Animations

Creating animations is a great way to create interest in students. In this week's workshop, we explored some animation websites and programs which could be used by students in a number of ways. These programs could most meaningfully be incorporated into literacy lessons. Creating animations is also a great way to address the VELS Design and Creativity domain.

Dvolver

Dvolver is a website that allows you to choose backgrounds, music and characters, and enter text to create an animated movie. This site is not appropriate for children, but it's a great way for teachers to explore and create their own animations. If teachers are excited about creating animations, then this will be evident to their students.



This is a fun website, but it highlights the need for teachers to check the appropriateness of the tools they wish to use in their classroom.

Reasonably Clever

The Reasonably Clever website allows students to create their own Leggo character. The site has a 'Kid-Safe' version, which would be great to use in the primary classroom.
















The characters created by students could be used in literacy activities, such as creating comic strips or stop-motion films.

Sketch Swap











Sketch Swap allows you draw a sketch, submit it, and then receive a randomly selected sketch drawn by somebody else. The site is lots of fun, but is not really appropriate for primary school students since there is no control over the image they receive in return for their sketch (the site does say that they 'approve' every image, but there is no guidance on the site as to the criteria for approval).

Zimmer Twins

Zimmer Twins is a great site that allows students to create their own movies. Students can either create movies from scratch, or they can view a 'starter' video beforehand.

















Students can choose scenes, add text, and change characters. The site is a great way to incorporate technology into literacy lessons and would be an excellent vehicle for storytelling.

Rebus Stories

Rebus stories use pictures to replace words or parts of words.

This example is taken from http://www.storygames.com/teachmanpf/Rebus.html

There are number of sites online where teachers can access pre-made rebus stories. For example:

• ABC Teach
• Enchanted Learning Rebus Rhymes
• Highlights Kids (Interactive Rebus Stories)

Rebus Stories are a great way to engage students with literacy. An interesting and meaningful task would be to get students to create their own Rebus story using Microsoft Word. Rebus stories would be particularly suited for students learning to read and students who are unengaged with reading.

ZipTales

Ziptales is an Australian online literacy site. It aims to engage students and enable the internet to be used for core curriculum. ZipTales has an online library of hundreds of stories, which each have comprehension activities linked to them. The site has activities that cover:

• Spelling
• Reading
  
• Comprehension
• Grammar

The site aims to provide key outcomes for literacy programs, and seems to be a great way to incorporate ICT into a literacy program. This is a great example of using ICT in a meaningful way to add value to a unit.

The site is subscription based, however the 'make and do' machine is available for free.

• The machine features a range of activities, in varying difficulty levels
• Each activity has instructions and a video clip, which students then follow
• The activities could easily be incorporated into other lessons. For example, using the paper plane activity, in a science class students could alter the design of the plane and test hypotheses as to which plane will fly furthest.
  

Inspiration and M&Ms

In my first post, I talked about using Inspiration to create mind maps and concept maps. Inspiration can also be used to re-tell stories.

In this week's workshop, we used Inspiration to re-tell one of the Dreaming animations from the ABC's Dust Echoes site. This is my retelling of the 'Brolga' animation:

It's really easy to capture the images from the animation and put them into Inspiration. When watching the animation, you press 'pause' at the point you want to capture. Then, press 'print screen' and copy that image into Paint. Cut out the image from the animation and drop it into Inspiration.

Using Inspiration to retell a story in this way requires students to identify the main ideas or events within a story, as well as to sequence those ideas or events. Retelling is a part of the VELS standards in the English domain, and this program could easily be used by students to enhance and add to this part of the curriculum.

The actual Dust Echoes site is also a great resource for students and teachers. The ABC site features 12 animated Dreamtime stories from Arnhem land.















As well as the animations, the site has:

• study guides
• a glossary
• wallpapers
• quizzes

It also has a 'Mash Up' section, where students can use clips from the animation to make their own one minute version of the story. In the classroom, 'Mash Up' could be used in a similar way to Inspiration.

M&Ms

In this week's workshop, we also completed a M&M graphing activity. This activity would be a great way for students to explore Microsoft Excel and graphing.

Pairs of students should be given a packet of M&Ms, count the colours present in the packet, and complete a table with their results:

	Colour	Quantity
1	blue	8
2	brown	12
3	red	15
4	orange	7
5	yellow	4
6	green	7

Students can then use these results to create a graph in Excel:

Obviously, students could use the program to create any kind of graph. Letting students explore the different kinds of graphs available could lead to an interesting and useful discussion about what kinds of graphs are suitable for certain situations and data. In this case, for this kind of data, a pie or bar graph would be most appropriate. Students could also pool their data and come up with a class graph.

• An interesting way to follow on from this activity would be to use the data to explore probability and ratios.

Jumping Frogs and Quizzes

In this week's workshop, we explored design as a learning tool. In pairs, we were given five things:

• Small piece of cardboard
• Picture of a frog
• 1 Rubber band
• Small amount of sticky tape
• Scissors

With these tools, we had to create a jumping frog.

