Week 5

Well, Week 5, hey? We’ve come to the end of the journey that is “Greg’s Excellent Technological Adventure”. And the final resting place for this subject is animation. During this last class, Greg introduced us to many fun websites that primary students can use to animate and be creative.

The Victorian Educational Learning Standards (VELS) writes the following about design, creativity and technology:

“Students develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours related to investigating

and designing using appropriate planning processes and design briefs;

creating and developing ideas, applying information, and seeking and

testing innovative alternatives; producing, including the selection and safe

use of appropriate tools, equipment, materials and/or processes to meet the

requirements of design briefs; analysing and evaluating both processes and

products including, where relevant, any broader environmental, social, cultural

and economic factors.”

http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/dct/downloads.html

Wow! This seems like a lot to achieve within the space of one year with a class. To design, create, produce, evaluate. It is a lot, but I’m glad that the VELS recognises the importance of such activities. These skills are interdisciplinary and can be applied in any area. These are the skills that are needed in the future.

Also, it is important for teachers to realise that design is very important and should not be overshadowed by creating. Without design creativity can be ineffective. “Design is a vital step in transforming ideas into creative, practical and commercial realities by optimising the value of products and systems.”

www.zimmertwins.com (ZimmerTwins)

The zimmer twins is a website made for kids up to the age of 17 to make simple animations. The site makes it very simple in a number of ways:

-There are only three characters (Edgar, Eva and 13)

-There are template responses and actions

-There are template locations.

I had a go at making a movie. At first I was daunted by the amount of options I had to choose from. Eventually, I became accustomed to the easy, intuitive nature of the web site, and I had a lot of fun. I especially like how easy it is to write text into the speech bubbles. You simple click and type, that’s it!

The amazing thing about this program is that it is all done online. One criticism would be that sometimes it is difficult to have all characters doing the same thing. Also, when one character is talking, you can’t have other characters on screen.

Despite slight criticisms, the zimmer twins website is a really great tool to help students learn about story structure. Instead of learning the abstract knowledge of story structure, students have the ability to experiment with this program. If I was using this in a classroom, I would encourage students to watch and discuss each of their animations. We would use this program multiple times to see how our story making develops. Also, students can watch other animations from students all around the world. Fantastic!!!

www.buildyourwildself.com

This website was designed by the wildlife conservation society. The purpose, apart from letting kids enjoy themselves, is to educate kids about the environment around us.

When you choose animal parts, the toggle tells you what part of which animal. It also makes the sound that the animal makes. Then, when you are finished combining animal parts with human parts, you are informed about each body part and their qualities. For example, I chose Giant tree frog arms. I was informed that “your sticky fingers are actually giant tree frog toe pads. They help you cling to trees and climb vertically anywhere you want. My name was Chris, the Ibex-ossa-wal-fro-torto-crocodile.

I think I would use this site in schools, definitely. I don’t think it is a really long-term web site. However it could be used in conjunction with a project on animals, or wildlife, or the zoo. It is a creative way to look at animals. However, because it is very easy to add details to the body, I can imagine kids wasting a lot of time just tinkering with different animal parts.

www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache

This website is called “Roller Mache” and it has been produced and designed by the ABC, specifically for education. It is a nice play on words, and I think it is alluding to the rolling of a camera and the mache of a figurine. There are four sections: Inspire, Plan, Create and Gallery.

In the Create Section: There is an online tutorial about how animation is made. It is very clear and simple. There are simple video demonstrations about the particular techniques of animation.

Some of the Inspiration videos about characters, planning etc are definitely aimed at an older audience. I would surprised if year 5s and 6s would really benefit from these videos. They are probably more interesting for teachers.

The site also takes the viewer through the planning stage. This includes get rolling, story telling, story boarding, character development and props and sets. There are in depth tools to help each student along the way.

The ABC have made a great website, which will be a valuable resource in many classrooms. It probably caters for teachers of any year level, to students from grade 5 up to year 12. If I was to use this in the primary school, I would probably use the information and present it in a much simpler way, because I think the site is too complex for younger kids.

