Week Five Animation

During this class we made a digital cartoon video, this was great because it incorperates literacy with ICT. The amount of creative input is copious. Children can write whatever dialogue they want, with many backrgounds and many characters. The website is:
www.dfilm.com/live/mm.html

Here is an example of a video I created:




Another great site to use was http://www.buildyourwildself.com/ here we got to create a character like the fold up games that used to be played when we were young, with different animal-human combinations, hybriding everything till it becomes one silly image on a piece of paper. However, in this case, it is via ICT and the image pops up on screen. It is quietly funny and will have children in stitches for some time. It's not just fun and games though, there is a purpose. The site also gives a name of the creation and an individual description of all the things that have been included.

Click onto this site and have a look: http://www.reasonablyclever.com/?page_id=29



The next little game we had a look at was reasonably clever, I personally think it's reasonably good. It didn't blow me away and I found that it wasn't as user friendly. The easiest thing to do was make yourself with lego, I feel, children may become disengaged with this quickly, hey, I could be wrong though, I usually never am, kidding. It's most likely my luddite self coming out, "someone please show me, with flash cards, how do I navigate around this site." It could possibly be that the site is useful, but I can't find how, I think, somehow, you can make comics too, that would be cool.

HELLO!! http://www.toondoo.com/Home.toon, talk about making comic strips, here's a site that's a blast. For the kids. Maybe myself. Maybe. To start with, the website is user-friendly and free. There are heaps of characters to choose from, the dialogue boxes can be dragged all over the screen to be placed for convenience. So much is included you can give the characters food for instance. The backgrounds are colourful and interesting to look at, this site is a great learning experience. It's so politically correct, that at the beginning, when signing up your asked if you would like the "Safe and Secure" Toondoo. This is great and hopefully repels unnecessary images or wording. You can integrate English through comic strip dialogue with ICT and Creativity and Design. This site is a sight. Check it out.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, it screams guest speaker without having to pay for them to come to your classroom. The beauty of ICT. Ahh. http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/ coasting through you will immediately notice that it is insightful, there is a demonstration, specifically on how to actually make a claymation video, move, photo, move, photo, move, photo, hard work but the end result, wow, it's fun, children will love to do this, it's stimulating and really hands on. It will take a bit of planning which is really good for understanding foundations and the activity can be done in small groups, on your own or as a whole class activity. There is much more on this site but it will be lengthy to go on and on about it, probably better to have a look yourself.

Week Four

It's important read up on some study guides before getting into it. Here's a website full of them:

http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/

In this week's workshop we have been asked to make a sort of story board of our choice, such as a mind map to retell a story from Dust Echoes. I have chosen the Brolga Song. I chose this for this week partly because I enjoy learning about differing animals and partly because I recently went to Healsville Sanctuary and sprayed across the walls and plaques in the Sanctuary are Brolga's stories and other stories associated with similar indigenous mythologies. I really liked the Brolga one and am hoping it's the same.

This is a smaller image of retelling the story as a concept map. It's a great technique to ask students to develop a story with image and literacy. Also, it develops a sense of the flow of a story, the narrative that consists of the main concepts and an ending. It creates a sense of understanding and a deeper sense of the siginificance of mythological aspects in the story.

The second task involved M&M's to develop a spreadsheet of coloursand numbers. We were expected to use Excel for this task. When administering this task it is up to the child to sort out the M&M's in colours and numbers.

Using Excel I typed in the random figures of an imaginary count of M&M's in a pack and then highlighted the colours with then figures. Once this was done I clicked on insert, then chose the appropriate graph, I though a pie chart was fitting!

Week Three

Design a frog is the aim of the game, today we are designing just that, so our Auntie's in Sri Lanka or anywhere can play, in other words it will be on line. Using a design brief, we investigated and designed a mechanism that propelled a template of a frog forward, or in the direction we faced it. The resources were, a rubber-band, cardboard and the frog template.

I believe we were successful, we stabbed a whole through the cardboard and made a little fold at the end. We placed the template on the board, pulled the elastic, to store up energy and let go, the frog jumped. We found that the length of the cardboard that moves had an influence on the distance the frog travels. Mechanically, if the length was long the frog traveled further and with more speed.

