This is the reflective (mostly) blog of Adam Sutcliffe, a teacher of Modern Languages at The Gordon Schools in Huntly, Aberdeenshire.
All opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own. Any complaints should be expressed directly to the author.
A couple of weeks ago I set my S2 french class a homework to tell me about their daily routine. I specified that I wanted digital versions, but would also accept a traditional version (i.e. pen and paper).
When I introduced the task I reminded them that many of them had already used animoto and goanimate and I also introduced bubbleshare as a way to create slideshows to which text (and supposedly voice but the kids say that doesn't work).
I have to say that once again they have overwhelmed me with the high standard of work produced, not only linguistically but creatively. I emphasised the need for accuracy in their French and the vast majority bore that in the production of their work.
So to 2S.
If you are interested and want to see all the digital works go to RateMyMates.
Cait's film below is a work of pure genius and I can happily say I had no hand in the production of this at all.
Emma's use of the puppet is also fantastic.
Basically what we have here are SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS (without a doubt), CONFIDENT INDIVIDUALS and very EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTORS.
One of my most favourite web based tools has been Animoto, mainly because of its ease of use. About six months ago they introduced animoto for education which allowed educators to sign up and get an all access pass for an academic session. This meant that users could create and download full length videos. One draw back I had found with it was a difficulty in adding simple text to a video so that it could be used as say a vocab learning reasource. i.e picture followed by the word in TL. That was until now. As I am signed up to the animoto blog in my reader I discovered today that you are now able to add text to a vid. Not being the patient type when it comes to new things I had to have a go, and also it kind of fitted with what I am having my S2's do and what I am doiung with S1 at the mo. As I already had the pictures available I didn't take too long to put this video together to help my S1 classes learn the countries of the EU in German, with some cool latino vibes. NB when I did this at first I used umlauts, which on rendering camne out as gobbledygook, so I had to remix it and add and extra "e". I've emailed them about this and will see what comes of it.
Here it is:
Tomorrow I will be showing this to S1 and challenging them to come up with something better.
Here's a good tip for allowing younger (U13's) to use this at home. Get a gmail account and them give them a dummy email based on that email account eg if you sign up to gmail as [email protected] you can get your pupils to sign as follows:
all because gmail does a crafty trick of identifying this as your email. In this way you will see their videos as you will receive a message.
The important thing to remember here is that in each case they must sign up using the link provided to you by animoto when you signed up for an educators account...it's not all that confusing honest.
Great news for animoto fans in education. The folks at animoto have finally launched animoto for education, which allows you (AND YOUR STUDENTS) to create free unlimited videos. Brilliant.
Last week The Boss gave me an excuse to mess around with animoto again. He has to give a presentation to a cross service conference about the work the e-learning committee in Aberdeenshire's education service is doing. As his spot is in the death zone (afternoon, after lunch) he wanted something jazzy to represent why kids seem to like learning with ICT.
So he asked me, and I immediately thought of animoto. I was to do it from the secondary perspective and link it with a colleague's work in the primary. Although fun to do it was a bit of a bind at times.
I recorded some of my pupils opinions on my Marantz pmd660
I wandered around school and took some pictures of kids in action with ICT on my Sony Ericsson k800i
imported audio files to garageband and edited the best bits
created some slides in keynote and exported them as jpeg images
used another garageband file to create a kind of dancey techno track
Then I got the stuff from a primary colleague. She had spent a good part of the day filming students in her school and asking why they like ICT. There are some wonderful quotes I wanted to use but unfortunately the audio on the mini dv was so corrupted as to barely useable. I only managed to salvage a few short bits about Google Earth. But this is what I had to do. I am sure some of it would have been easier with Quicktime Pro, but I don't have it...yet.
I'm really quite a lucky boy. Having just got back to work the boss told me I'd been picked to attend a GLOW conference at the Stirling management centre for 2 whole days. Ok it meant me getting the train at 6.20 yesterday morning, but at least I got a chance to write my reports.
Anyway this conference is about sharing people's experiences with GLOW. But you haven't used it, Adam, it's not in school yet? True, but I now have a very good idea about what it is and what it might be able to do...more later.