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/?page_id=29

I found the Reasonable clever website rather boring. The whole idea was to make your own lego self. You build your own character and personality by choosing each part of the body and manipulating it. While this may seem fun to some, I just could see how I would make this a project in class. I could imagine kids having fun with it at school. I think lego should be made in the tangible form, not electronic form. I may have missed something in the class, but what is the point?

http://www.ziptales.com.au/

Ziptales is an Australian website designed for schools. There is a subscription of $350 - $600 depending on the size of the school. The website contains hundreds of different stories online, along with comprehension exercises and activities. One of the great things is that is marks the student while they are online. There are also offers homework sheets for students to do.

While I couldn’t log in, the website seemed like it was doing good things. I’m not sure if I would use it. I think I would have to demo it before I decided to use it with the kids. I’m always wary of websites like these, because students tend to interact with a screen and not with a person. If I was to use this, it would be rarely.

www.dfilm.com/live/home.html

DVolver is similar to the zimmertwins website, it is a site designed to help you make short animations. You first choose a location, then characters, then you write their dialogue. Following this you choose the credits and their design. The story has no beginning and no end. Compared to the zimmertwins, this website is more of a gimmick. It really doesn’t give you a lot of freedom. You aren’t able to choose what happens to the characters, they simply talk and then its over. Although I wouldn’t use it very often, it could be used as the beginning of a project.

http://www.sketchswap.com/

Sketch swap is a very simply and interesting web site. Basically, you are presented with a blank white area to draw on. You draw your picture. Then you submit it. Once submitted, you receive a random drawing (that is displayed in real-time) from another person. They may be in another country, or right around the corner from you.

I like this program for its simplicity. In someways it is a way of communicating that is completely new and unique. Students are able to express themselves and it is automatically sent to somebody else who will either like or dislike their drawing. Amazing! Its just so simple! I also like the way you see the recipient’s drawing being drawn in real-time. To see how someone makes their art is very educational. Students will gain a lot from analysing someone else’s art. It will also spark many discussions about where your art goes: And who sees it? And did they like it or not?

www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies

Xtra normal is another website that can be used to tell stories through animation.

Microsoft Photostory

Unable to download, unfortunately, due to having a Mac. I’m quite upset that there is no equivalent. However, Dennis Grice (http://dgrice.blogspot.com/2008/02/imovie-08-photostory-for-mac.html) may have a solution:

“For those of you who have been wanting a Mac solution to the PhotoStory dilemma, here’s something that might just work. It’s iMovie ‘08. This latest version of iMovie has drawn numerous bad reviews, mostly due to the fact that it is radically different from it’s previous version. While I’m not going to argue which is better, please allow me to present iMovie 08 as an alternative to PhotoStory. Here is an example of how to create a simple digital riddle using iMovie 08. I’ve written the steps in much the same way that similar project would be created using Photostory.”

iMovie

I have used imovie (version 8) and it can do similar things. Actually, in my opinion, imovie is supreme (beware I am a mac elitist), mainly because you can do more animation that is simple to use.

You can also film yourself very easily by the click of a button:

By now, you’ve probably gathered that I am a mac enthusiast. And yes, you are right. I am utterly smitten with my purchase of a macbook pro. I’ve now had it for a year. I have used it for photoshop, final cut pro, soundtrack pro and various other visual programs. In my opinion, pcs are a dime a dozen; they are great for programming and gaming, but they just can’t compete with visual and sound media. For students, macs allow you to navigate easily through visual and audio media.

Garage Band

One thing that has been neglected during this blog experience is sound editing. There has been a lot of information about visual media, but sound has missed the boat. I think that one of the most important forms of communication is through music. Therefore, it is only fair that children have the chance to learn and experiment with sound and music making. Also, they can add it to their movies as soundtracks. A great program for music-making is Garage Band (another mac product). Garage band allows you to record from the computer or an external input and create multiple tracks. It is very user friendly and intuitive.

Well, I have come to the end of my five-week journey. I have now got a vast amount of resources at my disposal for the purpose of helping students use technology in creative ways. I think the biggest challenge in the classroom will be to actually use each technology in a meaningful way. Although these technologies are very advanced, they are only as advanced as the person using them. I will endeavor to be vigilant with the students in my future class, making sure that they can get the full benefit from these tools.