Like so:

We also created games on QUIA, here is the link to one of the games created:

http://www.quia.com/jw/386819.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/2511807.html

The first created game is a selection of words that have been jumbled for the student to figure out. The program, a thirty day free trial from QUIA is fairly easy to use, all you have to do is follow your nose. The next game made, was a quiz about birds of prey. Click and play.

The idea or concept to consider when building these games is that they are higher order thinking, that requires students to collaborate, research together and make inquiries.

At the end of the lesson we were shown a great little idea using card, an example is : o/BA, BSC, MeD, ask students, what does this mean? Three degrees below zero!

All this higher order thinking may require scaffolding however the guidance is useful and will pay off in the end. The games are as engaging as you make them so you can make them fun to keep the children interested.

Week Two Brochure

We put together a brochure via the programme Microsoft Publisher and Paint. We did this quite simply by grabbing images off the internet and writing text that suits on the brochure in Publisher. My brochure entailed a description of Tasmania and what a person may like to do there.

If you have a look at the brochure it's possible to see the detail and potential of what you can do with this program. It was suggest that we could possibly make our ePortfolio in it. I can see that. I found it quick and easy to use, children will be able to pick it up quite easily. If you had a lesson on persuasive writing making a brochure would be great. Give it a go!

Week Two ePortfolio's

Yes, we talked portfolios in the lecture, we were guided through young Gemma's (a girl on a digital video showed to us during a lecture) ePortfolio as an example for the beginning of the capacity of what ePortfolio can do. We saw video images of her talking to the class during a session called News. It was interesting, she managed to ramble on yet still be engaging. The class in the video whom she was talking to, in the foreground, was also clearly interested, this could be noted via the questions they asked, "What colour did your sister get?" referring to some gizmo she was displaying.

I left with a question! Due to the scope of the curriculum is the ePortfolio going to be enough to cover it?

In the workshop we are now speaking about the application process. What to say and what not to say.

One big yes, show the panel things like your ePortfolio.

A big no, don't give out referee details of someone who doesn't like you, especially to the panel.

Another yes, look over and look over and look over your resume, you may think it's complete, but surely enough a comma will be missing or capital letter.

A big no, don't be late, nothing's worse.

A yes, dress appropriately, dress to compliment the school. More progressive schools may not require a suit, or they may, find out.

Do not smoke in your car on the way to the interview, you will stink and cause discomfort for the panel, it will be a negative experience from the word go!

Always have a question and shake hands firmly!

Week One

Today the class and I learnt how to use Paint to capture a single image for the purpose of publishing it onto a blog or a WebQuest, or a wiki, on a PC that is. The directions were as follows (I will do my best in describing this, bare with me, I can only imagine how difficult this will be to describe let alone do, her I go!) Open Paint via Start, phew, that was easy, then keep that open, whilst this is open select an image on a page you like and press Print Screen (the secret button) it prints the whole screen, you can then crop the image you like from the "printed screen" in Paint and save it as a JPeg.

That was the fast tracker way of explaining it.

We also learnt how to use Insperation 8.0 E, in this program you can do an absolute array of stuff, this includes making mind maps, projects about any topic with notes on subjects related to the main topic and also hyperlinks, much more but lets not get into that. However, this program is a little bit more complex.

In the lesson I made a project about sea creatures, I captured images using Paint and the images that are set in the program all relative to sea creatures. For a couple, I created notes explaining where the animal lives, for example in shallow waters or deep waters. I further created interesting Hyperlinks relating to particular animals. One for example was:

I can see how I can use this in the class room environment, a lesson plan can be created for the students to make a project, or mind map about any particular subject with links. It doesn't have to be completely simple i.e. Plants and just images of plants. It could be more detailed a concept map about themselves "Me Myself and I" this could include anything, heritage, ideas of vocations, family members, favourite foods.

This could be used for systems such as sustainability within water in our environment, what processes are used and show this through a map.

The list goes on and on.