domains

Standard I  and III indicate that the teacher should provide relevant content use effective communication and engage student in the learning process and know when to integrate technology in their instruction.

Teachers can create as many presentations and be able to access them from any computer.
 Technology TEKS
§126.2. Technology Applications, Kindergarten-Grade 2.
Students will be able to create original products using a variety of sources.
Students can create presentations that are simple and student friendly, easier than creating a power point presentation. It can be used to present projects, book reports, etc.


Goal and objectives

The teachers will be able to bring it and use it in the classroom with their students.


The goal of using empressr during this book study is to allow my colleagues to experience a web 2.0 tool, so that by sparking their interest they could go back to their classroom and use it with their students.

Although they will not be able to use it in during the books study, there will be a time for demonstrations in how to use it and take questions and answers from them.

Assessment
The measurement of using Empressr by the teachers and students in their classroom will be shown by the questions they ask during the different sessions we will have for our book study.

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