Week 4

Dust Echoes:

www.abc.net.au/dustechoes

This morning Greg introduced us to “Dust Echoes”. Dust Echoes is a series of twelve dreamtime stories that originate from Central Arnhem Land. They are animations that tell stories about Aboriginal custom and law, loyalty, and love.

I absolutely love this web site. It is extremely visually appealing, thus I think it will be very popular with primary school students. There are many activities that follow from each of these stories. There is study guide, wallpapers and MP3 bonus tracks from the series.

Our task for the day was to watch a story and then try to put a story into a sequence using Inspiration. The story I chose was called the “Whirlpool Song”. It was the sacred story of the Limmen Byte River and why fresh-water people never make a sound. The sound and imagery were captivating, and the story was quite scary.

This website, produced by the ABC, is another great tool for early learners. It is a great way for children to learn about Aboriginal culture. There are so many resources for children and teachers, these stories could be used for a whole unit of work, rather than a once-off.

M & M Candy Chart

www.m-ms.com.au

Another activity in class was learning how to combine ICT with mathematics. The above website is the American M&M website. On this website there are many different ways to use M&Ms for learning how to make graphs.

How many of each colour in milk chocolate packet?

Using M&Ms, we did an activity where we graphed our results of how many of each colour of M&Ms in one sample. We graphed the numbers on Excel, using the colour in one line, and number in the other.

Following this, we went onto the M&M website (American version) and had a look at the statistical information. Here, students can discover terms such as “energy” and “saturated fat”. From this web site, teachers could then explore these nutritional facts and students could bring in packets of cereal etc. from home for analysis.

I think doing a project based on M&Ms will be engaging for nearly any class in primary school. M&Ms are a desirable sweet, so students will not be able to resist being enticed into learning about what makes up an M&M. Also, using excel, students can learn how to represent data as a graph.

I find excel relatively easy to use basically, but quite difficult to master. At first glance, it looks like a very complicated program. And, yes, it can do complicated tasks (people use it for advanced accounting and other jobs), but it can also do simple tasks, such as graphing M&Ms data in the classroom. This would be suitable for year 5 and 6 students.

Learning Federation

This week, there has been a big focus on the Learning Federation (http://econtent.thelearningfederation.edu.au/ec/p/home ).

This seems to be quite an amazing web site, full of thousands of online resources for students and teachers across Australia.

Unfortunately, it is such a huge site, that it is a little intimidating trying to find your way around. It’s like being in a big city, and not knowing where to go. I did a quick browse and clicked on The Arts à Drama à Aboriginal Drama. Here I came across two lesson ideas from two different teachers regarding Aboriginal drama.

Following this I tried to find the video section. Is this website a library or a resource centre? I could not click on the video link on the homepage. So, i assumed that the video must be in each section. Gee Wizz! This site is rather hard to navigate around.

Hang on, I take that last paragraph back. Once I go into one of the links, there is a “view content” link. That is what takes you to the online media, whether it be audio or visual. Brilliant. Crisis Over!

So the lesson for me is, if I’m going to show the students, I must show myself first!

http://www.go2web20.net/

This site is a directory of nearly every Web 2.0 App on the internet. It is extremely extensive, free and easy to use. I highly recommend it to any teacher looking for more ways to engage their students online.

Week 3

This week was centred around Internet Safety.

(http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-net-is-not-the-enemy-20090809-ee6h.html?page=-1)

I read the article “The Net is not the Enemy” from The Age. It’s quite a good article. I like the way that the author uses Archbishop Nichols’ to show an example of fundamental, traditional views. Gordon Farrer, the technology editor for The Age, writes about how many people misunderstand what happens online. He tells the reader that the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, is speaking out about the dangers and downfalls of Internet for adolescents in the modern world. He says that young people are losing the ability to socialize and form stable relationships with friends. Farrer goes on to completely oppose Nichols point of view, saying that it is a “fundamental understanding of how social networking technology is used.” Farrer argues that the negative views of teenagers by their parents have existed for thousands of years. He also draws on research to show that new communication tools enrich offline friendships, rather than make them superficial. In conclusion, the moral is, technology is not all bad. While there is cyber-bullying, it is only one part of technology. But education is important.