Yesterday afternoon we were tasked in groups to come up with an ad for GLOW. Our wee group decided to use animoto, especially having just received an educators code giving free access to make full length videos (Leave a comment with your email and I'll share it or alternatively email [email protected].)
We used screenshots from colleagues glow pages (thanks to Caroline and Theresa) plus some GLOW images from the glow team's presentations, plus some photos taken on the day (and evening.) We recorded vox pops to the question "What is Glow?" and composed some music garageband. Uploaded it all to animoto..et voila.
And here's a second version just using animoto tracks
Sean The Bass Player has come up with some interesting thoughts in his latest Students 2.0 blog post. In short he would like not only to be taught to pass exams but to ensure that students are kept up to speed with technology. His thoughts were piqued by the Queen going all 2.0 by posting her latest Message to the Commonwealth on YouTube, along with a variety of historical films.
He asks that if an institution as old as the monarchy can move with the times, why can't education?
I think this question is very valid. Why indeed does the education establishment not move and evolve more quickly. Well we all know the stock answer boils down to funding, or lack thereof; but unfortunately there also tends to be quite a lot of inertia
in classrooms. If a certain way of doing things has got kids past their exams for the last10 years ago then it will jolly well do so now...if it ain't broke don't fix it.
The inertia thing is quite a difficult problem to deal with as it involves trying to persuade folk to do things they have no desire to do, and I don't wish to go in depth about that here. But what about the other issue that crops up...funding. Many schools operate on networks that are long past their sell by dates. (My place has only just replaced the Windows '98 machines we were operating.) Now obviously updating these costs a heap of cash, but many of the very usable applications available on the net are free, especially to educators. I'm thinking of applications such as YouTube (or any video hosting site), Flickr, Animoto, Voicethread, Skype etc., etc. All these and more are freeand are outstanding resources for educators and their students, BUT how many of us can actually access these sites in schools? Many are banned in the name of child protection, for (a very real) fear that kids will access inappropriate content.
This is where we the educators and students such as Sean ( and his 2.0 colleagues) need to step in by dealing with digital literacy on a daily basis; by educating and encouraging thoughtful, sensible use of the resources on the web. Then maybe, those who hold the keys to the filters may unlock them when they see that these tools are being used wisely and how useful they are to education. And then Sean et al will feel that they are getting an education that goes some way to preparing them for a future that we cannot yet know.
Photo credit: Dia 48 - School's Out, originally uploaded on April 18, 2007
by MëL
Welcome to the first in a short series of mega posts. More for personal reasons I decided to audit the different web / ict resources I use, have used or intend to use. This list is those web-based resources I have used in class or for other professional reasons. I have tried to give examples (where appropriate), along with a screenshot. So here goes.
great free open source web browser, built to work with RSS technology. Lots of add-ons (foxy tunes links directly to your computer's media player and allows you to control media player from browser) and customisability. Blocks pop ups, links easily with different google apps and as with most open source stuff safe because those in the know work to protect it. Cross platform usage (windows, mac, linux etc)
flock specialised social networking browser. Just out of beta. Links all your social networks together in one browser. I use it for uploading to flickr (great resource for this puprpose..multiple uploads easy batch tagging). Just seems to have too much going on at one time for me. I like to ...browse with my browser.
animoto great way of putting together slideshow. Free for 30 second videos. Upload copyright free music to go with photos. Quick way of putting together an exciting slideshow to include in a presentation. There is a pro version which allows you to produce full length videos, about $30 I think for one year.
bubbleshare Nice way of presenting photos in a slideshow
slideshare / slidecast Used it for publishing my own slides from presentations, but have used slidecast to produce vocab learning resources. Could be used to promote pupil produced resources. Slidecasts are quite easy to produce and synchronise but you need to have a url for a voice file, I just uploaded to my blog and used the post's url. Would be great if you could upload sound file direct.
zamzar Great little resource to convert all kinds of file. etc into other formats. Have used it to convert my .mov files to .wav files and vice versa. All conversions carried out on zamzar servers. They then send email of link where to download converted file. Simple and efficient.
pbwiki Wiki for collaborative work - collaboration depends on collaborators getting on board, but this is very simple. As easy as a Peanut Butter sandwich. If you can email or word process you can use this. I am currently using it to promote our activities in our Connecting Classroom partnership. You can upload files (limited file space if you have a free account) or you can embed using the plugin menus...I find this a great way to post videos without using too much space.