This is what my partner and I came up with:

In our design, when you press down on the cardboard the frog is supposed to jump into the air.

Here it is in action:

Design tasks such as these aim to develop students' ability to use higher order thinking. When used in the classroom, it is important to give students a design brief so that they are given a set task and then utilise their own thinking to come up with a solution. Students shouldn't be told how to complete the design, but rather what their design must achieve.

QUIA

If students can develop their higher order thinking through creating, then the QUIA website is an extremely valuable tool for teachers. QUIA can be used by teachers to make quizzes for students, but I think the most valuable way in which the website can be used is by getting students to make their own quizzes. The ability to make their own quiz on a given topic displays higher order thinking and mastery of that topic.

Using QUIA, I made a quiz on bicycles:

http://www.quia.com/quiz/2514029.html

The website could be used to make a quiz on any subject, and there are a variety of formats and lengths of quizzes. The possibilities are endless, but one example of how it could be used in the classroom is for peer assessment. For example, at the end of an integrated sequence or unit, students could develop a quiz which would then be used to assess their peers.

The QUIA website also has many activity makers. Students (or teachers) can make their own learning activities which could be used in a similar way to the quizzes. Examples of the learning activities include:

• Matching games
• Flashcards
• Hangman
• Battleship
• Word Search

Using the program, I made my own hangman activity: http://www.quia.com/hm/668221.html

Microsoft Publisher and ePortfolios

ePortfolios

Teachers need Portfolios. But do we need ePortfolios? Is this another case of using technology for technology's sake, or does it add value to our learning and to our Portfolio? Like all use of technology, the use of technology should add to a teacher's portfolio, not just be a gimmick or an alternative mode of delivery. According to Woodward and Nanlohy, digital portfolios are valuable not only for the 'end product', but for the process that the teacher goes through when developing the portfolio. ePortfolios provide opportunities for layering and interactivity and also provide opportunities for learning about technology.

Since ICT is increasingly becoming embedded in primary schools, teachers need to be competent and effective technology users. Perhaps then, the greatest advantage of an ePortfolio is to showcase to prospective employers your ability to use technology. ePortfolios then, can be seen as a tool for both reflection and engagement.

I am currently working on creating my ePortfolio in Microsoft Powerpoint. Microsoft Publisher is another program that I considered using. In the end though, I opted for Powerpoint since I have more experience with this program. Luckily, in this week's workshop I gained some more experience with Publisher when we used the program to create a brochure.

This video outlines the basics on creating a Brochure using Microsoft Publisher:

Microsoft Publisher in the Classroom

In this week's workshop we used Microsoft Publisher to create a brochure for a country that we'd like to visit. The program was suprisingly easy to use (see tutorial video above). My (unfinished) attempt at a brochure looks something like this:

Microsoft Publisher could easily be utilised in the classroom. Obviously, creating brochures could be used as a method for students to research a country, but there are many other ways in which Publisher could be used. Some examples could be:

• Visual aids for oral presentations
• Presenting research projects
• Creating a class newspaper
• Exploring different text-types

In my first teaching placement, I saw Publisher used in a mathematics rich assessment task. Students were doing a series of maths lessons on 'four cube houses'. The unit culminated in students designing a brochure that advertised their 'estate'. This brochure presented all of their learning throughout the unit and was an example of a real and meaningful way to use technology in the classroom.

Thinking Tools

All students learn differently. Educators have the difficult task of facilitating and supporting learning for the wide range of learning styles present in their classrooms. Inspiration is a software package that uses visual learning to to build comprehension, writing and thinking skills.

One of the uses of Inspiration is to make Concept Maps and Mind Maps. Using Inspiration 8.0 IE, I made this Concept Map:

Concept maps are diagrams that represent relationships between concepts. In the above map I've attempted to show the links between 'real' and 'imaginary' animals. Concept Maps made using Inspiration can also include hyperlinks and audio files. Unlike mind maps, concept maps don't need to have a conceptual centre, so they are especially useful for linking ideas.

Inspiration can also be used to make Mind Maps. Here's one I prepared earlier:

Mind Maps tend to have a central idea. In my example, it's 'knowledge'. Like concept maps, mind maps organize ideas and can often generate more ideas.

Using Inspiration in the Classroom

The use of Inspiration would be especially valuable for visual or spatial learners. According to the White Paper prepared for Inspiration Software:

Visual learning has been shown to improve:
• Reading comprehension
• Student achievement across grade levels, diverse student populations and
content areas
• Thinking and learning skills such as organizing and communicating ideas,
seeing patterns and relationships, and categorizing ideas
• Retention

So how could we, as educators, successfully incorporate software such as Inspiration into our classrooms? I think the visual representation of ideas would be especially valuable to use in integrated units, where a central theme is explored through many disciplines. The software could be used for students to explore their prior knowledge before a unit begins. Mind mapping is already a commonly used medium to engage with ideas before a unit begins, and Inspiration could easily be used for this purpose. As the unit progresses, concept or mind maps could be used to show the relationship between, and organise, the ideas covered.