This week in class, Greg took us through the six stages of cyber safety outlined by the DEECD (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development):

1) Lead - the school in safe and ethical use of ICT,

2) Educate - staff and students what is safe and regulations on copyright,

3) Manage - internet management - filters, and the use of educationally approved sites,

4) Support - what to do when things go wrong,

5) Empower the students through student leadership and

6) Participate. It has been shown that learning occurs not solely because of the use of ICT, rather through teachers creating authentic student centred learning.

As a teacher, I feel a great responsibility to my students and the parents. That is why, I will be very careful taking students onto the Internet. A great site to help with Cyber saftey is Cybersmart.gov.au. This website is aimed at teachers, parents and kids from a very young age. It’s got heaps and heaps of resources, including a lot of games and video/audio tutorials. It’s much more interesting that just reading a book. I highly recommend this site to any teacher who is taking their students online.

My personal belief is that students should not be exposed to the Internet before Grade 5. I don’t really see how much benefit there is for students to be on the internet at a very young age. Although, I realise that children are on the internet at home from as young as 3 or 4 years old, I don’t think it is necessary to have them on the internet in the classroom. Students have an amazing imagination and the internet can hinder that imagination rather than harness it. It is important for students to have tangible tasks, to be able to touch things, and interact with each other. I know many people may disagree. But I think there is a great danger in incorporating the internet in classrooms. There is so much internet in secondary school now, why can’t be let primary students have their childhood.

In saying that, there is an importance in teaching students about safety online. Therefore in year 5 and 6, students should be taught about the dangers of being online, particular cyber-bullying. Stories should be acted out and discussion should be had about moral issues regarding the internet.

This week in class, Greg showed us how to create a design brief. The task was to make a frog that can jump. The materials were a piece of cardboard and elastic band. I liked the piece of paper that Greg gave to us. It described the process of a design, from the idea/brainstorming, to the end product and reflection on what worked. I think that I will use these design briefs in my classroom. Giving a challenge to students will inspire them to create something meaningful to them.

Edward De Bono – Six thinking hats. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono )

Edward De Bono was the author of best selling book, Six Thinking Hats, and is a proponent of lateral thinking. He believes that logical, linear and critical thinking has serious limitations. I completely agree. I think logic has its place in society, and we could hardly function without it, but the lateral thinking mind is also very important. It is important to learn how to daydream: that’s when all the best ideas come. Although, I’m not sure many principles would like to hear that their teachers are teaching students how to daydream. So that’s the dilemma: how do I teach creativity in a way that is logical?

QUIA

Today in class, we also had an opportunity to sign up to QUIA, an online game-making tool. This is not an animated game-making tool; it is a quiz-type of game-making tool. One can create puzzles, crosswords, multiple-choice quizzes to share with students or peers. The great thing about this site is that you can make everything yourself. The limitation with this web site is that is not visually appealing to the eyes. It was clearly made by a PC user, because a Mac user wouldn’t make something that looked so bland. I hope I haven’t offended too many people with that comment, it is quite snobby. Anyway, I would recommend this website because it is a great way for students to use language to create interactive games and quizzes that will enhance their learning.

WEEK 2

We started this week by making a brochure in Microsoft Publisher. Publisher is a great tool for students because it is in nearly every classroom and it is easy to use.

From about Year 5 onwards, I used Publisher all the time for school projects. I found it much more fun than word because I could had much more freedom in designing the page. I guess I have always been attracted to the look and feel of things and not just the content.

It begs the question, with all these aesthetically pleasing websites today, is there an over consumption of look and not content. I think there is a challenge in schools to encourage students to embrace all aspects of understanding. While design is important, the content is also imperative.


Greg told us we could use Publisher to make our e-portfolios. I feel like I'm a bit beyond Publisher. There are so many tools out there, so I have decided to purchase the education version of DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver is a web development application by Adobe. It enables non-programmers to create and design web sites without using code. This is great for me, because I don't know anything about using code.