I want to get into using it with students as a way of helping improve writing skills and helping them build a portfolio of work.
wikispaces as above but above but I prefer look and feel of pbwiki.
google docs as I am disorganised with paper this is a great way for me to keep documents. No need to worry about school server packing up. However not as feature filled as office and I some times find it a bit frustrating...although I hear microsoft are coming up with a web based version of their office suite to rival it. Includes word, xl, powerpoint equivalents. The ace thing about these docs is that there is a share/collaborate tool which allows you to work together on a document.
gmail great easy to use unlimted webspace email. just about impossible to fill up inbox. Also creates conversations with mails exchanged between same people. The search facility is fantastic as well. A million times better than the new yahoo mail where I also have an account. (Compare these figures, in the last week my yahoo account had over 100 spam mails, gmail account had 2 so there is very good spam protection.) I am considering whether to start an experiment with a class where each student sets up a gmail account. I can then link them all to their own blog / wiki or whatever, but there is also an IM chat facility so I could specify a time online where difficulties with homework could be rsolved away from class... WHAT DO YOU THINK?
feedburner creates feeds...don't ask me to explain how it works or what it does but it works. Basically if you create sound files or write blogs you can ensure that potential subscribers can follow your every outpouring...you can probably tell I don't fully understand it but it works.
typepad blogging platform, paid but comes with all the whizz bangs necessary. You can link text, embed videos slideshows...as you can see from this very post. Extremely simple to use.
flickr photo sharing website. Great for photo blogging etc. I have used the creative commons search facility to find photos for use in class. It can be used to share photos from class trips or school events etc. There are loads of "toys" that can be used with your flickr photos (motivational posters etc.). Try flickrvision for a few minutes, its mesmerising.
flickrslidr produces embeddable slideshows from your flickr photos
skitch allows sharing of screenshots. These can be annotated. Does lots more that I've not yet discovered. ONLY FOR MAC. I STILL HAVE 2 INVITES AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE WHO LEAVES A COMMENT. See examples on this post.
bloglines This is my feed reader. allows me never to miss what people whose blogs I enjoy reading write. Also does a whole heap more that I've not discovered.
youtube video sharing website. Upload films and share with the world. Embed or link to your blog, social networking site etc.
teacher tube video sharing website specifically aimed at educators. Self moderated
school tube As teacher tube. requires registration via a school based email address and videos are moderated before publication. Doesn't seem to be as easy to use as tt but allows for longer films and are able to identify more specific channels for film. Was excited about it at first but am cooling on it very fast.
delicious Bookmark sharing. Great way of helping students find web-based resources also enables you to bookmark interesting sites on whatever computer you are using. Here are my own favourites.
vixy.net "record" videos from you tube etc to your own hard drive. In other words allows you to convert youtube files to files viewable on PC, iPod, PSP etc. Great when school network doesn't let you see you tube
rss really simple syndication. aggregates everything that interests you on the web. rather than you going out to look at something all the time this is the technology that brings it to you, via bloglines in my case. Look out for the little orange logo in your browser address bar which lets you know you can subscribe to the site via an aggregator (eg bloglines, netvibes, my yahoo, google reader etc.)
Talking avatars. Create cartoon type characters from the available types then record, text or upload voice file (max 30 secs). Great way of encouraging kids to speak without having see themselves, good amusement factor as well.
flashmeeting open university hosted free web based video conferencing. can chat in back channel, exchange urls etc. All conferences are also recorded and available afterwards, including all chat. This links to the recording of a flashmeeting organised by Joe Dale.
That's it for now. Hope this wasn't too long. Maybe I should have written a separate post for each application...hmm! Uploaded with Skitch!
A couple of weeks ago I set my S2 french class a homework to tell me about their daily routine. I specified that I wanted digital versions, but would also accept a traditional version (i.e. pen and paper).
I'm really quite a lucky boy. Having just got back to work the boss told me I'd been picked to attend a
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