While researching Dreamweaver, I came across a couple of Content Management Systems such as Joomla and WordPress. I'm still trying to work out exactly what they are. On the Wordpress website, it says it is an open source project.

HISTORY OF OPEN-SOURCE

According to wikipedia (which is one of the most famous open-source projects), Open-source projects have been around for at least a hundred years, obviously well before the rise of the internet. The US automobile industry was dominated by an open-source type operation. The term open-source is used to describe a product of any kind that uses multiple collaborators and is democratically run.

We had a look at some example e-portfolios. Greg told us that sometimes schools will look at them, and sometimes they won't, but its good to have one to give to them at the end of the interview. I think it is a handy way of storing your information, rather using lots of paper each time you have an interview.

Also, e-portfolios are used in schools to chart a student’s progress. Each year, the teacher will record the student’s work and add to the e-portfolio. This can be used to inform teachers of the next year of a student’s achievement and progress. I think it's a great idea.

DREAM WEAVER

I downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver myself. I think I was a little bit over-confident because I thought that I would be able to adopt it like any other Adobe software. However, dreamweaver is quite an advanced tool that requires some basic programming knowledge, which I don’t have. The way that you build a website is that you have 2 sides of the program. The left side is the programming bit, and the right side is the visual representation of the programming. To be honest, I found it a bit overwhelming and decided to use Powerpoint in order to complete my e-portfolio. Eventually, I would love to be able to use dreamweaver.

Copyright in Schools

Following some conversations in class about copyright laws in schools, I did a little research in regards to YouTube.

Smart Copying is a great resource for copyright restrictions. It is a website run by the Australian National Copyright Group. It's a really well set-up site that helps teachers from primary to tertiary to find out about rules on reproducing and communicating copyright material.

In regards to YouTube, they recommend:

• Don't use content that is likely to be an infringing copy.
• Only use YouTube videos for the purpose of teaching. There should be no commercial benefit.
• Only use what you need.
• Check that you can't purchase or readily license the content that you need from another source.
• Don't expose the content to further copying or communication, such as giving students access to an electronic file that they could copy.

I'm still not sure about what I can and can't use on YouTube (or VIMEO). I was under the impression that anything published in YouTube can be viewed by the public (which I thought would include students). Maybe not?

Week 1

Goodmorning all,

I have just begun my blog for the ICT class at La Trobe University in the Dip Ed part of my course.

The purpose of this blog is to enable me to review software that has been shown to us by Greg, our teacher.

http://www.tumblr.com

This is my recommendation for ultimate free blogging (image above). Compared to blogger.com, I think this web site is a little bit more user friendly, and idiot proof. It is very easy to add photos, videos and text. While you can do nearly exactly the same things on blogger.com, tumblr.com is easier to use and more fun.

http://www.edsoft.com.au/
This is a website that Greg recommended. It is the main software supplier in Australia for educational software. There is an amazing amount of software on this site, with hundreds of different categories. One new product that caught my eye was a stop motion camera, specifically designed for kids to use it to make animation in the classroom. As a film-maker I know how much time can be wasted by using a digital camera to do this and load the pictures up. Looks exciting!



During class, we had the opportunity to play around with Inspiration software. This is an ideas organising program. It enables the user to design diagrams and mind maps based on research or planning for a project. It is very user-friendly. As a person with years of experience using a computer, I found it very intuitive. The added bonus for students in primary schools is that you can use pictures in the diagram and join them together.

Sam, a friend in class, told me about an online program called Mindmeister. This is basically a mind mapping interface. I had a look at the tutorial. If this is anything to go by, I recommend you take a look.



The main difference between Inspiration and Mindmeister is one is online, and one is off. The beauty of having your mindmap online is that you can access it at home or at school. So, for students, I think this is a feasible option.

Mindmeister also enables you to add icons to the words in the mind map. Like Inspiration, there is a limited gallery available to choose images from. However, one really cool feature is that you can ask the web to find a picture appropriate for you. For example, if you have "health" and click to find a picture, it may come up with an image of apples. I think kids would find this really exciting and it will also inspire them to make more links in their learning by observing associations of words and images.